By Scott Burns

BELIZE. Comfortable on our mooring just off uninhabited Cary Caye, I scan the horizon from the ample deck of the King Caye Lady, our chartered Lagoon 46 sailing catamaran. With a visual horizon of 7 miles and nothing in sight but open water and a few Cayes, I figure the six of us are the only people in about 150 square miles.

Sweet.

I start to hum “Just Another Gringo in Belize” and wonder if I could possibly live long enough to be as laid back as Jerry Jeff Walker. I could try, but it would likely damage my liver.

We’ve run with dolphins, watched the rays cruise shallow bottoms, snorkeled the barrier reef, and enjoyed Big Pat’s conch fritters on Ranguana Caye.

Back in Placencia we enjoy other treats. Like the breeze and grilled snapper at Yoli’s overlooking the water. Like the veritable zoo that manager Donnie at the Quarterdeck creates by folding table napkins. Like the tiny village markets, redefining “basic.” Like the three pieces of clothing lifestyle, if you count the flip-flops.

More people will be coming, and soon.

Not far away they are hard at work on the Placencia International Airport. It will bring people straight in from Europe, Canada and the U.S. When it opens, the trip on a single engine plane from Belize City to the elongated postage stamp of Placencia’s current airstrip will be history. And so will the $360 cost, round trip, for a couple.

When that happens, you’ll have an interesting new choice. Take a straight shot from anywhere in the U.S. and arrive in Placencia for about the same cost in dollars and time as it takes to fly to more developed spots in Mexico, like Puerto Vallarta, Cancun or Cabo. If just the people concerned about drug war shootouts in Mexico divert to Belize, this tiny, rural, poor, nature-driven country (population 300,000) is about to become a tourist boomtown. The Placencia peninsula will be its epicenter.

A day spent with realtor/developer Bradley Rinehart fills out the picture. The official language here is English. The currency is pegged to the dollar, $2 Belize per $1 American. Contracts are in English, there are no restrictions on foreign ownership and, yes, you can have joint American/Belizian citizenship.

For some, it will provoke dreams of an Old-Man-And-The-Sea Hemingway retirement. For others, it will incite hopes of that promised foreign land where Americans with Social Security checks can live like kings and queens with a cook, housekeeper and gardener.

If you have such fantasies— and many struggling Americans near retirement do— let me share a lesson I learned while living on Mallorca long ago. You can live a luxurious lifestyle in a poorer country for far less than the same lifestyle would cost in America. But you’ll be hard pressed to live a low-cost lifestyle in a poor country without adopting the poor living standard of the poor country.

This odd distinction is important. Take what most Americans would consider a bundle of money to Belize, Costa Rica, Panama or Mexico and you can have the cook and gardener that only the very rich have domestically. You can also have an oceanfront or ocean view home for less than $1 million.

But try to get along on a Social Security check and your standard of living is likely to fall. This happens because we have a magnificent and highly competitive distribution system in this country.  So you can live for a lot less in a small town in America than you can live for almost anywhere outside the country. The only requirement is that you’re not so removed that you can’t get to a Wal-Mart or Super Target on a gallon of gas.

Here’s an example. We saw a lovely two-bedroom, two-bath condo with great views. It also had access to a dock close to deep water and a second dock on the lagoon. The asking price, fully furnished, was just under $400,000.

You won’t find that in California. Still.

Some deep hunting may produce something like it on the Florida gulf coast.

That, however, is beside the point unless you are affluent. Last time I checked, low-cost living didn’t start with a $400,000 condo.