Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Editor's note: This is a 2 part article. Part 1 discusses two popular Best and Worst Places to Retire lists. Part 2 explores best retirement states from multiple perspectives - taxation, cost of living, culture, climate, cost of living, property taxes, etc.
May 9, 2017 -- To paraphrase something from the news - "Who knew finding the best state for retirement was so complicated?" Eager to attract baby boomer readers for their advertisers, the publishers of these lists sometimes do it "scientifically", using data to back up their picks, and sometimes whimsically, using 20-something writers for whom retirement conjures up geezers in rocking chairs and old folks homes. The results from these "Best" lists are so all over the place that is
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Published on May 9, 2017
Comments 42
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
By Flo Williamson
Part 2 South Carolina (link to Part 1: The Carolinas Revisited - North Carolina)
April 1, 2017 -- After an interesting and enlightening visit to coastal North Carolina, we made a bee-line towards Charleston, SC. As we entered South Carolina, Route 17 took us through the Myrtle Beach area. Myrtle Beach was never on our retirement relocation radar, as it struck us as being too large, sprawling, and “touristy”. The traffic, even in February, bore that out. We passed through the small beach towns of Murrells Inlet and Pawleys Island, and stopped 35 miles south of Myrtle Beach, in Georgetown.
Georgetown, population 9,000, is a town on the Winyah Bay. It is golf cart friendly. Site of the 2nd largest seaport in SC, Georgetown is also home to an abandoned steel mill and a working paper mill that is located
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Published on April 1, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
March 27, 2017 -- The authors of the Milken Report on Successful Aging have identified the best places in the country to retire for successful aging. In fact they have two different lists - larger Metros and smaller Metros (we will focus on the smaller Metros). Their selection process is the most rigorous of any we know of; it actually has 83 different criteria including access to good healthcare, transportation, security, employment and recreation opportunities, livability, community engagement, and livability.
Most boomers live in Metropolitan areas, and plan to stay there
The authors of the report refer to this as the "anti-retirement" list of
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Published on March 26, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated April. 2020 - Originally published March 14, 2017 (see the many interesting Member suggestions for walkable towns in the Comments section).
Think how great it would be if you could retire to a place where you didn't have to own a car. You wouldn't have to climb in your vehicle, fight traffic down busy streets, or hunt endlessly for a parking place every time you wanted to go someplace. Here are 10 retirement towns where you can trade your car for a bike, golf cart, public transit, or - best of all - your own two feet.
In this search we are not mentioning the largest American cities, where having a car is more of a burden than a blessing. For example in New York City, where a surprising percentage of residents don't even have a driver's license, you can easily pay $500/month just to garage your car. In Gotham you can almost always get there faster on a subway, bus, taxi, Uber, or by
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Published on March 14, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
By Flo Williamson (Moderator at Topretirements.com!). This is the first of a 2 part article - here is the link to Part 2: South Carolina.
March 8, 2017 -- There’s nothing so exciting as the thought of a road trip. My husband and I had been discussing revisiting and exploring the coasts of North and South Carolina, and as the grey winter started to settle in, we began to plan our trip in earnest. Our thought was to revisit some towns we had previously seen on a former visit several years ago, dubbed the “Inner Banks Tour”, and to explore some new areas that have always piqued our retirement relocation interest. We’re definitely the type who believe that getting there is half the fun, so rather than speed down Interstate 95, our trip really began as we picked up Rt.17, outside of Norfolk, VA.
Our first stop, Edenton, NC is a town we had visited before. Edenton, the county seat of Chowan County, is a small town with approximately 5,000 residents, located on the Albemarle Sound. If you like being around the water, this is the place to be. At the end of the main
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Published on March 8, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated January 2020 (originally published 2017) -- We often get the question, "Which is the better state for retirement, Florida in the East, or Arizona in the West". Both states are popular and have many great places to live. Based on the interest we see on Topretirements.com, Florida and Arizona attract more retirement interest than any other states, Florida has a slight edge in popularity. Tennessee, both Carolinas, and Colorado also generate a lot of prospective interest.
Further down in this article we will present various factors for each state so you can draw your own conclusions from the facts. But first, here are our opinions about what makes each of these two states a great, or not so great place to retire. As always, reader input is extremely important. We encourage you to use the Comments section below to tell your stories and express your
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Published on February 15, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 11, 2017 — Over the years our Members have told us how important it is for them to find great places to retire that are also affordable. So at this point we have quite a collection of articles with specifics on at least 50 such towns. This article has…
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Published on January 10, 2017
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 20, 2016 — Our friend and long-time member Dave E commented on one of our articles from 5 years ago today – the “Two Places Retirement” strategy. The idea of retiring to more than one place, which snowbirds are so fond of, is an interesting topic that many folks…
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Published on December 20, 2016
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated September 29, 2020 (originally published Dec. 14, 2016) -- This is an update to our series on Affordable Places to Retire. You can find links to the rest of the series at the end of the article. You will also find the interesting 33 comments made to 10 great places to retire in the southwest that won't break your budget.
Many boomers are looking forward to the sunshine and dry air of America's Southwest for their place to retire. The challenge is to find an affordable town in such a huge and desirable region. We included 6 states in this look: Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. The 10 cities and towns we've included here will give you a place to start your retirement search for an affordable retirement.
10 Affordable Places to Retire in the Southwest - but prices have gone up since 2016
The big thing we concluded from this research is that real
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Published on December 14, 2016
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 5, 2016 — A few years back a reporter asked for our opinion about college town retirements. Her questions concerned the pros and cons, reasons why to choose one, top places to retire with colleges, etc. What we told her is that there are a lot of really good…
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Published on December 5, 2016
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