Why Cambodia?
When Michelle and I set out to travel 3 years and 9 months ago, we really didn’t have any idea where we’d finally end up. We had our dog, Roxy back then and we knew she needed to be along with us for as long as possible. We’d always wanted to buy an RV and travel around America, but soon realized (after a few years of research) that we probably didn’t have it in our budget to keep up with the costs of owning an RV and then to maintain it, so we ditched that idea, picked out a few different locations in the US that we wanted to see, loaded our car to the brim and started out! We spent about 9 months on the road driving across America, staying in different places for about a month at a time, and we both agree those 9 months produced some of our favorite memories of our travels! We had our best dog, Roxy. We had our car, and we had already paid for our accommodations a year in advance (while I was yet still working) so traveling was a taste of freedom that we hadn’t known since before we started working years ago. If we could have afforded to do that forever, it’s probably the kind of life we’d still be living.
But after 9 months, we needed a cheaper way to live in order to maintain a fairly high quality of life, while adjusting to our lower monthly retirement budget. In other words, we wanted to still live well, with a lot less money! Since we still wanted Roxy with us, we decided to make a move to Ecuador because it provided a lower cost of living and was only a 4 hour flight from Miami so that made it easier for Roxy to fly. If it hadn’t been for Roxy, we probably would have started our overseas adventure in Asia because we had already fallen in love with Vietnam when we visited there a year before we retired. But that would have meant an extremely long grueling flight for an old dog (Roxy, not me!) and so we knew that wasn’t going to work. That’s why we chose Ecuador.
But our hearts were in Asia.
When Roxy passed away, it was devastating for both of us. But it also gave us a chance to start traveling again. Within 3 months after Roxy’s death, we found ourselves in Malaysia!
From Malaysia we went to Thailand, then to Vietnam, but we still had some things in Ecuador and needed to get back there in order to take care of them. From there, we flew to the USA to visit my mom and then sailed on a transatlantic cruise from NYC to Rome, Italy. We flew from there to Croatia, where we spent about a month. From there, we flew to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and spent about 6 weeks there before going back to Ecuador to close everything out, say our good-byes and head back to the area where we felt most at home – SE Asia.
To explain why we love SE Asia so much, please see my blog titled “What Is It About Asia?”
In all the places we visited, we constantly considered whether we could be happy actually living there. Out of all the countries we visited, the only 2 that we could answer “yes” to that consideration, were Vietnam and Thailand. But Vietnam offers no long term visa to actually live there as a foreigner, so it makes it hard and inconvenient to stay there for longer than 3 months at a time. Thailand does have a long term visa, but the rules for it seem to constantly change, plus while we were considering it, a new “tax” law was being considered that would make it a requirement to not only pay our income tax back in the USA, but also to have to pay income tax to Thailand, and I’ll be honest. That wasn’t appealing to me at all!
Because we felt that both Vietnam and Thailand had less than ideal immigration rules that we didn’t particularly feel comfortable with, we found ourselves stressing a lot over whether there actually ever would be a place for us to settle in, and up until about 4 months ago, we really didn’t know where we would end up. We even considered moving back to the USA, but that just depressed us even more because of the high cost of living, and lower quality of life than what we had been experiencing in SE Asia.
But, there was one country in SE Asia that we still felt could provide us with everything we were looking for. There was only one issue. We hadn’t been there yet!
Cambodia was never somewhere I really thought about until recently. Michelle and I love watching travel videos on YouTube, and it wasn’t until we started watching some videos by a few people – 2 Canadians and 2 Australians living in Cambodia – that we started to look at it more closely. I can’t really explain, and it might not make sense to most people, but I “sensed” that Cambodia, and specifically Siem Reap, Cambodia were going to be special for us. We learned that the immigration process is super easy and the country is both inexpensive and safe! In some of the videos that we watched, the Australian couple showed the scenery around Siem Reap taken while they were riding on their motor scooter. What I really liked were the large trees that provided shade along many of the streets in the city and it just looked very peaceful to me. Plus, it has a riverwalk!
I had very high hopes for Cambodia and we were not disappointed!
The city is exactly the right size for us! We found over the past few years that, while we like visiting large cities, we generally don’t feel at home in them. Siem Reap has a population of 245,494. It’s the second largest city in Cambodia (next to Phnom Penh) and feels more like a large town than a city. Although it’s not huge, it has the best selection of restaurants, has a new modern grocery store that would rival anything in the USA, and has everything we need to be very comfortable here without missing anything from home.
The people are some of the friendliest we’ve ever met and are truly amazing. Most speak enough English to help those of us who don’t speak their language (Khmer), and they are always eager to help in any way they can. Little kids are always excited and happy to say “hello!” to us as we walk by and it just makes us happy to be here!
It’s easy to get around anywhere in the city, either by walking, riding a scooter or taking the Cambodian version of a taxi called a “Tuk Tuk”. There are ride hailing apps (just like Uber) called “Grab” and “Passapp” that are very easy to use and they take the guesswork out of how much a Tuk Tuk ride will cost. Most Tuk Tuk rides are anywhere from $1.50 to $3.00 depending on the distance.
The process to get our visas was unbelievably easy! I’m not one who likes to fill out a lot of paperwork and forms. That’s why Cambodia is perfect for people like me! My visa application consisted of a few questions. Two weeks later, I had my visa in hand! (So much easier, and much cheaper, than what we went through in Ecuador for that application process!)
Overall we couldn’t be happier! Cambodia feels like home to us and at this point, we really can’t imagine living anywhere else.
And that’s why we chose Cambodia!