FOR someone who is new in France, it will be one heck of an exciting ride. The first stopover will be Charles de Gaulle International Airport, the busiest airport in mainland Europe and the second busiest in the entire continent, second only to Heathrow in London. The terminal at Charles de Gaulle is where one person who has no citizenship has lived since the late 1980s until the French Red Cross has decided to adopt him earlier this year. The man’s story served as the inspiration for the box office hit The Terminal starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg.

From Charles de Gaulle, Paris is called the City of Lights. It is not just during Christmas that landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, the Champs Elysee and the Eiffel Tower are illuminated. Paris is really spending euros every year just to pay for electricity to illuminate the landmarks that are mentioned earlier even though there are no beaches here and River Seine is just for cruising and not for any summer or wintry sport. But occassionally, you will see a daytime fashion show at the River Seine especially during March when top designers show off their bikini and other summer collections for 2008. France is also peopled by the most romantic, the most intellectual and the healthiest people in the planet so their people are naturally adorable. This is especially true in the Mediterranean areas such as Provence where olive trees are abundant and people there only eat the freshest seafood such as redfish, grouper, mollusks and lobsters sauteed in olive oil, the healthiest cooking oil on earth because of its low fat content.

The trend now of properties in the France is to construct a home which is as environmentally friendly as possible. Being environment friendly is after all the trend among the upper middle class wherever you go with the Bali climate conference just concluded. Even the 16-18 demographic are now environmentally conscious with one of their idols, Hayden Panetierre of Heroes as a staunch environmentalist. Even teen beauty queens like Miss Teen Philippines are environmentalists. And the teens are part of the market that real estate investors are trying to capture. So that’s why in France they have made a house which have better recycling systems for garbage which may impress the garbage collectors for lessening their daily load and solar electricity both for household use as well as for the swimming pool. There is also non-toxic gardening as well.

France is also home to some exotic food such as frog’s legs. Those are found in deep regions though which are unlike the hip urban locale that is Paris. Yet even in these areas, real estate investors are sprouting. There are even Italian and German companies that have entered the real estate market here in France. The French real estate market is here to stay. In fact, a new poll has just been released stating that France has beaten Spain and Italy as the number one holidday destination in Europe.

THE answer to this question is your discernment and the willingness to sacrifice something. If you live in a high end subdivision which has a commanding view of the bay some miles away, then you have to sacrifice some luxuries. You cannot indulge in everyday shopping or everyday visits to the spa, the golf course or the casinos. You cannot hold drinking sprees all the time. However, you must spend your investment at home. You must organize barbecue parties at the pool to show yourselves to your friends that you are living like a king. You must have a 50-inch LCD television set so you can indulge yourself in games. Heck, you must have your own home entertainment theater room and system.

There are a few spots in the world that offer spectacular residencies. There’s Valencia, the Beverly Hills in Europe. Many celebrities have either lived there or are living there. There’s Antonio Banderas and wife Melanie Griffith, there’s Joan Collins, there’s Sean Connery and many others. Then we go to Malibu or Hollywood Hills where Grey’s Anatomy and Knocked Up star Katherine Heigl is billeted, having moved here a decade ago from her hometown of New Canaan, Connecticut. That’s some trivia for you huh? You don’t live like a king if you have not earned or accumulated your wealth. That’s something for sure.

But if you want to live like a king without spending anything, then that’s another story. You can still do that too. Here in France for example, particularly in the urban areas, there are lots of condominiums and they are very cramped. Cramped as they are, their security system is perfect and untouchable and invincible. They have their own panic rooms so you don’t need to worry about burglars and robbers. For me, that’s already living like a king.

If you are in some tropical country like the Philippines, then you can still live like a king even if you’re just living in an RV back in the States. The cost of living there is incomparable to the cost of living in the United States. A dollar is equal to 44 Philippine pesos. That’s 44 times the value. That’s how low the cost of living here is so if you cannot stay in a Hilton in New York, you can stay in a Shangri-la there in the Philippines. And if you want to buy a house, you can do so easily and pay it in cash. Although most lands there are admittedly the ones for sale and you have to construct the house yourself. But that’s neither a problem because building costs are still kept at a minimal.

If you go to a place like Japan, it may be relatively expensive to build a house there made of wood because wood is a pretty expensive stuff there. But don’t worry, once you have built a duplex bungalow and there are all amenities associated to it like a fireplace or so, you’re just like living like a king. After all, living like a king is not something physical. It goes with the heart.