Would you move overseas to retire? Well some couples are and they love it (they also still get the pension)! Sunday mail journalist Kelmeny Fraser joined Moyd and Loretta to talk more about this latest craze for retirees and how she first discovered the story.
STRUGGLING pensioners are escaping skyrocketing living costs at home to "live like kings" in holiday hot spots overseas.
Triple the number of pensioners are now packing their bags to live out their final years in Asia compared with eight years ago.
Thailand, the Philippines and China are among the destinations of choice for retirees, government figures reveal, with the number of Australian pensioners in Asia leaping from 372 in 2002 to 1298 in 2010 - a rise of 249 per cent.
Full-time maids, beachfront units, dining out and cheap medical care are just some of the attractions.
"I would be working until I was 90 if I stayed in Australia - the prices are crazy," said one former Gold Coaster, found at Bangkok's airport with a suitcase and golf bag.
But it's not just retirees. Families and businesspeople are also swapping expensive bills and bureaucracy for a lavish Asian-based lifestyle.
For only $1, pensioners in Thailand can dine on delicious takeaway, while their Queensland counterparts eat baked beans.
A specialist doctor's fee sets them back $3.50 compared with hundreds here. Even costly dental fillings will only take $35 from their budget. Housing can be as low as $45 for a new serviced hotel, or from $97,000 to buy a three-bedroom house.
Ken and Helen Prince will retire to Thailand in August after selling their home at Kippa-Ring, north of Brisbane. The couple have been travelling to and from Thailand since 1997 after making friends through a cultural exchange home-stay program.
They will retire to a village in Thailand's far north on a part-pension, surrounded by young friends who will take care of them.
Mr Prince said living overseas would not affect his part-pension, but they would lose concessions.
"Whenever we go to Thailand for a month or three months there is more money in the bank when we come back than when we left," he said. "The pad thai we can buy around the corner here at the restaurant will cost you $15. Up there it will cost you $1.
"Any medical stuff we need, you just pay cash and (you are) a long way in front.
"The hospitals we are likely to go to compared with the Australian hospital, on a scale of 10, would be one or two points higher.
"As we get into our senior years, we can have salaried help. We can have three nurses on a rotation to take care of us in our home."
He said cultural differences also meant young Thais were more willing to care for elderly friends.
Pensioner groups have expressed outrage that so many are forced to leave their home country in their twilight years.
Australian Pensioners and Superannuants League of Queensland secretary Ray Ferguson said he knew pensioners who had moved to Asia purely for economic reasons.
"I don't think it's good from a political and moral perspective that seniors are forced to look overseas to live their senior years because of economic factors," Mr Ferguson said.
The full-age pension including the "supplementary payment" equates to $755.50 a fortnight.
The Federal Government has ordered a crackdown on overseas payments and will reduce the pension from January for people living outside Australia for more than six weeks. The number of overseas age pensioners soared 344 per cent between 1990 and 2010 from 13,996 to 62,148. The most popular destinations remain the former homelands of Italy and Greece.
National Seniors chief executive Michael O'Neill warned that moving to a developing nation did have its disadvantages.
"My best advice is do it for three months without selling up and get a taste for it rather than making a big change," he said.
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