Baltimore, MD (PRWEB) January 29, 2015
For their 2015 Annual Global Retirement Index, InternationalLiving.com’s editors and correspondents spent months researching, surveying, and collating the data on the best places to live in the world...a task that included identifying the best climates worldwide.
The Climate category in the Index assessed the hard data of temperatures, rainfall and humidity, and also the comfort level of each destination’s climate.
“It’s difficult to quantify and qualify a ‘perfect’ climate,” says Suzan Haskins, senior editor at InternationalLiving.com.
“It really boils down to on-the-ground experience and to personal preference. What’s too cold to you may be quite comfortable to me. I’m from Nebraska, where ‘cold’ can be life threatening. And summers can be stiflingly hot and humid.”
Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico received the highest scores in the Climate category, and they all have one thing in common: They are located at an elevation of more than 5,000 feet and are in the “tropics”… lying securely between the lines of latitude at 23.5 degrees north of the equator (the Tropic of Cancer) and 23.5 degrees south of the equator (the Tropic of Capricorn).
Known as the Land of Eternal Spring, Ecuador received a perfect score of 100 in the Climate category.
“We’ve lived in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito and now we live two hours north of there, in the village of Cotacachi in the province of Imbabura,” says Haskins.
“The elevation at our home is about 7,800 feet and we are about as close to the equator as you can get. Thanks to this location, we enjoy 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of nighttime every day of the year. Temperatures also rarely vary. Our daily high temperatures range from 60 to 75 degrees F and our average nighttime low temperature is 45 F. That makes for comfortable living, and we have no need for either heat or air conditioning for our home, which is a huge cost savings, too.”
Colombia is right next door to Ecuador and enjoys the same type of geographic diversity.
At an elevation of about 5,000 feet above sea level and latitude of just 6.2 degrees north of the equator, the city of Medellin enjoys slightly warmer temperatures than most of Ecuador’s popular expat communities. The average daytime high temperature is 81 degrees F. The average nighttime low is 62 degrees F.
There is a similarly agreeable climate elsewhere in the Andes of Colombia, including the agriculturally rich Coffee Triangle region.
Mexico comes in at third place in the Climate category.
“We’ve had the opportunity to live in two central-highlands locations in Mexico with extraordinary weather. Here, you’ll find low humidity and non-stop days of sunshine. There is never any snow or ice,” Haskins reports.
“The Lake Chapala area in the state of Jalisco just south of the sprawling metropolis of Guadalajara takes the crown for its ideal climate. Again, that’s thanks to its location at 20.25 degrees N latitude—just south of the Tropic of Cancer line—and its 5,200-feet elevation.”
The popular expat enclave of San Miguel de Allende, almost directly east of Lake Chapala in the state of Guanajuato, experiences a similarly mild, near-perfect climate.
The full report on the countries which offer the best climates in the world can be read here: The World's Best Climate: TheTop 3 Countries.
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