Markeiz Ryan, 36, had a solid childhood in Maryland, but everything changed when the 2008 financial crisis wiped out his mother’s job just as he was finishing high school. With no safety net, Ryan made a decision that would shape his life: he joined the U.S. Air Force in 2010 to protect his family from further financial strain.
Over the next decade, he was stationed across the globe—in Korea, Germany, and Africa—but his journey wasn’t without setbacks. In 2016, while in Korea, he broke curfew, lost several months of pay, and was demoted. Depression set in, and for a time, he felt lost.
Then came a trip to Vietnam. “It just looked like so much fun and it really lived up to all the hype,” Ryan recalls. That experience lifted his spirits and lit a spark he couldn’t ignore. He started planning to return.
After completing his service and an honorable discharge in 2019, Ryan made Vietnam his home. Today, he lives comfortably in Ho Chi Minh City on roughly $4,000 a month—a mix of VA disability payments, GI Bill support, teaching English, day trading, and odd jobs like voiceover work.
His costs are modest: $850 a month in rent for a two-bedroom apartment in one of the city’s tallest residential towers, $130 in utilities, and small expenses for groceries, motorcycle gas, and health insurance. “This might not sound like a lot in America, but it’s more than enough to be middle or above middle class in Vietnam,” Ryan says.
For Ryan, the appeal of Vietnam isn’t just financial. He praises the safety, calm, and focus on daily life, contrasting it with the constant financial pressure he felt in the U.S. “In America, you’re constantly chasing a standard you can’t achieve. Here, you focus on what makes you happy, who you want to become, and how to get there.”
Even after six years, Ryan has no plans to leave. “Every day I wake up with a long to-do list of things I want to do, not the things I need to do,” he says. “Getting out of survival mode makes life infinitely more human.”
For this veteran, Vietnam isn’t just a place to live—it’s a life rebuilt on freedom, opportunity, and peace of mind.
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