We were mildly amused, but rather perplexed, to see on the Daily Telegraph website the results of a survey of 14 favourite expat destinations by Alliance & Leicester which suggested, among other things, that:

• France is the most expensive place to live
• New Zealand is both the cheapest and the best for quality of life
• The UK ranks eighth – with a higher quality of life than Canada and a cheaper cost of living than Spain
• South Africa has a better quality of life than New York and Florida

Judging by some of the comments on the article, many expats share our perplexity. It’d be interesting to know exactly who was voting, and on what basis.

All the same, Alliance & Leicester’s research does throw up some interesting nuggets in places (rather than just plain weird stuff). You can download their reports free of charge here.