What about Escondido CA?
St Petersburg, FL. Wonderfully diverse, museums, shops, wall murals, parks, hiking and biking trails, 1st class entertainment, lots of cultural events. Level II trauma center downtown and level I is in Tampa. Two airports, St. Pete/Clearwater and Tampa International- 30 min. Beach is 15 min from downtown. A number of colleges and universities in St. Pete and Tampa that offer events, lectures, shows, etc. Downtown is also on the water. Lots of choices in rentals, no state income tax. Mc Dill AFB is 30 min away with DOD jobs. Bay Pines VA has lots of jobs too.
Colorado supposedly has 300 days of sunshine. When visitors complain (with justification) that weather is unpredictable … I joke - “Yea, we learn to take our 300 days of sunshine whenever they come”.
Weatherspark is a great resource. Scroll down to see the annual “Average HIgh and Low” graph (temp ranges by month) - it is jam packed with good info.
Example - https://weatherspark.com/y/3561/Average-Weather-in-Boulder-Colorado-United-States-Year-Round
We visited Boulder and loved it! A friend who is moving out of our area to Montana - I asked why not move to Boulder and she said it is just as expensive as our town in the Bay Area - I’m always super skeptical when people say that because nothing can be as expensive as here - but when I checked Zillow for homes for sale in Boulder there were tiny run down houses for $1.3m — yup same as here! Lol
My husband was looking at that site and we use a chart showing when the humidity is “miserable,” “oppressive” and some other categories. As we get older, we find that constant heat and humidity are not so fun. We were considering Wilmington, NC but between the risk of hurricanes and the amount of the year the weather is in the miserable/oppressive categories, I don’t think we’re as interested.
@1214mom my in-laws retired to Ocean Isle Beach NC, about an hour south of Wilmington, and we have visited often in the summer. I didn’t find the weather to be oppressive at all- but they do live about a mile or so from the ocean.
Thanks @milgymfam, we may go visit there a couple of times before we rule it out completely. We are also worried about hurricanes. We are a couple of years out from moving, but I’m doing research/narrowing our list of places now. Our criteria is different from yours, so I don’t want to hi-jack your thread.
@milgymfam
Thank you for starting this thread. We are struggling with the same question. Much like you, we have been fairly nomadic since we got married. We have lived on both coasts, down south and now in the northeast. Where we live now is certainly not my terminal home/region and honestly we have no clue where to go when we retire.
Ours will not be based on what our kids are doing. We have one applying to med school in the not so distant future and another heading off to college who does not want to stay in the area that we are in now. (Neither do I).
My husband will retire WAY before our kids are settled so we will pick a place where we want to be, except we can’t agree on that whatsoever.
I appreciate all of the suggestions that have been made.
I am sick of suburbia. I would love to live in a high rise with a water view, walk to everything. I could have that where I live now except that I don’t want it to be cold…ever. I don’t want to live in Florida or California.
So please keep the suggestions coming for the OP! Thanks @milgymfam, I am going to keep sponging off of your replies.