<p>…I hear there are actually stars in the sky when you move out to the country…Nah !</p>
<p>We’re buying a small flat in Calcutta next year. We plan to spend winters there, a few months. If the cost of health care skyrockets and we cannot afford it, India is an option for us to offset some of the costs. I know that doesn’t sound like a dream, just contingency planning. But once there, we would travel as well within the country and in the region.</p>
<p>One of the major advantages of living at a high altitude is that the stars are incredible. The last major comet we had was so spectacular (covering what seemed to be an arc across a quarter of the sky) and we had one meteor shower in which my son counted over 600 meteors in a half hour. The count would have been higher except that we could only look in one direction at a time. I was so amazed by the comet, but when I called my urban/suburban friends, they had no idea what I was talking about.</p>
<p>There’s a cabin in the mountains that we like to ski into (part of the 10th Mountain Hut System - huts.org; the photo on their home page is the cabin we were in this weekend). It’s near 11,000 ft above sea level and the sky was spectacularly clear with no moon when we went out. The number of stars cannot be described…</p>
<p>Wish we were back there right now.</p>
<p>The combination of low humidity and altitude makes the western desert mountains my dream home. I have hiked, backbacked, and rode over and through most everywhere in the U.S. and nothing thrills my heart more than a cold, crisp night with the milky way really milky, and the twinklies really twinkling knowing that tommorrow we head over Kebler or Engineer or Bridal Veil or White Rim. So Dig, when exactly are you leaving the house unlocked?</p>
<p>I get great stars at the Ranch , just a small amount of ambient light to the east but not enough altitude and too much juice in the air. Still makes the city folk swoon. From the top of "the big bald hill " you can see 35 miles. At night it is beautiful.</p>
<p>Ah, come on Achat, Calcutta!? ! You, my friend, ARE A NIFTY PERSON!!</p>
<p>What is going on here. You people are T-O-O N-E-A-T!!!</p>
<p>Yes, I HAVE SEEN STARS TOO! I saw the Northern Lights once. And we track the planets with our refractor telescope. Occasionally. And the Milky Way is great, yep.</p>
<p>Has anyone thought of retiring overseas? (and I don’t mean back to the country you came from, but just abroad). The guy who did our deck, a WASP, bought a home in the Dominican Republic, under $150,000, on a high hill and overlooking the most incredibly azure water. He showed us these panoramic pictures, and I just about died. And this on deck-money!</p>
<p>A girlfriend of mine just bought a house in Mexico; expensive because it’s a kind of hopping ex-patriate community (I think about $400-$500K) but it is also a great vacation rental in the meantime. Xmas vacation rental in the $25K range! No Property taxes.</p>
<p>My temptation would be southwestern France. Gorgeous & cheap.</p>
<p>There are whole gated American communities in Mexico. A lot of people are there for the cheaper healthcare.
We have friends that moved to Portugal. Really good value, they say. I would just hate to be so far away from my kiddos.
But on a more serious note, we have been investigating what U.S. State is the best for retirees, as far as housing, property taxes, soc.sec.taxes, sales taxes etc. and came up with Tennessee. Um…anyone from Tennessee?</p>
<p>As far as Tennessee check out the little town with Maryville College just minutes from Knoxville. Pretty,pretty and a campus to be entertained with.The Smokies are your backyard. And Knoxville and U of Tenn are 20 minutes away.</p>
<p>As far as retirement places, check out Creel, Mexico. Big trees, snow in the winter. Cheap, cheap and beautiful.</p>
<p>I knew a lady who retired to Rome once.She enjoyed it for many years but then did come back to a nursing home in the U.S. for her final years.I also knew folks who retired to Bermuda.I don’t know about the financial benefits but it looked like Paradise. Believe it or not, they got tired of it there and I think they moved back to the U.S… Also know folks who sold everything and moved to Hawaii.</p>
<p>Since I am a Roman history buff, my dream retirement after D2 is out on her own would be to live in the Italian countryside and work on an archaelogical dig of some Roman ruin or another.</p>
<p>That’s my dream. With the economy and employment uncertain and Social Security being gutted, the reality is that my retirement strategy will probably involve wearing a blue vest.</p>
<p>BHG, it isn’t as nifty as it sounds. I am from that region. I don’t know…I shudder to think of living among all-too-curious-and-nosy relatives but we could travel within India and to Southeast Asia from there.</p>
<ol>
<li> Sell the mother ship here in the Bay Area and buy one last piece of real estate. We’ve been working on this plan for a while: One ocean place, one desert place, and one place in the mountains.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>So far, we have the desert place and the mountain place. We’re considering Bodega Bay for the ocean place. It’s not far from San Francisco, across the GG Bridge, and up through Marin. It’s still a small, coastal town, next door to the Wine Country. It’s where THE BIRDS was filmed (cool factoid), and it still resembles the movie. </p>
<p>We figure we’ll need medical facilities one of these days, and unlike my mother who wants to wander off in the woods and be consumed by bears, we’ll probably need a good Internist! So, we’ve chosen places near cities. Besides, we like movies, restaurants, shopping, concerts, city stuff. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Scaled down and simplified living arrangements: condos only. </p></li>
<li><p>Little or no yardwork: Small enough to plant seasonal flowers and have a fruit tree.</p></li>
<li><p>Small, hybrid 4-wheel drive auto. </p></li>
<li><p>Small dog.</p></li>
<li><p>No damn swimming pool.</p></li>
<li><p>The ability to pack it in and go see the kids or travel. I, too, am looking forward to seeing my kids parent their own little monsters. 
We can’t wait to be 
grandparents. </p></li>
<li><p>Visit Alaska. </p></li>
<li><p>Visit Africa. </p></li>
<li><p>Do a Peace Corps stint with my sister.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The thing is Sluggbugg- how can you pay the taxes on three places? I mean, that is a lot of taxes. Or, is California THE place to retire because the taxes are dirt cheap - and the state is bankrupt and the schools failing?? I don’t get it, respond Californians please… If this is so, just my luck, just as social security fails as I am eligible, the taxes kick in in Cal.! lol</p>
<p>I dunno. Are we supposed to pay taxes? :)</p>
<p>sluggbugg, you can rent them out at opportune times and cover your taxes this way.</p>
<p>Relocate!!! If S goes to Oxford, I’d like to work in Scotland or Ireland, travel to continental Europe frequently, visit S occasionally. I was a military brat and lived overseas, so I have felt the need to buzz out of here for a while now - especially out of the intensity of the DC area.</p>
<p>Sluggbugg - check out the Oregon coast. No sales tax and property taxes less than CA. About the same weather as Bodega Bay (fog, wind, cool, damp). A nice coastal area we’ve looked at is in and around Seaside, OR which is about 1.5 hours from Portland (same as Bodega to SF). Tillamook with their cheese factory is down the road (Hwy 1). Can get the Giant games on KNBR at night there - very important to H, altho’ he now buys the internet radio package for baseball.</p>