Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Editors Note: This is part of our series comparing various states as places to retire. Don't miss the first, Florida vs. Arizona Retirement, or the second, Delaware vs. Maryland vs. Virginia vs. New Jersey. There are many more "Dueling" comparisons listed at the end of this article. We welcome ideas for future ones.
Updated April 23, 2021 -- The Carolinas are a red-hot retirement destination; both North and South Carolina are popular with baby boomers for retirement. As great places to retire, both have become as popular as Florida. In this comparison we will evaluate various factors for both states that affect retirement, letting you draw your own conclusions from the facts. As always, reader input is extremely important, so we encourage you to use the Comments section below. (Note: The first version of this article was originally published in 2010 and since then has been updated many times. Because it goes way back to 2010, there are a LOT of comments which are worth reading. The latest comments are at the bottom.)
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Published on November 15, 2010
Comments 662
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Note: We now have Part 2 of this series, which summarizes the many (over 248) comments made to this article. Obviously, we struck a nerve here!
Nov. 9, 2010 -- You might be the kind of person who wants to retire somewhere warm. You’ve identified some states where the climate is a lot better than where you are now, and where outdoor recreation is possible12 months of the year. You’ve also done your research and have chosen a state that that is tax-friendly. Chances are, the states that meet those criteria are in the South. And that probably gives rise to other questions.
Even if you have never spent any significant time in the South, you probably have an image of what life might be like be like there. Without the benefit of experience, however, that image is probably off the mark. In this article we will attempt to answer some questions to help you become better informed: Will the people in your new community be friendly? Will you, a Yankee, fit into the social and cultural ecosystem of your new southern home? Will you be able to contribute
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Published on November 9, 2010
Comments 369
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Maybe it's the chilly fall air, but whatever the reason, new "Best Places to Retire" lists are falling off the trees these days. This article will give you a run-down of some of the "best" we have seen lately.
Smartmoney.com's "The New Best Places to Retire". Smartmoney's reporter asked for and received input from Topretirements on this list, which profiles 9 great places to retire. We like their list because it contains almost as many surprise picks as predictable choices. In the end San Luis Obispo just squeezed out Santa Barbara to make the list as #9, (as we recommended,mostly on the basis of lower cost). Three of the nine towns on their list included the usual suspects:
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Published on November 1, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
October 11, 2010 -- A reporter from Fox News (FNCImag.com) interviewed us today on the 10 best places to retire. She also had some related questions on how to find the best place to retire. The results of the interview, 2 separate articles, came out today on FoxNews.com
The first article, "Where You Will Retire", is the more interesting of the 2. Noelle Watters asked some thought-provoking questions that gave us the platform to offer some friendly advice on a few questions every retiree should be informed about. Her questions included: "What makes a place a popular retirement locale (lots of different factors), "Does weather play
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Published on October 12, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated March 28, 2016 (Original article was October 5 – 2010)–This is the second in our extensive series comparing various states and regions as retirement destinations. You can find links to all of the comparison articles under “Further Reading” at the end of this article. Our approach in this series…
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Published on October 5, 2010
Comments 106
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 13, 2010 -- Consider us sentimental, but we feel kind of bad for the towns that don't quite make our various "best places" lists. After all, how would you feel if you were #101 on a list of 100 best places to retire? It's not like the quality of the experience is that different among the top tier places to live in retirement. And, given that everyone has their own individual tastes and requirements, #115 might just be a lot better fit for you than say, #2 on the list.
So to indulge that feeling, and more importantly to help expand our members' knowledge, here is our list of the "next best places to retire" - from #101 to 125. Oh yes, we will tell
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Published on September 13, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 27 -- Your Topretirements editor was just in Nantucket for a whirlwind vacation. This island retreat is the summer vacation hot spot, particularly among those who live nearby (think New England), or with very big checkbooks. To get here you can take the ferry, always a great ride on a beautiful day, or fly. If Queequeg, the chief harpooner in Herman Melville's Moby Dick, came back to visit Nantucket he would probably recognize many of the buildings, but not the people. The town is crawling with very prosperous tourists and families, many with young children in tow. No place on earth could be cuter, more charming, prosperous - or expensive. Shop after shop offers beautiful baubles and expensive pieces of art. The beaches, bike trails, shops and restaurants are all wonderful too. If you have the means and you dream of island living, Nantucket (ACK) might
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Published on August 27, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 23, 2010 -- Your editor was pleased to be chosen by NARFE, the National Association of Retired Federal Employees, to write the feature article, So Many Great Retirement Towns, So Hard to Choose", for the September issue of their magazine. In June NARFE asked its readers to write in with a short, Twitter length (140 characters) recommendation for why their community would make a great place for other federal workers to retire. The project was amazing because of the number and quality of responses. Hundreds of towns from all over the world were recommended, with 30 or more communities getting multiple mentions. These retired federal workers also gave dozens of fascinating reasons for selecting a community, along with strong opinions on why they wish they had not chosen certain towns (mostly
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Published on August 23, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Updated February 7, 2021 (originally published August 2010) -- Note: We added a similar article in early 2017: See "Which State Is Better for Retirement: Arizona vs. Florida".
When it comes to comparing retirement destinations, how do various states stack up against each other? There are some natural rivalries such as: the biggies (AZ vs. FL), north vs south (as in North Carolina vs. South Carolina), the Pacific Northwest (Oregon vs. Washington), the Mid-Atlantic (VA vs. DE vs. NJ), and so on. To help you decide which might be better places for you to retire, we present the first in our series of articles comparing retirement states. We welcome ideas for future comparisons (see all in the series at bottom).
Our approach in this article will be to evaluate various factors for each state, letting our readers draw their own conclusions from the facts. 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 August 23, 2010
Comments 238
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Editor's Note: We heard back from an unhappy visitor a while back who was disappointed after taking a lengthy detour to visit Maryville, Tn. She wondered how we could have ever recommended such a place, which she and her husband found ordinary and worse. After we explained that her comments would be very helpful in keeping our reviews more balanced, "Ela" graciously wrote back with a very informative note explaining what she and her husband are looking for in a retirement town. It was so good that we asked and she granted permission to reprint it
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Published on August 9, 2010
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