<p>I’m like you dstark: winter comes and I’m a wuss. I think it’s a mixture of fewer hours of sun and this friggy cold house. My DH keeps our house so very cold I have to wear lots of layers, especially a fleece vest. </p>
<p>Years ago, I had hoped we’d buy land and build our dream house, but now that Sandy so severely damaged our house, I’m not interested in another construction job. I also wouldn’t know where to buy: coasts are becoming dangerous. My DH also says a second home is not good financial investment and thinks it’s smarter to rent. Problem: I like the idea of going away at will. Plus, where would I put all my extra “stuff”?!!</p>
<p>A lot of Russians (especially those from Moscow and who have more summer-focused business) spend 6 months of winter in the south of Vietnam. Some of them figure on $1000 a month for rent, food and drink. Definitely no need to buy a place there.</p>
<p>We have our second home in downtown Chicago. Love it, but not sure that we want to keep it when we retire from our retirement jobs in Madison.</p>
<p>As a footnote to nothing, I was looking at the Marriott Destination Club yesterday and saw that if we turned our Gold Aruba Ocean Club timeshare into Destination Club points we could get four weeks in Hilton Head in January at one of the non-ocean front Marriott timeshares. Temps in HHI during that month range from the 40s to the 60s.</p>
<p>We have a second home…still here in MN at the lake. Love the snow and the sunshine all winter. It is only the -30 degrees that bothers me. We can have a foot of snow fall and the roads are clear the next day and school is never cancelled. We do, however, vacation to the beach in the winter. Always head out someplace tropical in February or March.Ten years ago a friend of ours who is an actuary did the computations of owning a place in Hawaii versus renting. They are still renting. ;)</p>
<p>I have a second home, a condo, in a warmer place. We love it. It’s not too far away so it’s easy to get to.</p>
<p>Since you’re in Calif, there are places that you can drive to within a few hours to get to a warmer climate. My family members in Calif have second homes in Palm Springs, Vegas area, Temecula (little wine country area), La Jolla, etc. </p>
<p>We find that having a condo for a second home is the best of both worlds… a “get away” place with minimal upkeep. We have a small patio with a table/chairs, BBQ and a few low maintenance plants. The condo has 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, so enough room for us and guests. It also has a washer and dryer, so very much home-like.</p>
<p>There are people who are allowed to work from home on a regular basis. Neither of us are. So, second home is a waste of money for us. In addition, we like to vacation at all inclusive. If I could afford “stuff” to take care of the house, cooking, shopping,…etc. and if I was working from home than 2, 3 or more houses would sound appealing. It is not the case though.</p>
<p>This is probably an obvious tip, but we find it much easier to have a second set of most things at the second home so that packing/unpacking is very minimal. H just needs to bring his Rx’s and laptop and I bring my iPad. I even keep extra clothes/underwear/socks/jackets/shoes for our kids so that they can easily visit as well. </p>
<p>Very easy to just “get up and go” without much hassle. :)</p>
<p>Since we are usually in Chicago only for the weekend, a 2.5-3 hour drive from Madison, it is easy to leave enough there. We bought it furnished so it was just a matter of bringing our clothes. However, that does not stop my wife from packing as if she was going away for seven days instead of two.</p>
<p>We use our Marriott timeshares and collection of Marriott points for our holidays. We are going to Kauai for 10 nights January 4th using Destination Club points; 7 nights in Hilton Head on a trade in April; 12 nights in Edinburgh and London using Marriott Reward points in May/June; and 7 nights in Palm Desert at one of the Marriott timeshares over Thanksgiving using a trade.</p>
<p>dstark, I have the same interest. ShawWife, on the other hand, is Canadian and feels really alive in cold weather. But, she has agreed to accompany me to places that are either warm in the winter (which I like) or have mountains (which I love) or both (harder to find). Tucson has both, but she hated it. She says she wants a place that has a community of high quality artists working there. Interestingly, both Houston and Miami make the list. That plus desert (which I also love) was the main reason why Tucson was apparently awful (I liked it. Plus the prices were very attractive – relative to Boston, $900K buys an awesome house). For some reason, she doesn’t think San Francisco/Berkeley/Oakland does. So, we’re going to add trips Houston and Miami this winter to my already pretty busy travel schedule.</p>
<p>I can work from anywhere so I’ve actually contemplated packing my desk in my car and taking my car on the auto train to florida for a few weeks sometime. We’ll see if it happens. a friend has a family condo at the beach that their whole family uses as a second home that I could probably stay at for free.</p>
<p>We have quite a few employees who have moved there and then when they come up here to visit they just stay with friends and work in the office. It’s a nice set up!</p>
<p>I know most people love San Francisco. But our family was in SF last July for a personal event, and - I did say July, right? - I have a picture of all of us standing on the street in gloves, scarves and multiple layers of sweatshirts. July.</p>
<p>Coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco-Mark Twain. </p>
<p>Yes, I think summers right on the northern CA coast are torture. But there are microclimates where it can be warmer, often separated by a ridge, or a few blocks inland. I want summer when it is summer, not cool fog. Which is part of why I live in Wisconsin. Summer, when not a heat wave here, is heaven. </p>
<p>With this impending storm, not so fun. I don’t mind shoveling, I don’t mind January, I bike and walk when it is above 20 degrees. But I hate icy sidewalks and roads, which keep me from exercising outside. However, Wisconsin with global warming, is becoming more tolerable. </p>
<p>But, there are good reasons for going south eventually. If I dislike winter now, I’ll be even more unhappy at age 80. And, growing in up AZ, it feels like home, if becoming hotter all the time. Most winters I visit my mom in central AZ for a few weeks. Just doing her yard work makes me happy in Feb! </p>
<p>My dream has always been Mexico, or Thailand. Cheap enough to justify the airfare, and culturally interesting.</p>
<p>We had the warm-climate condo for four years. It was fun, but… several days of every trip had to be spent finding repair people and getting the work done. Then there was the catch of going to the same warm place every time (much as we loved it). We finally worked out that for the same money we could do two month-long vacations pretty much anywhere we wanted every year. So we sold. Now we rent through VRBO and let someone else have all the headaches while we get all the fun.</p>
Love the snow and the sunshine all winter. It is only the -30 degrees that bothers me. We can have a foot of snow fall and the roads are clear the next day and school is never cancelled. We do, however, vacation to the beach in the winter. Always head out someplace tropical in February or March.Ten years ago a friend of ours who is an actuary did the computations of owning a place in Hawaii versus renting. They are still renting. ;)</p>
He can take his IPad and be ready to go. I wish I could, but I can’t.</p>