Boulder is wonderful, but housing costs are high. Also there is plenty of traffic. We live about 20 miles away (housing much more affordable), and we will likely stay here after retirement. There is winter weather, but with 300 days of sunshine the snow melts quickly.
Some input on Missoula:
That area is the eastern edge of Pacific Northwest climate, so it’s very often deeply overcast in winter, not to mention few hours of daylight, such as it is. Missoula gets weather inversions combined with wood burning stoves to equal smog! Betcha didn’t think it got smoggy in Montana! Also freezing rain and icy road conditions are frequent in winter.
Now if you plan on skiing all winter, oftentimes ski slopes may be sunny while the valley below is socked in (I don’t have any particular knowledge of ski areas near Missoula, speaking based on other areas around Montana).
Mayo Clinic is also in Phoenix/Scottsdale with lots of desired amenities in the area. 
Before we moved down to the SE valley, our old sub was directly across the street from the Mayo campus. The west entrance of our new community is directly across the street (shares a stop light) from the emergency entrance to a heart hospital. Lots of good hospitals and clinics in AZ focusing on geriatric medicine.
If you move to the wilderness and winding needing knee replacement, you are going to be a big burden on someone.
My son went to a boarding school that really wasn’t that close to good medical practitioners and it was a problem for running injuries, PT, etc. Glad he went where he did, but things were sure a lot easier when he got to Penn.
I’m not saying ppl should or shouldn’t move near medical care, just that it should be considered. In my relatives’ case the writing was on the wall.
If they had just decided to move there till things got bad, might have been OK for a while, though a big loss of money. Now they refuse to move, partly because their minds have been affected, not enough that they can’t live alone, but enough that their decision making is not on solid ground.
Anyway, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and make informed choices.
If you need a knee replacement someone somehow is going to have to help you for a while no matter WHERE you live.
It could be someone you pay. It could be temporary rehab.
Even in rural areas such things are available.
@alooknac , if your relatives aren’t able to drive 25 minutes to a doctor’s appointment, how do they manage grocery shopping and the like?
They can get Dial a Ride for the one mile jaunt to supermarket.
They found a ride service for a medical appt and it cost them $75.
@alooknac That’s expensive! I am hoping that eventually self-driving cars on call will help a lot of elders stay in their own homes when they can no longer drive.
Do they belong to a church or other organization where members would volunteer to help out?
Physician here. Medical care opportunities are a real concern as we age (I’m now on Medicare). Our bodies do age even if taken care of. One doesn’t need a Mayo clinic caliber facility but big city medicine easily accessible is something to consider. Living in the boonies or small towns means not as many transportation options, buses and Uber may not work. Plus- you want to settle in a place, not pick up and move as you age past your sixties. When it comes time for senior living- apartments to nursing homes will be a future choice. Healthy old, not yet elderly, seniors acquire problems they don’t dream of at sixty.
A friend lives in a small town, she thinks nothing of driving 20-30 miles for her various doctors. At least her dialysis is local. No easy bus service like in a city. We chose a place in a part of a big city with a hospital close by- do not need/want to go downtown for one. Likewise have doctors close by. Who wants to spend hours just getting to and from those regular medical, eye and other specialty appointments every year???
When you consider areas be sure to check on the local amenities for transportation et al. Don’t assume.
Agree @wis75! We spent some time in Prince like once. A friend was housesitting a 40 acre place and had friends with 1 acre lots. It was very rustic but all I could think of was I’d hate to have a medical emergency and have to rush around to get medical care.
I guess because I and my kids have had chronic medical issues, I’m more aware of these issues, but I feel they are quite important to keep in mind, especially as we age.
It is a mixed blessing to move, especially as we age and it’s not as easy to make new friends and get used to new things. One should keep in mind access to healthcare as need for healthcare can greatly increase as folks age.
how do folks that retire overseas deal with medical care?? Medicare is US only I think
That is a great reminder.
For those who love to travel and are over 65, travel insurance is a must!
Most of the places I like are expensive. Boulder, Cambridge, the Bay Area. [I was in Boulder last weekend and the prices seem comparable to Boston. I had wanted to move to Boulder but ShawWife vetoed]. I think Hanover NH and Burlington VT are good if you can handle really cold. Northampton MA also really nice for those who like cold. People who live in Pittsburgh really like it. CMU is a great school and Pitt probably has a number of interesting things going.
What about San Diego? UC San Diego is a good university. Expensive but not compared to SF. Would Sarasota, FL be on the list? USF and New College. I thought Austin was a nice place (turned down a job to teach there early in my career). A number of my Cambridge, MA friends have been getting places in Longboat Key and Sarasota. I’ve only been there once, but what about Raleigh-Durham? Relatively inexpensive; relatively moderate weather; good universities; science-oriented businesses. I think it is a bit of a liberal island in a conservative state (same at Austin), but a gay couple that are friends of my daughter’s moved there for work with some trepidation and she says that are quite comfortable there and expect to stay.
I don’t know LA particularly well, but are there places to live near decent universities there?
@ChoatieMom, Oregon in the summer is a very smart way to do things.
If I were to move to a college town, I would connect with the local business school. I’m a former academic and am surprisingly still pretty well-known in my field despite not having been an academic for decades. I still teach one week of exec ed in the Northeast and every once in a while in the UK. I might arrange to do so at the school where I lived. For ShawWife, the quality and size of the visual arts community matters a lot (hence no Boulder).
@Snowball City, interesting point on Medicare and travel insurance. I travel a lot for work (this year, London a few times, Zurich a couple of times. Stockholm, Sao Paulo) and a fair bit for pleasure (this year, China, Canadian Rockies, Boulder, Toronto, San Miguel de Allende) plus various trips domestically for work or pleasure. Will definitely need to get travel insurance at the point that I jettison health insurance from work.
I mentioned Rochester, MN because it was prominently mentioned by AARP in the article someone else linked. I didn’t say it lacked amenities, I said it wasn’t a college town.
Rochester is actually a rather attractive community in many respects. Mayo Clinic employs about 35,000 people there, including thousands of medical doctors and handsomely paid administrators as well as nurses and various other health care specialists. As a consequence it is one of the most highly educated and most affluent communities in the country. And those people have money to pay for amenities. It’s got a professional symphony, beautiful parks, bike trails, and golf courses, some nice restaurants, and I believe they bring in quite a few concerts and such. Nearby there’s good fishing including some high quality trout streams, and some of the most beautiful bike trails in the state. (Little known fact: Minnesota has the most miles of bike trails of any state). And the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul are only about 75 miles away, with all the urban amenities you can imagine. For all these reasons, plus some of the best health care in the nation, Rochester frequently ranks among the best places to retire and best places to live by numerous publications and organizations including Money magazine, Kiplinger’s, AARP, etc., and it has indeed become a mecca for retirees.
But it’s still not a college town.
Oh, and by the way, the Mayo Clinics in Phoenix and Jacksonville are smallish branches. The main Mayo Clinic and most of the top docs are in Minnesota.
But we aren’t supposed t regard health care as important, right? :).
Some people move more than once in retirement, and plan it that way. I may very well move someplace less expensive than where I live now that isn’t my last stop once I retire. Maybe Eugene or Bend for 10 years, THEN move closer to one of my kids. We’ll see. (And one of the up sides to being single is I get to decide by myself). I decided to sell my house and move to a new city 3 years ago, and it was a GREAT decision. I know I can do it again, and it would be fun. I can make friends, find new activities, and explore a new place. Now… I know not everyone does as well with change as I do. I work in a profession that is constant change – I’ve essentially changed employers every 2-3 years for MANY years now, and I like it that way. Inertia won’t keep me from making a change again in retirement if it makes sense.
Consolation, I do appreciate the premise that doing what you care about rather than living in fear of health crises is the way to go. Each person figures out their own blend of prudence and passion, and it can be very different places on the continuum.
Medical access is on the short list of criteria in determining where we will end up in retirement, and it will probably mean we stay here. Besides, DH has no plans to retire, hates change and doesn’t want the hassle of moving. One must be able to drive or take public transit in the DC area to get anywhere. We’re five miles from the local hospital where I was taken when I had my cardiac arrest; it’s 20 minutes from my house in non-rush hour traffic. So while DC has lots of colleges (and Georgetown and GW med schools), and the kinds of cultural/social/religious experiences that we value, there is still the stress and expense of living in a metro area. I could see us going somewhere for part of the summer or winter, but keeping home base here.
I expect most of our friends will leave the area as they start to retire. North Carolina (esp. Asheville and Research Triangle) is a popular destination. So is Charlottesville. Our neighbors just moved near Harrisonburg, VA (location of JMU) and love it.
I am expecting a big transition as my docs retire. My previous cardiologist left her practice and ultimately relocated, and it took a year (and firing three docs) to find another cardiologist who didn’t blow me off and understood the complexity of my medical situation. CML oncologists also are hard to come by – I travel to Baltimore for that.
Then again, if I get to 70, I will have lived out every prediction imaginable, and that would be enough.
And speaking of prudence vs. passion, we are doing our retirement traveling now. We’re going to Ukraine, the Baltics and Sweden (via train, car, plane, bus and overnight ferry) where medical facilities are few and far between. I carry a two-page document with all my meds, history and doctor contacts. It has come in handy MANY times, and it’s one less thing for S2 or DH to worry about if something happens to me. S2 has kindly offered to get it translated into Ukrainian for me so if anything happens, the docs have some clue. It only costs $5 in Kyiv.
Both DH’s mom and mine were completely bedridden by their mid-60s – we are acutely aware of enjoying NOW while we can.
@CountingDown when we were in Ukraine to adopt our daughter (2 trips for 50 plus days) we purchased medical evacuation insurance. ( I think it was Medjet) just in case we had a medical emergency. Totally off topic but thought I’d mention it:) We enjoyed Ukraine when we had tourist/down time!
@MomofWildChild , you can consider whatever you want important. Obviously. I’d suggest that name-calling people who don’t share your personal preferences is less than constructive.