I live in a tourist destination overrun with short term vacation rentals. As much as HOAs get a bad rap, I’m happy ours forbids them.
Getting back OT, H and I are retired and do embrace the “travel while you can” mindset. I don’t like being gone much more than two weeks at a time because of commitments at home.
I’m sympathetic to the concerns of the locals, but they’re targeting the wrong people. Shoot water on the landlords and the others responsible for the overrun of tourists.
(Loved Barcelona ten years ago and have wanted to return, but maybe not at the moment)
Has anyone done a Rocky Mountaineer trip? Looks wonderful, but quite expensive. Would love to hear reviews before making a decision.
I highly recommend having friends who retire to nice places so you can visit them. Off to Hilton Head Island next week. I have a friend who has a Mexican time share and she’s taken me the last two years. Another friend in Tucson who has invited me but my daughter is getting married that week so that’s a future trip.
Another up near Aspen (gorgeous home, husband can take us river rafting), one in Augusta GA…so many places to visit, so little time.
We thought we would have tons of friends coming to visit after we moved to San Diego to a house with a resort like yard and pool. We were wrong. Still trying to decide if it’s us or them!
I’ll add you to my rotation!
When we moved to Colorado, we had many (MANY) visitors, not really from our last home (Wisconsin) but from my parents’ original home in Mass. We had our list of places to visit, and went to church almost every Sunday at the Air Force Academy to show our guests. Finally it got to the point that we’d just tell them where to go (Pike’s Peak, US Mint, Rocky Mtn park)
Did you move there for retirement? We are seriously considering Fort Collins. There is so much to offer. We are shocked at everything you can access through Olli, CSU, the rec. center, the senior center, and town wide art, music and outdoor festivals. And as an added bonus, it’s gluten-free heaven.
Hi! Need a new friend? 
We moved to a loft in Soho in NYC (something like the loft in the movie Big with Tom Hanks and not fancily renovated) when we were in our mid-late 30s. Everyone we had ever met decided that they were coming to NYC and wanted to stay with us. After a while, we had to start saying no. It was 2700 sf and ShawWife was working in 900-1000 sf of it, so having people coming in and out was disrupting her work.
Then of course we had ShawSon, whose inability to sleep through the night for the next 12 years discouraged visitors.
We now have a beautiful house surrounded by conservation land on the bank of a river with a salt water pool and and art studio within the larger metropolitan area and no one comes to visit. We’re busy so not offended but like you @Marilyn a bit surprised. It will be a phenomenal place when grandchildren arrive.
@Marilyn - we spent decades living near DC- not really a resort/beach location, but one which offers a lot of attractions for tourists. Our small town Midwest family rarely visited.
OTOH our D and SIL’s New York friends love visiting in our current city!
We normally have minimal people staying at our home, other than our kids and DIL. This year, we will have a house guest in September and a couple in October.
Our next door neighbor has frequent house guests—while they’re here and while they’re away! Its friends they had who moved away and people they worked with at the university.
I moved to Colorado in high school! (and my parents were about 40, so not for retirement either).
Ft Collins is often listed as one of the best places to retire. Nice size town, close enough to Denver for anything needed (major medical, airport, sports, cultural things like symphony, theater, museums). Colorado taxes are on the lower side, there are a lot of amenities that are low cost or free (hiking trails, state parks, rec centers) as the state lottery funds them.
I had enjoyed visiting Denver until my lungs decided the altitude just wasn’t working for them. I’d advise a prolonged visit of several months in “adverse weather” before deciding whether to move to a particular location or not. I’ve heard of lots of folks who moved and then decided new venue wasn’t what they hoped and ended up having to relocate again.
Average home price $572,000! I always look prices up for places people say are nice to live.
My nephew and his wife are in Denver for her work right now.
Apparently the house they bought is pretty underwhelming for the price they paid.
I told him that it will be good when they sell and move back to Michigan that hopefully it will appreciate better than housing in Michigan
Denver prices are very high (and I was surprised on the thread for the best place for new grads to live as rent prices are high too).
But Fort Collins is rural enough that there are places to live that are cheaper. The college kids use the housing ‘in town’ (around the main street near the college) so that’s higher. Not Boulder high but still higher than most families want to pay so they live farther from the center of town.
Colorado has the Tabor law (sort of like Prop 13 in California) so the real estate taxes stay relatively low in most counties. I used to live in a neighboring county to Denver but one with the best school system. My taxes would inch up year to year and then fall again when people who were much richer than me (Peyton Manning, Joe Sakic) would build huge mansions and cause my little townhouse to be a much lower percentage of the max allowed by law to be collected in taxes.
My brother just sold his apartment in Steamboat for a small fortune because there just aren’t enough places to live in the mountain towns. Ft. Collins is cheaper than average Colorado real estate prices.
We’re actually traveling to Colorado next year - sometime between May and July. We are avid hikers. I’ve just started planning and I am super excited.
I should mention that we live in a beautiful, historic town that gets lots of tourist traffic.
@leigh22, I hike every year in the Canadian Rockies and almost every year in Colorado. For years, in places like Brainerd Lake or in Estes Park but now in the Sangre de Cristo range. Wonderful places. Some of them like Brainerd Lake near Ward (I think, outside of Boulder) can be snowy even in July.
S23 goes to school at Colorado State which is how we fell in love with it. DH has lung issues, but it didn’t bother him.
I agree, we are thinking of renting for a year. Especially in a housing market where houses go within days. Even if we love the town, we’d still have to figure out where in town we’d want to be.
That’s a lot less then where we are coming from.
Average home price of $572K sounds good to me compared to where I live in Southern California!