Would you retire to a Middle Eastern playground if you could?

[GiveUsThisDayOurDailyPizza]

For example UAE, Qatar

I will probably never be a high net worth individual anyway but even if I was I can’t imagine choosing to spend my retirement years in such places.

Work and live there for a few years to get ahead financially, yes, or a long layover on the way to somewhere else but what makes so many UK expats want to retire there?

This is prompted by something that came up at work. I’d love to understand the appeal as I have to interact with people for whom this is a long term ambition or plan.

I disagree with anyone moving any other country with the intention to treat it as a retirement playground.

That is an interesting view. Why do you disagree with living your retirement years in another country?

So many interesting points. I especially appreciate the posts from people who live and work in these areas.

It is not comfortable to face my own double standards, especially thinking about the position of women in the M.E. vs the UK/US where there is an illusory sort of freedom. Women and girls are far from safe in the west. The UK did not become prosperous because of its long held commitment to freedom and equality and a fair distribution of resources to all. It’s still not a good place to be a vulnerable individual, it’s not the worst but there is no evidence that enough British people care sufficiently to elect effective leadership.

Even so, I don’t fully comprehend the whole aspirational luxury lifestyle playground concept either but this is a global phenomenon on every continent. It

Nope not a chance - both DH & I been offered various jobs there over the years, all with generous pay packages but the underlying culture and laws and general different attitudes to women make us extremely uncomfortable and morally very uncomfortable with what those 'playgrounds' are built upon (labour conditions, stolen tribal lands etc)
I'm also not really attracted to that kind of 'luxury' it makes me uncomfortable and find a lot of it a bit tacky - not really my scene.
I know people who love it for their own reasons but not for me.

I guess if you've got no family or friends to spend time with .... but most people do

Nope. My uncle lived and worked in Qatar, Dubai and finally Saudi Arabia (each getting progressively worse) and travelled to their neighbouring countries too, before coming home permanently.

He has happy memories of his expat lifestyle in Qatar, but all the same he would not return to live in the ME for all the tea in China.

As others have said, it's the human rights issues, plus the genuine racism and xenophobia that he personally experienced, all tied up nicely together by their bureaucratic processes (which make the post-communist bureaucracy I have to deal with pale to insignificance in comparison), that put me off ever moving to any ME country.

If any folks from middle eastern countries like UAE, SA, Qatar are reading this thread, they must be laughing their heads off sitting in their liberally air conditioned homes. While in Little Britain, the proud ‘youman rights’ brigade worries about the coming winter and being able to afford to heat their homes.

@Swrigh1234 And your actual point is...?

No way, I'm a redhead with a family history of melanoma, I'm not built for that sort of climate longterm!

Dubai is in our retirement plans. We’re going to spend winters there and go somewhere else in the summer.

It holds exactly zero appeal

Really? Great weather, cheap living including having maids. Living in a compound with other expats and basically living the high life, sipping cocktails and eating out, what's not to like?

Being too hot
Exploiting low paid immigrant workers
Very limited social circle
Cocktail parties

...and that's before you factor in the politics of the region.

This is the kind of post that is always going to get the majority of posters saying hell no. I would but won't ever have that kind of money. I'm Muslim so it appeals to me more than retiring to somewhere in Europe. As it is I want to be where my family are and that's in the UK so that's that.

I presume you're being sarcastic, as that holds much, MUCH less than zero appeal to me, and, I imagine to anyone with an atom of moral sense or conscience. There were people who went for overly skiing holidays or Rhine cruises in Germany after 1933, or who relocated to Rhodesia or Apartheid-era South Africa and would just have thought of their own comfort.

There's no such thing as too hot and you know the workers go there to make money to take back home?

Not a chance.

I don't know how that 'overly' got in there...

This is such a white saviour comment, I take it you don't actually personally know any immigrants workers in the middle east because for many of them it's an opportunity to get to work there (remember they go there by choice). Your ignorance is quite astounding, and embarrassing, I'm sure you mean well but you are literally telling other people what is good for them, without having no lived experience of their situation

No

I have been there and its just not the sort of place that I like but can understand why people do

the argument about slave labour is happily ignored when discussing India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia and so in there is a lot of sneering towards the gulf countries

Anything over 25C is too hot as far as I'm concerned.

Never in a million years
I dont even want to go as a tourist

Fair enough. I'm still ok at 40C and ita dry heat there, so could probably cope with 45C. I'd take the heat over the cold any day

Qatar has very high humidity. That was a surprise to me. I expected it to be a dry heat but in Doha by the water it is very humid, with the humidity over 80% during the hottest months. In the summer, the temperature is usually mid 40s (give or take 5 degrees) with the humidity pushing it to low or mid 50s.

It is like living in a sauna!

No far too hot for me and id be bored sitting around eating,drinking,swimming ect