Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
July 20, 2010. You've heard of the most affordable places to retire. The most tax-friendly places. The best retirement towns for the arts, or for bicycling, golf, libraries, bookstores... etc. In fact, Topretirements has reported on all of those elsewhere on this site. But there is another sub-category of best places to retire that you might never considered - livability.
Livability means many things to different people. We just read an article at New York Magazine, "The Most Livable Neighborhoods in New York", where the author devised his personal livability formula. In it he identified the factors that
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Published on July 20, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
This article is part of a series. See "For Further Reading" section at end for links to the rest of the articles Updated February 17, 2020 with current prices
Originally published June 15, 2010 -- What's not to like about retiring to a place on or near the water - except maybe the price that usually comes with that lifestyle. Until the polar icecaps melt some more, no one is making any more ocean front property, which means that as a rule only wealthy people can afford to pay for the privilege of watching the sun come up and down over the water from their front porches. Fortunately for the careful shopper though, there are different kinds of waterfront, some some of them affordable. To get helpful articles like this on a regular basis, sign up for our Free weekly "Best Places" newsletter.The first place we started when researching this article was our own Retirement Ranger. When we took our free, 10 question quiz we tried to keep it simple - we specified only 2 environmental selections - "coastal" and "lakefront" and "lower than average" cost of living. The Ranger came back with 100 choices in the USA, from which we chose 11 for this article.
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Published on June 14, 2010
Comments 178
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 25, 2010 -- You've probably been at a party where you discovered you didn't know a soul. Remember the feeling you got when a total stranger came up to you with a friendly smile and welcomed you? With that one warm greeting your anxiety probably went down, you stopped second-guessing your decision to come, and you started to enjoy the party. When it comes to retiring to a strange place, states and towns that seek out retirees might give you that same warm feeling. This article will explore what we think makes for retirement-friendly states, cities, and towns.
Types of friendliness
States (and towns and cities) have several types of friendliness that they could offer:
- Economic. This is mostly available in the form of tax relief, of which
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Published on May 24, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 18, 2010 -- Nobody loves a good list more than we do. To that end we decided to come out with our own 10 Best of the Best List. Our goal here is to assemble the best of Topretirements in one place, making it easier for our visitors to find our best stuff, quickly and easily. In this list you will find:
- The best places (towns and cities) to retire
- The best places in the world to retire
- The best under-rated places to retire
- The best active adult and 55+ communities
- The best retirement feature articles
- The best retirement blog stories
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Published on May 18, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 4, 2010 and updated April 6, 2015 -- Florida and Arizona have long been the favorite 2 states for retirement migration. A study from Del Webb, however, finds that the Carolinas, North and South, might have usurped FL and AZ's traditional positions as the favorite retirement destination states. This article will concentrate on how and why North Carolina overcame Florida to become the number 1 retirement destination in some people's eyes. In addition to trying to explain how this important shift has come about, we will also review some of the top places to retire in this diverse state. We encourage you to read all of the articles in our Dueling Retirement series (listed at the end of this article), including: Dueling Carolinas: NC vs. SC
North Carolina's Secret Sauce
A warm winter climate has traditionally been the most important reason
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Published on May 4, 2010
Comments 53
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
There are so many different factors to consider when it comes to choosing your best place to retire. Climate, cultural and political environment, location, cost of living, taxes, and recreational opportunities - just to name a few. But there is another key factor to be considered that can dramatically affect your quality of life - walkability. This article will explore how the ability to walk to most of your daily activities and chores can not only enhance the quality of your life, but be a good investment as well.
In its "Tale of Two Cities" article The Daily Kos recently reported on the contrast between a very walkable town and another where residents need a car to go just about anywhere. Both Venice (FL) and Lehigh Acres (near Ft. Myers, FL) began as planned communities. But the similarities stop there. Venice has a beautiful
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Published on April 20, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
April 5, 2010 -- There are as many theories about where baby boomers will retire to as there are people writing about the topic. There are certain patterns though, and they can be helpful to others who are pondering the question: "What is the best place for me to retire to?" This article will explore the question of how many people move in retirement (and how far), why they are moving, and where they are moving to. We finish up the article with an extremely interesting report - the real places where Topretirements' visitors have told us they are moving to.
How Many People Move in Retirement?
According to a recent study by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research, "Americans on the Go: How Often, Where, and Why?", and results from the Census Bureau, not very many older Americans move in
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Published on April 5, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
February 24, 2010 – Editor's Note: This list has just been updated (2/24/11) for 2014: "Sunbelt Rules in 2011 List of 100 Best Places to Retire". This 2010 list is still worth reading, though. Some of its best features are the 88 comments made - it's interesting to see how many communities recommended here made the list in 2011!
The Sunbelt is still shining when it comes to best places to retire. Every year Topretirements.com publishes a list of the 100 most popular places to retire. This year 68 of the 100 top positions were occupied by towns in the Sunbelt. Florida dominated the list, taking 23 of the spots, followed by North Carolina (11) and South Carolina (8). The list is hardly static - 25 new towns made it
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Published on February 23, 2010
Comments 89
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
With the Superbowl successfully behind us, anxious sports fans are ready for the next season to get started. For baseball fans the wait will be short, as spring training gets underway next week. Spring training is one of the great joys and advantages of a snowbird retirement. Your favorite team is once again in your home town, tickets are affordable and plentiful, and the parks are so close together that you can even travel to road games. Baseball's owners are no dummies either, they have picked some of the best places to host their spring training camps; most of these towns make the best places to retire lists for lots of other reasons too.
Spring training is thought to have started out in 1870 when the Chicago Whitestockings and the Cincinnati Redstockings ventured down to New Orleans to prepare for the season. Other historians credit the
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Published on February 8, 2010
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Picking towns for "best places to retire" lists can get to be a lot like selecting prom dates - the bright lights overshadow the deserving candidates who don't get asked to the big party. All too often the result is best places to retire myopia - too many lists that share the same old towns and cities - Asheville, Athens, Austin, Beaufort, etc. Don't miss Part 2 of this series: "Beyond Asheville: More Under-rated Places to Retire", or Part 3: 5 More Under-Appreciated Places to Retire.
This week we set out to identify 20 best retirement towns that aren't on that many lists. We looked for towns that we know are terrific, but don't seem to have the press that their more famous brethren do. Some will be familiar and some will not. Our apologies to all of the other great places to retire whose lights are still hiding under the basket; please give us your nominations in the Comments section below.
Bisbee, Arizona. Bisbee is an historic mining town in south central Arizona, almost at the Mexican border. If you are looking for an interesting, off-beat place to retire, Bisbee might be the place.
Flagstaff, Arizona. At an altitude of 6910 feet the climate is dry and much cooler in the summer than anywhere else in Arizona. Cecil B. DeMille tried
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Published on January 11, 2010
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