Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
January 6, 2020 - The coronavirus and the election might have been the two big national stories in 2020, but Topretirements Members and visitors had some other issues on their minds as well. We published almost 100 Blog stories last year, and it turns out that once again, features that highlight great places to retire almost always come out on top. Here are the most popular articles on Topretirements last year, 2020. As always, we appreciate any future story ideas you might have too.
20 Great Places to Retire on a Lake. This article picked the top 20 communities from the 122 lake towns reviewed on Topretirements. We focused on places where it is possible to live on or near the lake, with some kind of nearby town for entertainment and the necessities of life. This story from January was the runaway favorite of the year.
10 Best of the Best Places to Retire for 2020 In this "Best of the Best" review, we picked 10 towns from lists of our 60 Best Retirement Towns in three major U.S. retirement regions. Asheville (NC), a frequent winner, came out of top.
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Published on January 6, 2021
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
January 3, 2020 -- Hundreds of millions of Americans can't wait to have a coronavirus vaccine pumped into their arms. The problem is the wait could be long, and the process to get one could turn into the wild west - every person for themself. Evidence of that is already happening in places like Fort Myers, FL, where seniors are camping out over night in a chaotic effort to get a shot because Lee county has no online system for appointments. Officials say that was necessary because eager vaccine seekers are crashing online vaccination systems. We earnestly hope the process of vaccinating America doesn't turn into a disaster as the unprepared authorities botch the rollout.
The ball is in your court
Consider this: it is highly unlikely that you will get a phone call or person knocking on your door, telling you where and when to go to get your shot. How soon will you get one? Sadly, that probably depends on you. To help, here are some steps you can take and a few resources.
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Published on January 2, 2021
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Category: Travel
December 30, 2020 - A new survey from SnowbirdAdvisor.ca estimates that only 31% of Canadian snowbirds will make the trip south this winter. Problems crossing the U.S. border for non-essential travel, quarantines, and concerns about catching Covid are some of the reasons. Besides the impact on Canadians who will have to spend a winter in the cold, the communities that rely on them to support their winter economies will also suffer. According to the website about 1 million Canadians ordinarily spend the winter in the U.S. or some other warm climate.
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Published on December 29, 2020
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Category: Active adult communities
By Jackie: (This was an unsolicited contribution by one of our Members who has retired to The Villages. It is so rich in detail we thought it had to be published on its own. See bottom of article for links to other articles on The Villages).
December 27, 2020 -
"The Villages is an incredible place to retire to".
Jackie
I spent the first 60 years of my life visiting family and friends mostly in Key West, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Tamarac, Boca, Delray, West Palm Beach, Naples, Fort Myers, Clearwater, New Port Richey, Sarasota, The Villages and Ponte Vedra. I knew 10 years ago I wanted to move to The Villages (TV), but my husband was keen on either Naples or Delray. So about 4 1/2 years ago I decided to retire to Delray Beach after looking for a home to buy over a 5 year period. Then I stayed at my aunt’s house in The Villages for a long weekend for a family wedding. After that we decided to cancel our plans for Delray and move to the Villages instead. We have not regretted our decision.
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Published on December 27, 2020
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Category: Singles and Retirement
December 21, 2020 -- The most helpful and valuable input we get on this site comes from you our Members. And when it comes to where single people should be looking to retire, and what they should be looking for, with your comments we hit the jackpot! There is really nothing better than detailed input about real places from real people. Special thanks to Moderator Flo for suggesting this.
In this article we will reprint some of the most practical and informative Member suggestions about retirement for singles from many different Blog articles on this site. There are many suggestions about specific places to retire where singles will be happy, what types of communities you should consider, organizations to join where you can meet folks, and strategies for meeting and making new friends. At the end we have provided a list of our previous articles about singles and retirement, with many tips, ideas, and dozens of Member comments.
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Published on December 19, 2020
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
December 19, 2020 -- A very popular retirement-age calculator now is Livingto100. Developed by Dr. Thomas Perls, it asks a raft of fairly predictable questions and then provides an estimate of how long you will live, along with tailored advice. The questions makes a lot of sense - if you are healthy and avoid most of the bad things (drinking, smoking, stress, obesity), and do the good things (exercise, have friends, brain activities, floss, wear sunscreen, etc.), and your parents lived to ripe old ages - you have a good shot at living to 100. Which leads us to the connection to Winston Churchill, who, despite legendary bad habits, lived to 90 years old. How did he do it, and what can we learn from his experience?
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Published on December 18, 2020
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Category: General Retirement Issues
December 15, 2020 -- We are pleased to announce the winners for the "Best Retirement Planning Articles" of 2020. The criteria for this first ever award are that the writing is thoughtful, timely, interesting, and helpful to retirees and prospective retirees. We tried to concentrate on more practical topics and avoided Top 10 lists, as they are ubiquitous and sometimes a little silly. Our hope is that you will enjoy and learn from these great examples of writing about retirement planning.
Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels
To come up with the winners we reviewed retirement-related articles on the main websites that we use for collecting retirement ideas. Those include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, NextAvenue, Squared Away Blog, AARP, Robert Powell at TheStreet.com, The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, etc. We also looked through Topretirements.com for 2020 articles that were inspired by reporting at other media outlets. We tried to choose from a variety of these sources to spread the glory around. As few of these sites are behind a pay wall, so we have tried to provide permalinks. In some cases, however, you might not be able to read the article unless you subscribe. Real, honest journalism is under siege from sources that will make up anything outrageous to get readers, so please support organizations like these that rely on the facts and honest data.
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Published on December 15, 2020
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Category: Best Retirement Towns and States
December 7, 2020 -- With the pandemic putting a damper on travel, many people are postponing their winter time retirement explorations. As a partial substitute for those travels, here in Part 1 of this series we will provide a virtual tour of some of the best places to retire in Southwest Florida. In Part 2 we featured a tour of Arizona places to retire. Future installments will cover Florida's East Coast, Central Florida, the Carolinas, and others suggested by our Members.
Best Places to Retire in Southwest Florida
Southwestern Florida starts just above Tampa and goes south to Marco Island. This 180 mile stretch probably has more places to retire than anywhere in the world, with the possible exception of the southeast coast of FL from Vero Beach to Miami. Here on the Gulf Coast there are barrier islands, 3 good sized cities (Tampa/St.Pete, Sarasota, and Fort Myers), fabulous beaches, endless waterfronts and waterways, and a variety of towns that make for interesting places to retire. There are thousands of active adult and 55+ communities, ranging from budget RV/Mobile Home parks to exclusive refuges catering to the 1%.
Anyone looking for a warm winter retirement should definitely at least consider this area - when safe travel resumes again a leisurely exploration would be well worth it. While you are there, if certain towns and areas appeal, you might consider a Stay and Play package or monthly rental to see if you really like the place. Note: Most of the names of the cities and towns in this article are linked to more detailed reviews as places to retire.
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Published on December 6, 2020
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Category: Health and Wellness Issues
December 4, 2020 — Been wondering exactly where you stand when it comes to getting a Covid vaccine? We know we have been. Out this morning is a very cool tool to help you get a better idea, depending on where you live, your age, occupation, and any health care…
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Published on December 4, 2020
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Category: Travel
December 2, 2020 -- While up north there has already been plenty of snow and ice, that doesn't mean that all the snowbirds have taken flight to warmer climes. The Covid pandemic seems to have clipped the wings of a significant number of people in the northeast, midwest, and Canada, as reported in the South Florida Sentinel, which recently published an article interviewing officials in communities and the tourist industry. Although precise figures are hard to come by, it is clear that not everyone is going to come south. The article's conclusions line up with results from the Topretirements Blog article on snowbirding this winter, which generated 29 comments.
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Published on December 1, 2020
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