Ray had a good life in Florida.

Nice home in a large retirement community. A boat. A truck. His own real estate brokerage company. A small gym nearby. Church on Sundays. Fishing when he felt like it.

By every external measure the life was fine.

But when he sat down and looked at it honestly he kept arriving at the same conclusion.

Something was missing.

Ray is 71 years old. United States Air Force veteran. Survival instructor. He has lived in Europe. He has traveled the world. He is not someone who scares easily or acts without thinking.

But when he looked around at his retirement community in Winter Haven, Florida he saw a life that had quietly contracted. Same town every day. Same routines. Mostly married couples around him which made being a single man feel like a permanent third wheel.

He started going to a small Filipino church in Lakeland. He made real friends — warm, genuine, family-oriented people who treated each other differently than most Americans he had known. He started noticing what that felt like.

He wanted more of it.

So he did what a survival instructor does. He made a plan.

Ray is a diligent man. He does not procrastinate. But even for someone like Ray the logistics of moving to the Philippines alone were genuinely daunting.

You cannot rent a condo without a bank account. You cannot open a bank account without a lease. You need an ACR card for both and it takes 59 days to get. The retirement visa requires documentation that most people apostille in the wrong order. And if you get on a plane without knowing any of this you will spend your first months in the Philippines figuring out the hard way what you could have solved before you left.

Ray put it plainly. Getting on an airplane and traveling clear to the other side of the world without a safety net. That is not something you do at 71 without someone in your corner.

He found the YouTube channel. He watched the videos. Then he got on a call.

If you are still figuring out the logistics of your own move — click here and our team will map it all out for you.

Ray qualified for the SRRV Expanded Courtesy visa — the military veteran retirement visa that gives permanent residency in the Philippines for a $1,500 deposit. The same visa that Thailand and Malaysia cannot match.

He came out for a three-week scouting trip. Our team was at the airport. They toured Rockwell, BGC, and Makati together. He walked the neighborhoods. He ate the food. He went to church.

He loved it.

When asked how the locals had treated him he did not hesitate.

Everyone has been amazing. The people is what is really amazing to me. Everyone is just so friendly and hospitable and polite and caring.

By the time the scouting trip ended Ray had already made his decision. He was going back to Florida to close his company, sell his home, put his dog on a plane, and come back to the Philippines for good.

Ray is not a young adventurer chasing a dream. He is a 71-year-old veteran who looked at his comfortable American life and decided that comfortable was not enough.

He wanted friendships. He wanted warmth. He wanted to use the Philippines as a launchpad to finally visit Japan and South Korea — places he had always wanted to go since his Air Force days. He wanted to wake up somewhere that felt alive.

He budgets $5,000 to $7,000 per month. He is moving to Rockwell for a two-bedroom with a balcony for his dog. He is not sacrificing lifestyle. He is upgrading it.

When asked what he would say to people debating between doing this alone versus getting help his answer was simple.

Why do that? If you are a little bit older in life and you want stability and you want things to work out — hire the best.

That is exactly what we are here for.

Click here to start your move to the Philippines the right way

Travel Well,
Evan Lorezca
The Savvy Expat