Another "Best Places to Retire" Article

[Bamaman]

I've never been in agreement with any lists about the best places to live. There are pros and cons in every state. And some states have some great places to live, and some rat hole societies in other regions.

I've been very fortunate to grow up and live in ultra low cost of living places. I've also been able to own 4 very large homes with house payments cheaper than rent. Instead of chasing the corporate ladder, I long ago chose to chase a low cost of living and retire early--at 58 in my case.

I like living where there are different terrains--a mixture of great farms, tall hills and incredible rivers/lakes. It's nice to live outside big cities--preferably about 40 miles. I'm fortunate to live 2 hours from 3 big cities and 3 hours from two other large cities.
And I especially like living where home prices are very low (relatively), and property taxes are ridiculously low. Last but not least is quality of healthcare, and we have wonderful hospitals close by.

And fortunately, our long term to retire young with sufficient accounts to sustain us was well executed.

 

[Al in Ohio]

I wish I could find one of these survey things, where I could check off all the boxes I'm concerned about , and then it would calculate the values based on items that actually are important to me.

For example: Things I am NOT interested in this survey are:
Golf Courses per Capita*: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) -------> I don't golf.
Elderly Food Insecurity Rate: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) ----> I have enough money for food
Elderly-Friendly Labor Market: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) --> I'm not working at Walmart ever.

Exactly my take. When I see Florida #1 that tells me all I need to know. How sbout ranking quality of home and building construction as important and elderly food insecurity not at all!

 

[Gumby]

Yeah, they should have a list of "Best Places to Retire if you don't worry about money."

 

[Retired Expat]

Even worse are those lists for the best places to retire overseas. Mostly total BS.... and some are even predicated on monetary incentives to the people making the lists!

 

[W2R]

All of these lists are wrong, because they never specify New Orleans as the best place to retire. It's not the top city on any of the easily quantified criteria. But there's more than that to choosing a retirement location that you love, and we love living here.

Here's a fun one...every time I take the quiz I get a different answer though
https://www.best-place-to-retire.com/places-to-retire-quiz

It told me Louisiana! Imagine that... So maybe this quiz is better than most.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

All of these lists are wrong, because they never specify New Orleans as the best place to retire. It's not the top city on any of the easily quantified criteria. But there's more than that to choosing a retirement location that you love, and we love living here.

It told me Louisiana! Imagine that... So maybe this quiz is better than most.

Actually, that one told me N.O. was my #2 destination!

 

[explanade]

Actually, ranking whole states is a poor way to measure, especially larger states.

For instance, if affordability and health care are their two main criteria, many states have a wide range of affordability and health care options depending on whether you live in a bigger city or out in the sticks.

There are also weather variances within many larger states as well, of course.

 

[jrcunniff]

Notice that none of the "experts" doing the rankings are actually retired. It's like getting advice on marriage from a Catholic priest. No experience and no skin in the game. My advice? Live wherever you are happy. If that's New Jersey (#50), then that's the best place for YOU to retire. Personally, you couldn't pay me to live in Florida (#1). Basing your decision on what these ratings say is the worst thing you could possibly do. Decide based on YOUR criteria and YOUR preferences. NEVER listen to a bunch of non-retired PhDs. They aren't living it. You are.

What I would think makes someone an “expert” on this topic isn’t their retirement status, but understanding what the various states/cities/communities can offer. “Retirement” for one might be spent hiking and fishing, and for another spent in museums and theater. So depending on what you’re looking for, the answer will differ. Being retired won’t give you insight into what someone wants in retirement, but knowing what each location has to offer will give you the ability to advise someone based on their preferences. That’s why I found the quiz linked above more useful than the original list of “best places” which doesn’t take into account what I’m looking for.

 

[bbqcoder]

I don’t understand how Hawaii is ranked #1 for healthcare. Can someone explain that?

 

[Nick12]

I don’t understand how Hawaii is ranked #1 for healthcare. Can someone explain that?

Decades of employer paid insurance, generous Medicaid benefits, favorable demographics.

 

[Koolau]

Decades of employer paid insurance, generous Medicaid benefits, favorable demographics.

Yeah, it's not too bad - especially if you live on Oahu, but I too was shocked to see Hawaii rated #1 in health care. It doesn't track from what I've experienced. I've known several folks who needed to go to the mainland for more specialized treatment NOT available even on Oohu. On outer Islands, some treatment can only be had by flying to Oahu. I figured it had to to with the touchy/feely stuff, not actual medical care. YMMV

 

[Al in Ohio]

We retired north to #10 (NH). Would have liked #20 (VT), but NH offered no income or sales tax, an opportunity to be with an organized like minded group of people (politically), and our only child lives here. Not to mention the only place in either state we could find an affordable (for us) new construction home in a 55+ like development near the lakes and mountains, and yet also to conveniences like medical care, shopping, activities and restaurants.


And we are now very close to VT so we can drive there whenever we want.



We actually spent 20+ years vacationing in VT and NH so we at least were knowledgeable as to what each offered and we obviously liked them enough to return every year, so a no brainer to choose.

Do you mind giving the name and location of the 55+ development? How are the winters there? Do you snowbird at all?

 

[ownyourfuture]

I spent a month in San Antonio one weekend.

 

[jurgs01]

Do you mind giving the name and location of the 55+ development? How are the winters there? Do you snowbird at all?

Free State Project?

 

[Pointby2]

I wish I could find one of these survey things, where I could check off all the boxes I'm concerned about , and then it would calculate the values based on items that actually are important to me.

For example: Things I am NOT interested in this survey are:
Golf Courses per Capita*: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) -------> I don't golf.
Elderly Food Insecurity Rate: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) ----> I have enough money for food
Elderly-Friendly Labor Market: Full Weight (~1.43 Points) --> I'm not working at Walmart ever.

Why isn't there a crowd-sourced retirement tool for choosing where to retire? Use only people that are retired in that location and have them rate the various categories on their experience. Then we could choose the importance of each category to determine what's best for us. Oh, and rank each city/metro area, not the whole state.

For us we would rate these factors highly:

• close to an airport
• climate with a mild or no winter
• low humidity and few bugs
• low taxes
• low crime rate
• moderate housing costs
• good health care
• activities like hiking/parks/shopping/entertainment

 

[harley]

Because you haven't written it yet?

 

[timo2]

Have you seen the bugs in Florida?
And, there are gators and pythons.

Many of the places on the top of those 'bests' list have terrible bugs and also big environmental issues. I don't recall ever seeing a list that considered low pollution, clean air and few bugs. DW and I made a point of considering how polluted an area was and bugs in our decision of where to retire.

 

[Music Lover]

Why isn't there a crowd-sourced retirement tool for choosing where to retire? Use only people that are retired in that location and have them rate the various categories on their experience. Then we could choose the importance of each category to determine what's best for us. Oh, and rank each city/metro area, not the whole state.

For us we would rate these factors highly:

• close to an airport
• climate with a mild or no winter
• low humidity and few bugs
• low taxes
• low crime rate
• moderate housing costs
• good health care
• activities like hiking/parks/shopping/entertainment

The problem is that everyone has a different list in a different order.

 

[Koolau]

The problem is that everyone has a different list in a different order.

Agreed. That's why I want to see all the raw data. I'll decide for myself what weighting to place on the various attributes of places.

I've mentioned before a thick book - I think this https://www.amazon.com/Places-Rated-Almanac-Classic-Finding/dp/0979319900 is the current equivalent to the one I had ca. 1990. All the data was laid out (weather statistics, housing costs, crime statistics, j*bs, local costs, etc. etc.) With that data, one could pretty much rule in or rule out various potential areas (IIRC my copy had about the same number of localities - around 380).

Having someone else condense such data with THEIR weighting and then declaring "winners and losers" seem like a fools errand. Give me the data and I'll decide. YMMV

 

[friar1610]

I was a bit surprised to see MA ranked #19 for health care. But I guess they were evaluating more than just the renowned hospitals in Boston. Still surprising to see VT ranked #3 in the same category. (Although I was perfectly happy with my health care when I lived there, as I am in MA.)

 

[FreeBear]

Many of the places on the top of those 'bests' list have terrible bugs and also big environmental issues. I don't recall ever seeing a list that considered low pollution, clean air and few bugs. DW and I made a point of considering how polluted an area was and bugs in our decision of where to retire.

Yep, many folks have very specific "must have's" or "can't stand's". For us it was no humidity, cloudiness ("gloominess" map was helpful!), snow or hurricanes. This pretty much knocked out all of the continental US except for the SW. Also, we strongly preferred a suburban part of a major metro. Just these 2 constraints plus our budget quickly got us down to 2 cities, both typically ranking middle-of-the-road in generic surveys.

We paid the price in terms of hot as h*ll summers and legions of scorpions. No free lunch, but we've learned to manage both challenges and are very happy in SE AZ.

 

[explanade]

How do you determine which ares have lots of bugs?

 

[Nemo2]

How do you determine which ares have lots of bugs?

Sales of Raid?

 

[neihn]

....
For us we would rate these factors highly:

• close to an airport
• climate with a mild or no winter
• low humidity and few bugs
• low taxes
• low crime rate
• moderate housing costs
• good health care
• activities like hiking/parks/shopping/entertainment

Check out Camas WA - I think it meets most if not all of your list.

 

[zinger1457]

We retired north to #10 (NH). Would have liked #20 (VT), but NH offered no income or sales tax...

I grew up in MA had looked into places in southern NH and found that the property taxes were very high, at least compared to where I currently live in AZ. For an equivalent priced house the property taxes were about 4X what I currently pay, more than offsetting any savings in income/sales tax.