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Try It NOWCategory: Best Retirement Towns and States
September 1, 2021 — Easy walking to town, parks, and shopping always emerges as a top consideration for choosing a retirement destination when we survey our members. Here are 10 small cities and towns in the southeast where walking is easy and a joy. Since almost every small town is…
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 23, 2021 — A successful retirement should be fun! After all, what was the point of all of those years of hard work and saving. Even more so, it is hard to be a grumpy old man (or woman) if you live in a place where fun is all…
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
August 10, 2021 -
(Note: This is an update to our 2018 article on "The Best 10 States for Retirement", which generated almost 100 interesting comments).
One good way to determine the best state for retirement is is to look at which states retirees are moving to. SmartAsset.com analyzed US Census Bureau data to explore which states have the highest retirement age net migration - the number of people age 60 and over moving into a state minus the number moving out. In effect, it is a measure of how people voted with their moving vans. Here is what SmartAsset came up with when examining data from 2019: (T indicates a state with no income tax)
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
July 18, 2021 -- Some people thinking about retiring to Florida might worry that they won't be able to afford it there. But the good news is that the Sunshine State is so big and has so many regions that it has plenty of less expensive places to retire. Central Florida is one of the most affordable regions within the State, where home prices are often well below Zillow's national Home Value Index of $293,349 and Florida's Index of $297,390. Home to hundreds of thousands of retirees, the area is known for its many lakes and lakeside living. The area is filled with active adult communities, many of which are quite inexpensive.
In this article we will highlight several cities and towns in Central Florida where home prices are below Zillow's Florida Home Value Index. We will include a few more towns that are at or slightly higher, because they are exceptionally nice places to retire. Unless otherwise noted, home prices are from Zillow. See map below:
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
June 26, 2021 -- Getting around on a bicycle is becoming more and more popular. People use their bikes to get to work, for exercise, or just for fun. Biking is inexpensive transportation, gets you outside, parking is a cinch, and it's a healthy activity. The growing popularity of electric bikes, with the extra help they provide on long rides and hills, has helped to get even more people into cycling. So, just as they do for every popular activity, publications are coming out with lists of the cities and towns that are "best for biking". We will highlight some of their choices here.
But first, what makes for a great biking town? The website Lawnstarter used a long list of considerations to score and rank the largest 200 U.S. cities on biking. Their multiple rating criteria fell into five categories: climate, bike lanes and routes, bike shops and bike share programs, safety, and community support. Safety features like bike lanes separated from car traffic and dedicated crossings were among the most important considerations, since biking isn't fun and can be dangerous if speeding cars get too close. Icy cold winter weather, steamy hot summers, and car traffic were negative factors used in the ratings. PeopleforBikes.com rated even more towns, including smaller ones, to find out which are the best for biking. It used similar criteria to rate the towns it considered, such as the number of bike lanes and trails, ability to use multiple routes to get to the same place, bike parking, number of bike shops, safety, and slow speeds for cars. See video below from PeopleforBikes on what makes a best biking city. When you are checking out places to retire, don't forget to keep your eyes open to what it would be like if you wanted to get around there on two wheels.
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
June 20, 2021 — Virginia’s recent Comment to our “25 Most Popular Active Communities in the Southeast” article really got things going. Many folks jumped in to help answer her question, which asked what people thought about retiring in Maryland. Since hers generated so many other Comments (and Maryland is…
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
June 19, 2021 — If you are a retiree looking for a place to retire that offers superior outdoor recreational opportunities – you are in luck! There are countless towns in this country where mountains, lakes, rivers, or trails are just outside your door. In addition to traditional activities like…
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 27, 2021 — Not everyone dreams of retiring in an active community, a small town, or the suburbs. There is a sizable group of baby boomers who yearn for something bigger than that. For these folks, retiring in a small or medium sized city might be just the ticket.
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 19, 2021 — Last week we asked our Members to tell us where they retired, or where they are considering. The response, although certainly not overwhelming, did come up with a lot more suggestions. To see all of them you can go to the Comments from that article,…
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
May 11, 2021 -- Maybe the question should be, "Where Are You Going to Retire", as many of our Members have either not yet retired, or haven't quite come to a final decision. We all want to know about those greener pastures that beckon(ed) to you. Or perhaps, you have decided to retire where you live now, either in the same home or in a different neighborhood. Whatever the case, the Topretirements community is very interested in your plans, because where people are actually retiring is always a lot more interesting than what all those "best places to retire" articles come up with.
Knowing what other people are thinking about gives people ideas as well as food for thought. There will be many possibilities where baby boomers are retiring that you hadn't thought about, as well as considerations that you hadn't taken into account before. To get things started, we have copied a sampling of suggestions from over 140 Comments we received a few years ago on this topic (although that Blog was specifically about where singles will retire, most of the Comments were applicable to couples as well as singles).
Your thoughts please! We encourage everyone reading this Blog to give us at least a sentence or two about where you retire, or the places you are considering. If everyone will do that, which will only take a minute, we will have an amazingly rich resource that thousands of people will find fascinating. Just go to the Comments section at the end of this article and give us a sentence (or more about why if you would like). In some cases we have to approve it before it goes live, but we will try to do that quickly. Thanks!
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