I already made the wish come true. Originally from USA (California). Lived and worked in USA for 50 years, raised kids there. I left to travel full-time about 13 years ago. I spend most of my time in Thailand. I would choose Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico, Italy, and many other places over returning to the US.
Every place has political issues, and you won't understand or participate in those until you've lived in a place a long time and learned the language. Many places do not have extreme political polarization. Safety and low crime makes a difference to me.
Economically the advantages and disadvantages will vary a lot based on your source of income and what kind of visa and residency you want. If you move around and don't stay in one country long enough to incur local tax liabilities you can possibly ignore taxes (except for Americans, who have to file and pay US taxes no matter where they live). Earning an income from your home country that you spend overseas can translate to a very different standard of living than getting a local job (and has tax implications as well).
Continual travel doesn't work for everyone. The grass only looks greener a lot of the time, every place has pros and cons. You take your problems with you, traveling changes where you live but doesn't magically change you into a different person.
Hello fellow continual traveller (going to start using that phrase instead of digital nomad). I'm probably 20ish years younger than you and have been doing the same thing for the last 4ish years.
After starting with just a backpack I've slowly accumulated a bunch of random stuff that I keep in a storage unit in Bangkok.
You are right that you take your own problems with you, but you can leave the problems of place behind. Like you say, many places have pros and cons, but if you're only staying for a short time, it's easy to ignore the cons and focus on the pros.
When you're settled in a place, I find it much harder to appreciate the pros and end up focusing on the cons. You can see many people here complaining about their home countries, but if you're there for only two months and aren't invested in the future of the country, it's much easier to enjoy it.
Funny, I have a storage locker in Bangkok too. I don't have a lot of stuff, but enough that I need a place to put it when I go traveling. I mostly live in Bangkok but sometimes my wife and I leave for months at a time.
I was just talking to an expat friend about how many expats/immigrants we know in Thailand who seem to do nothing but complain about Thailand and Thai people. I wonder why they stay here. I can see the same problems they do -- crowded, loud, dirty, bad traffic, polluted -- but I don't react to those problems the same way. I grew up in Los Angeles, a city that seems dirtier than Bangkok, but doesn't have great public transportation like Bangkok does, and I certainly don't feel safe walking around in LA. I try to focus on the things I love about Thailand and not get stressed over the things I don't like.
We all bring our own preferences and perspectives with us. I think the successful travelers and expats adapt and learn tolerance and acceptance. The people I talk to who seem most unhappy always compare where they live with where they came from, focusing on the things they miss, and the things they haven't adapted to. I met an American guy a while back who complained that he couldn't get Pop-Tarts in Bangkok. When I told him about Villa Market and Tops (he had somehow not discovered those after over a year in Bangkok) he got visibly happier -- major life stressor fixed for him.
Americans get a pretty generous foreign earned income exclusion, so unless you make way more than $100k, you have to file but not pay. It could be weird, though, if you are working remote for an American company for W2 income (you can still get your taxes back, but you will have withholding). Also, after the exclusion there is the foreign tax credit, which will cancel out most post $100k taxes if you are paying foreign tax.
Yes, the FEIE exempts the first $126,500 per person. You can adjust your W2 withholding to account for that. You have to either show “bonds fire” residency in a foreign country or physically stay out of the US for 335+ days in a one year period. The FEIE does not apply to Social Security or Medicare taxes, or to state taxes.
You can deduct taxes paid to a foreign country if the US has a tax treaty.
> The FEIE does not apply to Social Security or Medicare taxes, or to state taxes.
I never figured out the payroll tax thing. I was working for the overseas affiliate of an American company, but never had SS/medicare withheld for anything but my dividend income. I also paid Chinese payroll taxes, and they obviously don't have a totalization agreement with the US.
As far as state income tax goes, the only state you really need to worry about is CA, who doesn't recognize foreign residency as an excuse against paying CA tax, especially if they claim you are still a resident because you own a home in CA.
Every place has political issues, and you won't understand or participate in those until you've lived in a place a long time and learned the language. Many places do not have extreme political polarization. Safety and low crime makes a difference to me.
Economically the advantages and disadvantages will vary a lot based on your source of income and what kind of visa and residency you want. If you move around and don't stay in one country long enough to incur local tax liabilities you can possibly ignore taxes (except for Americans, who have to file and pay US taxes no matter where they live). Earning an income from your home country that you spend overseas can translate to a very different standard of living than getting a local job (and has tax implications as well).
Continual travel doesn't work for everyone. The grass only looks greener a lot of the time, every place has pros and cons. You take your problems with you, traveling changes where you live but doesn't magically change you into a different person.