We love living in Maine. It’s funny, but we actually enjoy the winter. The hard part of the year for us is NOW, because spring seems to take forever to get here. As I’m looking out my office window right now, the trees have tiny buds on them,but that’s it. And it’s May 9th!! It’s always the very end of this month before they are all out. So I could see living up here most of the year, but spend March through May in Florida or Texas.
on a big catamaran, and sail it all over the place 
Another thing I have realized is I actually want to be “near civilization” when I retire. I have relatives who moved from the suburbs to a place on the shore that’s something like 20 minutes to the nearest store, and I don’t know how long to the nearest mall. They do have several restaurants within half an hour. They have 20(?) acres, and rarely see neighbors. I don’t want to be on top of neighbors (I’m thinking after having 2 very private backyards, townhome living could be hard for us), but I want to be in or close to some kind of community.
I agree with whomever mentioned the water concern. I understand LV may have a water crisis soon.
^Good point, @1214mom! Friends of my dad, from Texas, retired to a tiny town way up the Maine coast. I remember thinking, “Ooooh…” Sure enough, they lasted about one year.
Living just north of Portland, Maine is perfect. We are in the woods, but it takes only 20 minute to get to downtown Portland, which is becoming renowned for its restaurant scene. Within two hours, we can be in Boston when we want to go to a big city. Boston also has some of the best hospitals in the world, so we’re fortunate. We’ve had quite a few friends go down there for medical care. Our house is big, so it probably makes sense to downsize at some point, but that will be hard for me.
I don’t want to be like my parents who never moved and then became too old to move. Although I have lived in my current house forever (since 1988) I am thinking that downsizing should mean being flexible and not having much stuff anymore. So I can move around in retirement if I decided to. Follow my one child if need be. I also feel like I am done with the suburbs - I don’t want the big property and would like to be able to walk places.
We are already making plans to move to where our D lives. She is well-established in her career and is marrying a “local” early next year. Chances are, are she will be living where she is now for the foreseeable future.
The upside: both H and I really miss D and have no real ties to our current location. D is already talking about grandchildren (squee) and I want to be an involved grandparent.
The downside: D lives in…Minnesota. Honestly, I am not wild about the idea of all those winters in my future; I always thought I’d retire to my home town in the South. (Life has a way of laughing at those plans!) Anyway, I’d rather live close to my D and her future family, but I do reserve the right to live some place else in January-February.
We also can’t think of a place that’s better than where we are at outside DC. Access to cultural activities, free museums, great food and lots of ethnic eats, markets etc. While I love to visit other places, I can’t see myself living anywhere else full time right now.
Not quite there yet but suddenly overseas is looking pretty good…our Swedish friends are moving to Portugal once they retire…hmmmm…
Cost of living is great where I live and we are a medical center and shopping destination for those who live within 60-75 miles, but kids will never live here again, so I expect to move. D and SIL are in Nashville, so I will likely go there. Vanderbilt has great classes for seniors and I love D’s church, so I expect to find some social outlet there. Hope to have grandkids there by the time I can retire. S & DIL are expecting a baby in late September and are in West Palm Beach, so I could get there much easier from Nashville than from where I live now.
Most of my physicians are my age, although ophthamologist was one year ahead of S in HS. My dentist and I went to HS together. So, my support network will dissolve to some degree. I’ve already lost 3 of my 5 best friends to relocation as they moved closer to kids/grandkids.
If I won the lottery, I would divide my time between Nashville & WPB. I haven’t bought a ticket yet this year, so this is going to require some action on my part. I likely have about 5-6 years left unless I win the lottery, but I could happily walk away right now if there was a financial windfall:)
We’ll stay put. We know the area and the idea of moving sounds like too much work. Our area is reasonably cost effective, easy to get around and since we’re from this part of the country we’re just comfortable here. When we moved into our house we joked that by the time we could afford to move we wouldn’t need to. That’s how it’s worked out pretty much. We live in a 1400 sq ft. ranch home with a basement and a fairly open floor plan. We’ll have it paid off in about 8 years, have worked at getting all of the desired improvements made and would rather travel than move.
We will stay in our house in SoCal when we retire. We have been working hard with our financial planner over the past 10 years to make sure we will be able to do this. Now that we have paid our last tuition bill we will begin putting that money towards paying off the house over the next 5 years. We love being near the ocean and are lucky enough to be able to walk to restaurants, grocery stores and shopping. Both girls are currently here also. If they moved away we may rethink our plan or just rent someplace close to where they each end up to spend time with them and hopefully future grandkids!
Suspect we’ll stay here in MD burbs of DC. DH has no plans to retire; medical resources are excellent, S1 will likely be here. It’s just so expensive…our funds would go a lot further elsewhere.
In my dreams? Portland, Philadelphia burbs, northern CA, Kansas City.
Our kids are like gnats…we will pick a place that we like…where they can visit. Bottom line is…we have no way to predict how long either kid will live anywhere!
AZ would be fine for October through May…but I’m not a fan the rest of the year.
We have talked about NC.
We WILL move by our early 70’s or we won’t go someplace different at all. We want to be there when we are young and healthy enough to actually make connections, and froends with our new home.
We watched a couple of relatives move in their 80’s and they just don’t have any connections to their new communities.
I dreamt that I could get a place in uptown NOLA, run an Airbnb to pay for living there half the year (winter) and then go north in the summer.
DH and I have said the only way we are leaving our home is toes up. That said, both s’s and soon to be grandchild are on the other coast. While younger s is currently there too, but suspect he may not stay there forever, so we shall see.
Central Coast of California. I don’t see us or any of our children leaving the state. We were both born in Ca and lived here our entire lives so the prices, taxes etc is all we know.
We were watching one of the shows on HGTV where they were buying a lake house. It looks appealing but I don’t see it happening.
@MotherOfDragons - my in laws spent a number of years in early retirement living on a sailboat. First in Europe and later Australia and the South Pacific. As they aged they sold that and spent several years living on a sportsfisher powerboat. Now at 80 and 85 they mainly do local island trips. In all cases they maintained a US based home or apartment. H and I have already started doing charter sail trips. We want to go while we are physically able.
Costa Rica, Equador, Mexico, Malta, and a couple others through our sixties, then somewhere near the kids
We had all the same concerns posted here regarding friends, weather, downsizing, family, etc. but started thinking aggressively about those things when I found myself pregnant at 39 while we were living in MA. We’d never planned to have children but had been planning for retirement since the day we started our first jobs. Having a child threw planning for college into the mix and living in the Boston burbs was expensive. Plus, DH was a consultant who traveled constantly and was tired of fighting the Big Dig and getting stuck places because Logan always seemed to be fogged in. He dreamed of living In a sunny place where the airport never closed, where housing was inexpensive, and taxes were retirement friendly. AZ met those requirements, so we decided to move to our ideal retirement location earlier in our careers rather than later. We downsized to a small mortgage that we were able to pay off early while saving seriously for college. We built a wonderful new friend network in Scottsdale and raised our son in a very family-friendly neighborhood. As retirement approached, we looked to downsize again to a new, energy-efficient home in a community that would provide a lot of on-premise entertainment and quality-of-life amenities; there are a lot of those in AZ, but we searched for almost two years before deciding on the place we currently live. We are about 45 minutes from our old neighborhood, so we have not lost our old friend connections, but we have made many new friends here through hanging at the pools/restaurants/clubs. We did have to find new doctors, mechanic, hairdresser, etc. but those are all plentiful so no difficulties making those transitions.
As a bonus, both of my long-divorced parents loved visiting us in AZ so much that they both eventually moved here, and DH’s family is in LA, so lots closer than than MA.
So, we lived most of our married life planning for retirement and made every financial and move decision with an eye to getting there in good shape. It feels odd to actually be here. This is only my second week sipping coffee on the patio and wasting time on CC instead of logging in to my corporate network. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it. 
Sincere good wishes to everyone here as you decide what you want your retirement to look like and when and how you want to get there.
My goal is to rent December 26th to April 1st in a warm, tropical climate. At this time, I’m looking at both San Juan and Isla Mujeres, MX. My S lives in the DC area/MD side and D is a rising junior at college. I figure I have a couple of years to live wherever I want before they settle in for good somewhere and then I’d like to spend those three months close by to one of them. I won’t give up my home on the Cape, its nearly paid off now but I will be moving into an in-law above the garage and renting the main house in order to fund my retirement. I also entertain the coast of South Carolina for my older years when it’ll be more important to have good, easily accessible healthcare.
We sure will not need 5000 square foot after both D’s leaving for colleges. So we will move by 2023 when DD2 graduate HS. We can move locally, within US, or globally. We should stay in our next house between 2023 and 2040. 2040 will be the next important date to relocate. I will be 75 and don’t see lots of travelling after that. And my D’s might have grandkids going to schools and they should be looking to settle down by themselves. We should move close to one or both of them by 2040.
So we need to pick a place for 2023 to 2040. If it up to me, we will get a class A RV and travel half of the time in the North America; the other half of the time store the RV and travel all over the world.
Realistically, we will downsize to a house around 2/3 thousand square foot.
It should be in a safe and booming city; which should be of a decent size, not super big like NYC or SF. We would have access to good airport and medical facility. And we want to have good hiking trails nearby, and nice restaurants and outdoor walkable shopping space.
And we want to have good weather for half time of the year, especially during winter. We would have D’s coming back home for Christmas. Cannot remember the last time we stayed home for the holidays. We want to start the tradition of all family together at home.
Living close to friends is nice but not necessary. More than half of the time we are not home anyway. Some culture activities are desirable but not necessary, either.
So there are many places that easily meet the above requirement, including Austin, where we currently live. Only thing is that DW has some allergy issues.