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Comment by GoToThePubMate | Hacker News Reader

> A better QoL is just a passport and a flight away.

Ummmmmm

And an immigration visa.

Not that I endorse spreading America's housing problems to the world, but many countries in southeast asia and africa will effectively allow you to get away with renewing your visa every 6 months in perpetuity.

I knew one guy whose only legal requirement was to leave the country twice a year, for a day, in order to come back for another 6 months. But he didn't even do this - he went one step lazier and hired someone else to run his papers to the border and back every 6 months.

It's a country-by-country thing, and maybe they've closed some loopholes, but I'd be shocked if a wealthy American can't still get away with this in dozens of poorer nations.

You can get a residence permit in Uruguay just with your birth certificate and your passport. Then you need to prove that you have the means to sustain yourself and that's it, no more requirements for moving here. Also, no taxes on software exports ;)

Whats the land buying situation like and pricing? A lot of countries have weird rules around foreigners buying property.

As far as I know, anyone can buy land/properties here. I think the only restriction is that foreigners are not allowed to buy land up to 30km from the border or something like that. Prices are way cheaper than in the US but probably more expensive than other south american countries.

Uruguay always interest me but I heard it is basically impossible to naturalize as the judge holds evidence of ties to Uruguay to an impossibly high standard. I guess that makes sense since Uruguay is a very open nation with easy permanent residence, closely guarding citizenship allows you to hold priveleges of your citizens dear while grasping the benefits of open borders to goods and labor.

You can never live a full life like this. Without a residency permit you won't open a bank account, won't buy any property, won't by a car for example, renting outside Airbnb is difficult, won't be using any governmental services.

The trick is to go into a country, stay there for the max allowed duration.

Then you fly back to US or visit another country for a month and go back to your base country. You can do this with Visa-on-arrival at most countries with a US passport.

Yeah that and there's tons of countries where it's easy to get a long-term visa or immigration status that doesn't allow you to work. I can also name plenty of countries where as long as you don't work (and even possibly if you do) your chances of getting deported as an illegal immigrant are about zero unless you've done something to really piss off the community. One of the more amusing is Argentina -- you can literally show up on day one, file a case for citizenship, and your court docket serves as 'citizenship' for prevention of deportation.

In the USA, if you don't seek employment and stay out of the 100 mile 'constitution-free' zone and live in a state that doesn't link the criminal justice system to immigration (I think California is an example) I think the chance of getting caught as an illegal immigrant are about zero unless you catch a felony or something.

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