Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 24, 2016 -- Does the idea of retiring to a small town seem nice, but just a little too confining? Or do the bright city lights get you excited - until you realize the urban pace might be too big, too intense, too congested, too expensive for a retirement lifestyle? If you are torn between the two, perhaps you should consider a small city, where you can experience the best of both worlds - retirement on a smaller, more livable scale, along with plenty of excitement, restaurants, and happenings to enjoy.
To produce this article we searched for smaller cities that are perfect for retirement. We tried to avoid places that get mentioned over and over again, or that are more popular as tourist destinations than as a place to live in retirement. Our criteria were relatively simple:
- City population between 100,000 - 250,000 (our definition, and hard to measure precisely)
- A distinct city center that is bustling day and night
- Advantage given to towns located in the Sunbelt or slightly warmer climates, since most retirees have that preference
- Not prohibitively expensive
11 Great Small Cities for Retirement
Here is what we came up with, using popularity figures
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Published on May 23, 2016
Comments 199
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 9, 2016 -- The nation’s 77 million baby boomers face a life-changing decision - finding a place to live once they retire. Making a good choice involves many considerations, but the most critical is to select a place that helps them fit in and feel welcome quickly. After all, moving is never easy, and neither is making friends and social contacts from scratch. Fortunately this new list, “10 Friendliest Places to Retire”, can help.
The ten towns on this “Friendliest” list that made the final cut have one major thing in common: they are in fast growing areas that attract
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Published on May 9, 2016
Comments 79
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
April 11, 2016 -- We love hearing stories from real people about their adventures in finding the perfect place to retire. So we were very fortunate recently to get an in depth interview from 2 old friends, Sandy and Ann, who shared their retirement search adventures. We hope you will find it interesting and instructive. (Don't miss the Further Reading section at the end - over the years we have interviewed a whole lot of people about their retirement search experiences - and the links to those stories are all there!)
Prior to retirement the pair lived in a comfortable New York suburb, from which they commuted to successful careers in the Big Apple. Their enviable lifestyle included frequent ski trips to Vermont in winter and a busy social life at a country club the rest of the year. But when it came time for retirement, both were interested in a change of scenery. They agreed on two main motivations: to have easier access to outdoor recreation opportunities like hiking, biking, and skiing; and to escape New York's expensive cost of living and real estate taxes.
Looking down south
Like so many others, they were faced with a big
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Published on April 11, 2016
Comments 30
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
April 6, 2016 -- Are any of the Best States to Retire" lists you see so frequently worth the few minutes it takes you to read them? That is a pretty good question, since A: there are so many to read, and B: they seem to contradict themselves more than they agree. This article will illustrate the many ways that 2 recent lists differ from one another, along with the few ways they coincide. We will also see how these lists best and worst selections compare with the last 2 editions of Topretirements "Best (and Worst) States" lists. All of which has us shaking our heads at the general lack of agreement!
Every time we publish one of these types of lists we can count on a few readers taking a shot at why we picked this or that place, or why we didn't include yet another. That is understandable, as even when objective criteria are used to make the
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Published on April 5, 2016
Comments 38
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
March 29, 2016 — Due to popular requests we periodically update our extensive series of “Dueling Retirement States”. The latest to be updated is the comparison of retirement in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware. The previous version of this comparison was from 2010. Since then most trends and…
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Published on March 29, 2016
Comments 18
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
March 26, 2016 — If you asked most people to name the fastest growing Metro in the U.S., we think many would not be able to come up with the right one. The answer is a most surprising one – The Villages, the sprawling community of 119,000 in Central…
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Published on March 25, 2016
Comments 25
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Update July 2017: See our all new 2017 Best Places to Retire List
June, 2016 – Move over Asheville, there is a newcomer perched atop the Topretirements annual list of most popular places to retire. For the first time since we started publishing this list in 2007, Asheville, NC is not #1 - that honor goes to the vibrant city of Sarasota on Florida's West Coast. It edged out Asheville and Green Valley (AZ) in a close contest for the top spot.
Sarasota neighborhood
Many people view Sarasota as one of the two cultural capitals of Florida (the other would be Miami). Built through the philanthropy of the Ringling Brothers Circus and other generous souls, Sarasota's rich cultural institutions make it a vital and interesting city in which to live. There is also the beautiful Sarasota Bay, lovely beaches and barrier islands, and fascinating urban and low key neighborhoods. Sarasota was chosen for the top spot through a simple process. We count how many times each city's review has been viewed at Topretirements.com, which we view as a gauge of interest in that destination. For example, the Sarasota review was viewed over 10,000 times, {GOOGLE_AD}
which was 10 times as often as the newcomer in the #100 position, Palm Coast (FL). It doesn't mean that people will actually move to any of these destinations, but it does indicate interest and popularity.
A Place in the Sun
When it comes to places that Americans might consider for retirement, towns in the Sunbelt and the West are definitely the places to be. Eighty of the cities and towns on our 2016 list of the best places to retire were in the Sunbelt. As always, Florida had the most cities on the list with 24, followed by North and South Carolina. The American northwest and mountain states are also popular for retirement - 17 destinations made the list from California, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Idaho. Just as in 2015, only 3 states in the Northeast made the cut: Virginia (Charlottesville, Williamsburg, and Winchester), Delaware (Lewes and Rehoboth Beach), and Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh). The highest ranking non-Sun Belt city on our list was
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Published on February 23, 2016
Comments 51
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
February 12, 2016 (Updated Oct 2020)-- In looking for your best place to retire it is nice to know that there are some states that really want you. They have taken concrete steps to make themselves more desirable for retirees. These states (and many towns) know that the homes retirees buy and the money they spend locally can be an important, and clean, industry. They call it the "Mailbox Economy" - where the local industry takes the form of the pension, 401(k), dividend/interest, and Social Security checks that arrive in local mailboxes and bank accounts every month. Some of these states might
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Published on February 12, 2016
Comments 129
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Note: This is Part 2 in a series. Part 1, "Can a Yankee Find Happiness in the South", came out in 2010 and has generated an amazing 241 comments so far. The topic continues to be of interest: there have already been 52 comments made so far this year!
January 26, 2015 -- It is an important question for every snowbird considering a big move in retirement: will you be happy in your new location and culture? Part 1 explored the pros and cons our many members from the northeast face as they head south for retirement - often seeking warmer weather, lower costs, and fewer taxes. Here in Part 2 we will
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Published on January 26, 2016
Comments 26
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 9, 2015 -- For a surprising number of baby boomers the ideal retirement is not in an active community with a golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, or clubhouse. Neither is it a small town, nor a postcard pretty burg with a college as its centerpiece. Instead, many surprise their friends by moving from the suburbs to of all places - a city. While an unexpected choice, there are any number of good reasons to make this move, akin to a salmon swimming upstream. This article will explore the many advantages and disadvantages of an urban retirement lifestyle, and then we will provide a list of 10 great cities where you can retire.
As we are fond of saying, retirement is a chance at a do-over on life. Lets say you have regrets about some choices you made during adulthood - like where you chose to live or what you did for a living. Now that you are
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Published on December 8, 2015
Comments 18
