I’m Thinking About Retiring in: New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maine

October 18, 2021 – Editors Note: This is part of our series comparing various states as places to retire, such as “Dueling Carolinas: NC vs. SC for Retirement“. There is a list of all of “Dueling” comparisons at the end of this article. We welcome ideas for future ones.

Not everybody heads to the Sunbelt once they hit retirement age. Many people don’t mind cold weather, and they love the idea of being in a state with mountains and a beautiful natural environment. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are extremely popular choices that fit that bill; each state has many admirers. Many snowbirds live in these northern New England states and get the best of both worlds by heading south in the winter (and a few people do the reverse).

This article will first compare some basic facts about retirement in each state. In Part 2 you will see the actual (slightly edited for space) words of Topretirements Members who have lived or retired in each state, so you see what they are like straight from the horse’s mouth. Concerning those comments, we got a big surprise using a new tool that allowed us to see which states were mentioned the most. We assumed the most popular state in the comments would be New Hampshire, which has a reputation for being tax-friendly. To our surprise, Maine, with 287 mentions, was overwhelmingly the most discussed. Vermont had 69, and New Hampshire came in last with 56. When we looked at readership of other Topretirements pages by state, Maine came out on top there too – a lot of people are intrigued by it. So much our popularity predictions!

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.)