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In this episode, Jason talks with Latin America expert Lee Harrison on where the hot spots are to visit and live. After spending six years flying with the U.S. Navy, Lee completed a successful 30-year career in the nuclear power industry.

Taking advantage of a post-merger early retirement offer, he left the United States in 2001 at age 49 and retired to Cuenca, Ecuador.

Since that time, Lee has enjoyed properties in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Colombia, and the island of Itamaracá, in Brazil. Roving Latin America Correspondent for Live and Invest Overseas, Lee also writes and speaks for a number of publications about living abroad.

Today Lee lives and writes primarily in Uruguay, from his home in the beach resort of Punta del Este. He spends winters at his home in Medellín, Colombia, and a good portion of the year traveling and writing about retirement and investment opportunities throughout Latin America.

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the JetSetter Show, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. Enjoy and learn from a variety of experts on topics ranging from upscale travel at wholesale prices, to retiring overseas, to global real estate and business opportunities, to tax havens and expatriate opportunities. You’ll get great ideas on unique cultures, causes, and cruise vacations. Whether you’re wealthy or just want to live a wealthy lifestyle, the JetSetter Show is for you. Here’s your host, Jason Hartman.

JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to the JetSetter Show! This is Jason Hartman, your host, where we explore lifestyle-friendly destinations worldwide. I think you’ll enjoy the interview we have for you today, and we will be back with that, in less than 60 seconds, here on the JetSetter Show.

ANNOUNCER: Now, you can get Jason’s Creating Wealth in Today’s Economy Home Study Course! All the knowledge and education revealed in a 9-hour day of the Creating Wealth Boot Camp! Creating in a home study course for you to dive into at your convenience! For more details, go to www.JasonHartman.com!

JASON HARTMAN: Hey, it’s my pleasure to welcome Lee Harrison today! He is the Latin American correspondent for Live and Invest Overseas, and we’re going to talk about five—maybe a little more—but five South American countries today. Lee, welcome. How are you?

LEE HARRISON: Good, Jason. How are you? Good to be here.

JASON HARTMAN: Good! Doing well, thanks. So you are coming to us from Medellin, Colombia, I believe, right?

LEE HARRISON: Yes.

JASON HARTMAN: Fantastic. Well, tell us what’s going on in South America! Where are the attractive places, and why are they attractive, and where should we avoid?

LEE HARRISON: Okay, well that’s wide open. Let me start I think with Ecuador. And what I’ll try to do, Jason, is kind of point out who it’s really popular with, and why they’re going there. One thing that Ecuador has—well, a couple of things Ecuador has going for it is the cost of living. Primarily properties are very inexpensive, cost of living is very low. You can still live there for very comfortable under $1500 a month, and it’s seen a big influx of expats over the past few years. So, another thing, and it speaks to the kind of expats that are going there, is that it’s a place to go if you really have a sense of adventure. The Galapagos Islands of course are part of Ecuador. They’ve got the Andes, the Pacific Coast, a lot of old Spanish colonial cities, and it’s pretty dramatic, very beautiful, a lot of nature, you know, natural environment to enjoy, there’s the Amazon Rainforest—so I think people’s primary motivator is cost of living, and they have a real sense of adventure, and want to enjoy a nice Spanish colonial or coastal lifestyle, and Ecuador is a really good choice for them.

JASON HARTMAN: Good, so a lot of variety then. And low cost of living. What about corruption? You know, I read recently that Ecuador was very high on the corruption index. In fact, one of the most corrupt countries. Is that true? Or has that changed?

LEE HARRISON: Well, it was true, and it has changed. When I first moved there, which was 2001, it was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. It was down below position 200 on a scale that listed 232 countries. And what I found was that it wasn’t just political corruption or business corruption, which Transparency International tends to look at, but it really—the corruption of the politicians was just a reflection of what the whole society lacked in the way of honesty. So, I found that when I first went there, it was, you know, a place where you’re gonna get your pocket picked, you’re gonna get things stolen. A lot of petty crime, shortchanging in the stores, 20% of the time you ever bought something. So I found that that was really extended throughout society. What happened, though, is when Rafael Correa got elected in 2006, I think it was, that began to change. And it’s changing not only among the politicians the businessmen, but it’s changing among the rest of the country as well. So, it was an annoyance back then that has gone away, and as a result of the reduction in the level of corruption, there’s a tremendous boom in the infrastructure in Ecuador. Right not the bridges are being built, highways are being rebuilt in a quality fashion, and trains are being brought back into service, a lot of things where that money was just kind of disappearing, have changed over the past few years, since he’s been elected. So it’s become, because of the lack of corruption and more honesty, it’s a much better place to retire and live in.

JASON HARTMAN: So where are they getting the money from to make these improvements?

LEE HARRISON: Well, that’s a good question, because he’s kind of a socialist leaning guy; he was educated here in the US—or, in the US, rather—so, the suspicion would be that he’s robbing from the rich and doing infrastructure projects. But from what I’ve seen so far, mostly it’s the money that was otherwise being stolen is being directed back to where it was supposed to be going in the first place. And I’ll give you a quick example. I lived in the province of Azuay, for five years. A little over five years. And the governor of Azuay once came out and said that he was giving away 50% of his budget to corrupt officials in Quito, just to get the budget approved. So, when you put that 50% of—just that alone, and he’s just one guy—when you put that back into the infrastructure, back into the economy, you get a tremendous economic boost without having to tax anybody or raise import duties or anything like that.

JASON HARTMAN: Good. Well, that’s the idea. You know, grow the economy—that’s the right way to do it.

LEE HARRISON: Yeah, he’s done pretty well with that.

JASON HARTMAN: Good. Okay, well, good. Do you want to switch gears and talk about the next country?

LEE HARRISON: Sure, yeah.

JASON HARTMAN: You can take your pick. I know we decided we were going to cover five, but I don’t care which order you do it.

LEE HARRISON: Okay. You know, I’d like to mention Chile.

JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, I’ve been reading a lot of good things.

LEE HARRISON: Yeah, and I’ve never lived in Chile as a resident. But I have gone there—I’ve covered it editorially, and I’ve traveled there a little bit, and I’ve been following it since, and Chile had their economic growth has been just amazing the past few years. Levels of corruption are low, and what’s interesting is they’ve had socialist governments and they’ve had conservative governments, and their business friendliness and economic strength never seems to waver. So it doesn’t seem to matter who’s in charge, really, in that respect. They just keep going and going. Their currency has been strong, very business friendly, residency friendly, it’s fairly easy to get a visa there. So it’s a strong country that, for people that want a strength that’s not dependent on the US economy, I think Chile is a really good choice.

And something else I like about it from a lifestyle perspective is that it’s very diverse. It’s really just like a mirror image of California. It’s got mountains, the Andes mountains run down the eastern side of Chile, much like the Sierras would run down the eastern side of California. You’ve got the Pacific, you’ve got, you know, several different climates, you’ve got deserts in the north, and kind of Mediterranean rainy climates in the south; lots of wildlife, lakes, forests—a lot of things that have been destroyed in Latin America have been preserved in Chile. So, people that like an outdoor lifestyle, diverse lifestyle, four seasons, snow in the mountains, do you like to go skiing, then Chile’s a good option. It’s probably one of the more expensive places. I would say it’s probably the most—the cost of living is probably higher in Chile than anywhere else I can think of right off hand, in South America. But really, you got a first world infrastructure. It’s just like being in the United States, as far as the infrastructure goes, level of honesty goes, and the economic strength, is a little bit better. So I think—

JASON HARTM