The Best Countries?

If money were no object and you could live anywhere in the world, where would you want to go and why?

I am sure that many of us have given this subject some thought during our lifetimes. Either because we would love to experience a different lifestyle or because we seek to escape from grim realities of life in our home country. My family, like many other British families looked to Australia to be a sunny haven where they could build a new life. We arrived relatively late in the postwar boom in 1966.

For most of my life I have been happy living in Australia. It’s not perfect but it’s better than most places. However, there are countries that I think do things better than we do. The first one that comes to mind is New Zealand. Of course they have their issues too and I would worry about earthquakes which they have more than their share of. However, it is a beautiful country and the climate would suit me. My choice of hometown would either be Napier because I love all the art deco buildings there or Wellington. We visited both of these places on our cruise in 2016 and I was very taken with Wellington as well.

I also feel, and I may be wrong about this, that New Zealand is a kinder country than Australia. Although it is a small country I think that they do better than we do on multiculturalism and treatment of asylum seekers and probably on climate change too. I admit I haven’t gone into this in detail it’s just my gut feeling.

Another option for me would be one of the Scandinavian countries. A couple of years ago I read a book by Anu Partanen called “The Nordic Theory of Everything”. She is a Finnish writer who moved to the USA and married an American. Her book compares life in the USA with Finland and the other Scandinavian countries. I found it really interesting.

In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships—parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens. She debunks criticism that Nordic countries are socialist “nanny states,” revealing instead that it is we Americans who are far more enmeshed in unhealthy dependencies than we realize. As Partanen explains step by step, the Nordic approach allows citizens to enjoy more individual freedom and independence than we do.

Goodreads

Although they are said to be expensive countries to live in I like the idea of living in a country where there is a genuine attempt to stamp out poverty and homelessness. I also think that there is some fabulous scenery in these countries. I have always wanted to visit them. Yes, it would be cold in winter but I’d prefer that to extreme heat.