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
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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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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
If there was ever a subjective question, "what is the best state for retirement" must certainly rank right up there. After all it is a very personal question, almost as personal as your preference in mates or sports teams. To try to avoid too much controversy we shall answer the question in terms of what you, our Topretirements visitors, seem to prefer when it comes to retirement states. Note: Don't miss our late 2010 piece on the other side of the equation, "10 Worst Retirement States". Or the 2011 edition of this story, "Best States for Retirement - 2011".
For most people the best state to retire question is easy - some 80% or more retire in the state where they live now. But for those folks who are thinking about moving on down the road in later life, the reasons why some
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Published on December 21, 2009
Comments 26
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Note: This is a 4 part series. See links to the other parts in Further Reading below.
Nov. 2014 -- College towns make great retirement towns for a lot of reasons. Above all they are interesting places to live with plenty of cultural opportunities, adult education, and athletic events. The shopping, infrastructure... even the day-to-day ambiance is a lot more fun. For many retirees, having young people in the community provide a pleasant antidote to a steady diet of older people.
This article will explore some of our favorite college towns with 3 selection criteria:
- They had to be affordable (median homes below the national
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Published on December 14, 2009
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Nothing gets us quite as pumped up as finding another interesting spin on a "Best Places to Retire" list. This week we were pleased to discover National Geographic Magazine's list of "Best adventure towns. While it is not new (it's from 2007) or exactly aimed at retirees , it is a fun list. Here is our take on their selections
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Published on December 7, 2009
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
October 26, 2009 - (Editor's Note: There are several articles in this "Affordable Places to Retire" series. See "Further Reading" at end for links to the rest in the series)
In our recent article, "Whackiest Best Places to Retire List", we poked a little fun at some of the "Best Places to Retire" lists our big named publishing brethren keeping come up with. In so doing we promised to come up with our own "Best Affordable List", and here it is.
St. Petersburg Harbor
The exercise of identifying our "Affordable" List proved to be very interesting, and challenging, on many levels (see end of article for further explanation). The major challenge was exactly what criteria would we apply? Would
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Published on October 26, 2009
Comments 109
Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
Readers love best places to retire (or live) lists. Publishers are crazy about them because... (read first sentence again). But good grief, is there is no end to zany lists?
Consider three such lists put out recently. First one from U.S. News, another in a long string of "best places to live" from this magazine.
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Published on October 19, 2009
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