<p>H and I are in our early 60s and starting to think ahead to retirement.
Here’s the situation:</p>
<p>Our main home is in suburban Philadelphia, but because of a late career job relocation to CT, we have a one-bedroom pied a terre in a Fairfield County, CT town.</p>
<p>We have a daughter based in Boston who is getting married and plans to have a family in that area. We, and she and her intended, would like H and I to be based not too far from her so we can eventually be involved grandparents.</p>
<p>Our younger child, a son, will probably eventually be based in a more rural situation in PA.</p>
<p>I would really like a fully walk to all retirement location with reasonable access to both kids. H wants a scenic setting with parkland available.</p>
<p>We would be interested in a condo housing situation with about 1,500 sq. ft. or perhaps more. Selling both our current homes should put us in a position to buy something reasonable without much or any mortgage, even in a relatively pricey area.</p>
<p>Of course relocating to a more northern/colder and more expensive area for retirement is counter-intuitive, but our D would really like us to be situated not too far from her, and her future H (so far, LOL!) wants that as well. It is almost definite that she and her future H will always be Boston-based. (He is a prof at a U there.) But we do not want to be “on top” of them – and would rather they yearn to see us more, than feel they have too much of us!</p>
<p>Any suggestions for good walk-to-all, aesthetically pleasing communities for H and me to consider/argue about?</p>
<p>This is always a timely topic, but do a search for the thread we had a year or two ago. There are some good suggestions in it. We may have new ideas by now, though! :)</p>
<p>Hmmm. A fully walk to all situation sounds to me like an urban area. A scenic parklike setting sounds non-urban, unless you count an apartment on Central Park West in NYC. With those goals I might choose a smaller city close to a natural setting. How about Portland, ME?</p>
<p>There’s the concept of “walkability” that is used to measure how easy it is to walk to services and transportation from an address. There are websites where you can input an address and get a walkability score. There are reports of walkability by city and there are maps of the walkability scores for an area. You might find something like that useful once you narrow down the areas that you are interested in.</p>
<p>In the Boston area and surrounding suburbs, there are many areas where you can get by without a car. An example city would be Newton which is broken up into a number of villages. Some of those villages are served by the Rapid Transit system (MBTA). The villages generally have their own shopping areas so you can get what you need in your village though you may have to travel a little more if you need a supermarket. Brookline is closer to Boston, well-served by the MBTA (both Rapid Transit and buses), has lots of condos and apartments and has lots of services reachable by walking.</p>
<p>There are other suburbs of Boston with city/town centers that could provide a lot of regular services and products within walking distance but you’d have to live near the city/town center.</p>
<p>These old threads MomofWildChild is probably recalling were interesting and wide ranging (links below). This OP wants suggestions for walkable communities within reach of her Boston-based daughter and rural PA son. </p>
<p>I suggest exploring neighborhoods right in the Boston area. If you want to be within an hour or two of your daughter, depending on where your she lives in Boston, your radius is fairly limited. </p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. Please keep them coming.</p>
<p>Re Portland, ME, we do not want to go even further north than where D will be based. Ideally, we would like to be reasonable accessible to both kids.</p>
<p>D and her intended have actually suggested Brookline to us, and we will look into it. The issue is, again, we do not want to be on top of them (and they may move there once they have kids of school age), and we do want to be accessible to son as well. Son will highly likely be in rural PA.</p>
<p>Yeah, a condo right off Central Park (perhaps with a view of the reservoir LOL?) might work – except for financial reasons! We are financially comfortable, but not at that level of wealth. We are thinking more of a self-contained very walkable, aesthetically pleasing, town with lots of amenities. Would want to walk to grocery shopping, library, train line, etc.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the input. Will check out last year’s thread, but we have very specific geographical considerations that will limit our range to New England/Mid-Atantic.</p>
<p>Most of us crave "warmer’… but most of the retired transplants I know here in NC actually moved here to be close to grandkids, so I recognize this as a top priority. </p>
<p>I would look in Rhode Island, near the ocean, or else I would be looking around Brattleboro Vt, for “quaint” townlike, not far from mountains type setting.</p>
<p>I’m going to suggest a northern Jersey shore community–Red Bank. Extremely scenic on the banks of the Shrewsbury River, with the ocean nearby (but not hurricane nearby…) A great, old-fashioned downtown, lots of arts stuff going on, a good hospital (should one be needed) in town, direct train to NYC, and it’s about halfway between Boston and rural PA.</p>
<p>Washington DC area. Easy travel up and down the coast. “Walkable” but most importantly the Metro system is fantastic. Easy access to top medical care (John’s Hopkins, etc.). A good vacation destination so people will also want to visit you. Three airports in easy metro/driving distance for reasonable flights anywhere in the world. Living on the metro also means that when you can’t drive in however many years, you can still be independent. It’s the only major city I would consider for retirement personally. I would actually consider Alexandria, especially near Old Town and easy access to the metro stop there. There are a lot of condos within a couple blocks of the King’s street metro station with lots of shops, etc. right there, plus simple access to the entire DC metro area.</p>
<p>I would look at downtown Franklin, TN. Fly to see your kids. You can walk all over Franklin to shops, restaurants, etc and it has 4 seasons but not as cold as the northeast. Easy airport and short flights to the northeast.</p>
<p>JEM, since you mentioned future grandchildren in your original post, I have a comment related to that. I think I’m one of the few grandparents here on CC and I will tell you that, in our experience, living close by to your grandchildren is wonderful. It is definitely possible to live near to them and not be too involved, or feel that you’re being intrusive. It isn’t location that does that, it’s your relationship with your D and her family. The ability to see not only your grandchildren but your D and her H easily doesn’t compare to living even a few hours away. </p>
<p>We see ours, usually, once or twice a week and I know that if it weren’t possible, I’d have a very different relationship with the grandkids. I know because my Ds grew up with grandparents at a distance, and although they have a very good relationship with their grandparents, it isn’t the same as it would have been had they lived closer. As a mom in this situation, I, too, wish my parents had been closer. We’ve done our best to be non-interfering, non-hovering grandparents but our Ds know that we’re there if they need us, and there’s nothing better than being surprised on a Sunday afternoon by your grandkids who insisted on seeing grandma. :)</p>
<p>^
Thanks, yes, I grew up with one set of grandparents very close by, and it enriched my childhood a great deal. I would play chess with my grandfather regularly, and have a special breakfast (waffles from Grandma’s waffle iron), just me and the grandparents, each Sunday.</p>
<p>But I do not want to choose one child over the other. S is younger and his long-term girlfriend has years of professional school (in first year vet school focused on a rural practice) ahead of her.</p>
<p>SteveMA, have thought of DC and really like it, but do not want to go further from D than we are now. Our condo in CT is three hours from Boston.</p>
<p>Were it not for D’s location, DC would definitely be an option.</p>
<p>One of my sisters bought a house about 8 miles away from my mother’s house after they had a child and had free babysitting for many years. My other two sisters live very far away. My mother stayed with them for a month or two when they had their kids but it’s not the same thing as being ten minutes away. My mother doesn’t drive but she lives in her own large home in a suburb of Boston with nearby public transportation and good cab service. One other factor in location is how good the supports are for older residents.</p>
<p>I guess I would start looking for places along the eastern shore. I’ve been to the NJ shore and it’s lovely but too far away. Areas along the ocean don’t get 'as cold" as more inland places so that will help with the weather. Some of those little coastal towns would be ideal, I think, for a retired couple, I just don’t know of any specific ones :D.</p>
<p>Jem, How far away are your two kids going to live? 200 miles?</p>
<p>If you split the distance, that is too far from each. You may have to choose. My wife’s parents lived a few miles away. They babysat once a week. They are fairly close to my grown up kids. If they lived 75 miles away, it wouldn’t have happened. My mom’s parents lived a mile away. We were very close to our grandparents. </p>
<p>I would choose, not by the kid, but where I wanted to live. If you want to live near Boston, than you would live closer to that kid. If you wanted to live near the rural area, you would live near that kid.</p>
<p>Definitely do NOT want rural, so kid #2 knows we will not be very near him. His GF (long time, and likely to be wife) plans to be a bovine vet. They will not be living in a place with sidewalks or nearby services. More likely, several acres with a barn. Not my thing at all!</p>
<p>I want to live in a place that is not car dependent. H will go along with this as long as it is scenic/aesthetic with nature-type places to walk, run, etc. We have been married for over 35 years and so far have worked everything out, but this may be a major challenge! His natural inclination is to stay put and I do not want to age in place, as our PA home is very car dependent.</p>
<p>I am figuring being within three hours of Boston would still enable us to pop up for overnights, perhaps even long day trips. Plus Amtrak works well so far for this purpose. (D now lives walking distance from Back Bay train station.) Clearly, the closer we are, the easier it will be.</p>
<p>But yes, the feedback is giving me some good thinking and talking points re prioritizing a location more convenient to Boston.</p>
<p>If I had all the money in the world I’d live in a doorman building in Manhattan preferably close to Central Park. It’s not far from either Boston or PA, but I can tell you that at some point my parents just weren’t up for driving any distance at all anymore, so that if you aren’t in the exact same town, you may not see as much of grandkids as you’d like.</p>
