My wife and I are eyeing St Augustine as a retirement spot. How do you like it there? Pros? Cons?I live in St Augustine. I would not personally want to live in Daytona.
My wife and I are eyeing St Augustine as a retirement spot. How do you like it there? Pros? Cons?I live in St Augustine. I would not personally want to live in Daytona.
My wife and I are eyeing St Augustine as a retirement spot. How do you like it there? Pros? Cons?
We live in Sarasota and love it here. It is pricey, but we like townhouse living, so we were able to find something that worked with our budget.
We are 5 miles (driving) from the beach. It takes about 15 minutes to get to the beach in season (traffic is definitely an issue in Sarasota, especially in season).
I would not live east of 75. Much warmer, from what I hear (less breeze from the gulf), and as noted earlier the drive to the beach is long.
Do note, Sarasota is getting more and more crowded. The difference between season and not season is not as great as it used to be, according to those I have talked to who have lived here for years.
There are SO many beautiful beaches in SW Florida. I would take some time to do a traveling vacation and check them all out.
Is "the beach" for you Longboat Key?
That's one of the beaches, although we are closer to Siesta.
We have a place on Longboat Key. We are planning to move there full time when I'm completely retired in a few years. We love SW Florida and the Sarasota area in particular. For a retirement lifestyle, I think the west coast is much better than the east coast, but I have retired friends who live on the east coast and love it. To each his own. On Longboat Key, there are many days in the off season when I can walk out to the beach and not see a single person as far as I can see in either direction. Its incredible.
You are so funny. We tell people driving US 101 from LA to Santa Barbara the same thing about Ventura CountyWe live in the Space Coast. It's awful here. Probably best just to pass it by as you head south on 95.
You are so funny. We tell people driving US 101 from LA to Santa Barbara the same thing about Ventura County
We just came back from house & community hunting in South West Florida. I know it is in season, but the traffic was terrible in comparison to where we live in NE Florida. We actually drove around from Marco Island up to Estero, many times in 3 days at all hours of the day. Other than that most of the communities that we liked were at least 5 miles to 10 miles from the beach. That is 15 to 25 minutes as I drove. We mainly were looking at the Naples area.
Some other things we noticed is that a lot of the homes still had damage from Irma and had tarps on the roof and missing tiles etc.
In addition to get an evening meal at Carabbas, Bonefish Grill, and other similar places was a 45 - 1 hour wait at the times we wanted to have supper.
On the home front, the houses are well built.
Saying all that, the homes in the price range we were looking are very nice and the developments are also very nice. The communities are well kept and looked after.
Next time we will look in the Venice area, although we drove back through Venice and it was certainly not as nice as Naples.
We never got bitten while we were there either (That did surprise me) and we were not molested by any roaming Alligators.....
Daytona can be a little busy and rough (though it does have a beautiful beach), but the towns just north and south -- Ormond Beach and New Smyrna Beach -- are quite nice. My DW and I recently moved to a spacious condo in Ormond just off the beach and have great bike trails, parks and nearly a dozen (non-chain) restaurants within walking distance. New Smyrna is a bit smaller, but still a charming artists colony. The half-million population Daytona/Deland metro area is big enough for most needs and has a sweet local airport in Daytona (with non-stops to NY, Charlotte and Atlanta). And, Orlando and Jacksonville are each only about an hour away if you need access to a big city airports and amenities.
St. Augustine, about 45 minutes up the coast, is also a wonderful college town, with easy access to Jacksonville. But it may be a bit chillier in winter!