We are pretty much at the exact same latitude as Los Angeles, but in Southern Hemisphere. The huge difference is the humidity. In So-Cal there isn’t any humidity to speak of.

The sub-tropic humidity here is killer though… You really feel the humidity here… That I’m not a fan of.

In the U.S. our insurance for a family of 3 was around U$S 1,300 a month… Here for our new family of 4, it’s less than U$S 300 per month…

We’ve been on an open ended world tour as a family since 2006 & live large and travel on just 25K a year total for our family of 3. One of our great savings is health care as it’s simply outrageous in the US.

I was exceptionally pleased with the level of care I received in every instance. In fact, I stayed in the hospital for 5 days after the birth of my son in Belgium. This was regular procedure and I had to ask to go home then. My mom was so surprised by the level of care that I received after giving birth. Much more than what is done in the states.

The cost of care was much cheaper in Belgium as well. Trips to the doctor and the pharmacy proved so inexpensive that it didnt even seem possible. I did have help with filling out the necessary paper work to get an ID card and access to the health care system, but the process was not terribly long and didnt require anything out of the ordinary. I lived in a small town about 45 minutes outside of Brussels. The hospital was not shiny and sparkly but it was well maintained and well staffed.

My experience in Turkey was just as pleasant. I was a bit more apprehensive at the beginning of my experience here because it was brought on by an emergency and I hadn’t been in the country long. However, I had an amazing doctor and the facilities seemed on par with what you would see in any large city in the states. The trips to the pharmacy did cost more in Turkey than Belgium. The overall cost of everything, I believe, is more in Turkey because of a different structure.