Is there any need for me to move to Australia on 18K per-year?

its very difficult for a foreigner to retire in australia, you have to have LOTS of money and i mean LOTS over $500.000

check out the australian embassy in your country

Most people live on the coast in Australia and there's fishing places everywhere. I don't know whether the gov't would allow you to settle here now as they're pretty strict on who immigrates. Lots of people share apts. and you could look online at the local newspapers of the towns you're interested in. Sydney is very expensive and so is Melbourne, Brisbane or any big city. Maybe a smaller place would be better for you. Australia is huge so you have to be specific about what you're after. Find a map and if you see a place you like, go to that newspaper. You may need to travel back and forth though because I'm not sure they'd let you retire here - check with Australian Embassy online. ps. 18K is nearly equivalent to our dollar now - it was 96 cents Aust. to the US $ this morning.

Ok so I am assuming that $18K is in US right? which is about $22-23K roughly. which is also below the poverty line according to the last statistics. Yes there are adds for share accommondation but very few for older/retired people and with the money you have I doubt if you could survive here and would not qualify for a government payment as you had not been here for more than 3 yrs and will need someone to sponsor you initially. You may find it a struggle to get work here "at your age" as many employers are reluctant to hire older people. Yes we do have a fishing operation in place. It is way down the coast at a place called Eden and very close to the boarder of New South Wales and Victoria, plus also one in Port Lincoln in South Australia.