They Chose Malaysia for Retirement After Living on 5 Continents

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Adrian Spencer, a 69-year-old retiree living in Penang, Malaysia, with his wife. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I’ve always had a taste for adventure.

I was born and raised in and around London. When I graduated from high school, I worked the night shift in a factory and managed to save some money.

I wanted to go on holiday to America, but I couldn’t get a visa. So, at 19, I ended up going to Mauritius. It was a big journey back in those days.

In Mauritius, I met a lot of South Africans, who encouraged me to visit their country. I said, “Why not?” I didn’t have a girlfriend at that point.

I went to South Africa and lived there for nine years. That’s where I met my wife, Beverley, who was born and grew up in Johannesburg.

We had three children, but the political climate eventually prompted us to move to Malawi in southeastern Africa in 1986, where we spent another nine years. That’s where our kids grew up.

I’d spent all of my career in the packaging manufacturing industry. Eventually, I decided that if I stayed in Malawi much longer, I’d never be able to leave because the skills I’d built there weren’t global skills.

I went through my contact book and found a job in Melbourne, Australia. We lived there for a few years before spending almost the next three decades moving around.

We lived in Indonesia, then China, then the US. Eventually, we found our way back to Southeast Asia, where I worked in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, before returning to Thailand to work for another five and a half years.

From that last job, I retired.

By then, our kids were long out of the house. They’d moved with us from country to country until it was time for them to go to university. We sent them to the UK, where we had family nearby if they ever needed support.

During my final stint in Thailand, my wife and I had already started thinking about our retirement.

After so many years abroad, the UK felt increasingly unfamiliar. Each time I went back for the holidays, I felt a little more like a stranger, so I knew I didn’t want to move back to the UK. Beverley certainly didn’t want to go back to South Africa.

We always found Asia much more dynamic anyway. After some online research, we noticed that Malaysia kept coming up as a popular retirement location.

We’d visited many times before — long before the idea of retiring here even crossed our minds. It also helped that the country’s Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) visa program was already well established.

From very early on, we already knew we wanted to live in Penang, a state located on the northwestern coast of Malaysia.

Both my wife and I are city dwellers, and we didn’t want to be out in the countryside, miles from anywhere. We like to have easy access to facilities, not just medical care should the need arise, but also for socializing and shopping.

Kuala Lumpur, on the other hand, felt a bit too big and too much like a concrete jungle. We preferred the historical charm of Penang, especially in George Town, with its old shophouses and classic architecture.

We were granted the MM2H visa in 2020, but I wasn’t ready to stop working just yet.

It wasn’t until the end of May that I finally retired.

We officially moved into our apartment on Penang Island in September.

There are lots of activities going on, and it keeps us busy.

We keep going to different meetups, like morning coffees and the Expats Club lunches. On Friday mornings, we play bridge at the Penang Club. I also joined a men-only breakfast group that goes for dim sum once a week.

My wife is the social secretary — always has been, always will be. She also makes sure that I’m dressed appropriately for wherever we’re going.

The shops are very good and we can find everything that we need. Everybody says the traffic’s terrible, but I don’t think it’s too bad. We’ve been in Thailand, so this doesn’t scare us.

We’re still new to Penang, but so far we’re happy. Our favorite part has been the people, who are very friendly.

If you are very comfortable with your home environment, you may struggle to make new friends or feel homesick. But we’ve moved around so much, so we’re always open to new opportunities.

Do you have a story to share about relocating to a new city? Contact this reporter at agoh@businessinsider.com.