Freeper Suggestions on Where to Retire

Me | 4 Dec 2001 | Me

[hattend]

I am looking for suggestions from FReepers in lower 48 for city/state recommendations on where to retire.

I have pretty much decided on the western US (excluding the Pacific Coast states) and would lean to the southwestern states. I would stay in Alaska but I am tired of the long winter nights.

Would prefer acreage but you can try to convince me to live in town. :-)

If you know of any on-line newspaper links that have the classified, a URL would be appreciated.

Thanks
Don

[Beach_Babe]

we plan to become elderly gypsies, living out of our RV most of the year, driving the highways, driving the backroads, seeing what there is to see, hoping to visit new states, seeing new sights, meeting new folks...

You and your husband might consider becoming pilot/escort drivers (aka: flag cars) after your retirement. Escorts drive those cars/pickups with lights, flags, and signs that accompany over-size loads. You'll see them moving factory manufactured homes, large boats, roof trusses, etc. An escort's function is to warn the motoring public of the presence of an overdimensional load to insure the safe delivery of the load. Lots of retirees here in Florida are escorts...they work when they want, see the country, meet new people, and get paid to do it!

[CharlotteVRWC]

Try North Carolina....nice weather all year round.. I like Charlotte since it is close to Mountains and the Ocean for short trips. You can get a license for CCW...

Unfortunately, Jesse Helms is retiring as our Senator.

[carpio]

340 days of sun a year and BBQing the Thanksgiving Turkey in my swimsuit!

We had planned to have Thanksgiving Dinner this year on our pontoon party boat while cruising around Elephant Butte Lake enjoying the scenery.

Drove the Motor Home all the way from Las Cruces to Elephant Butte Lake only to discover we had left both the boat keys and the keys to get onto the marina at home. Not a huge problem we went to plan. B

Turned around and drove back south to Caballo Lake state Park. There we took a long walk around the lake shore before chowing down on our fried chicken and potato salad meal with all the trimmin's. Outdoors at a Picnic table in the park.

Then we watched a movie on the RV VCR took naps and relaxed. After that we had another pleasant walk to wake us up and then enjoyed the leisurely drive back to Las Cruces.

Southern New Mexico is pure Hell in the winter!! I hear Chicago is nice this time of year!! :-)

[AppyPappy]

Come down I-81 South in Virginia til you hit Christiansburg then go west on 460 for 20 miles.

[Boxsford]

whoa, wait a second...settle down....I mentioned Vermont. I laughed at the idea of NY. I happen to LOVE NY. I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and all my life I wanted to live in NY,NY. I became a Yankee fan back in the 70's when I got tired of Detroit fans burning their city down after games. I know about all those things you mentioned. I am a HUGE JINT fan. (Packer Fan too)This seems a good year not to be a Lions fan. har!
Lighten up a bit. :) Have a glass of wine and wind down. No offense was meant at all. (not even to those poor folks in Vermont that have to put up with their liberal legislators)

[Boxsford]

Okay, I liked Arkansas too but NEVER, and I mean NEVER even consider Pine Bluff, Ark. You would regret it. Am I right Hardcorps??

[Boxsford]

Go to your room and do your homework already!!!

[Boxsford]

Yea, I heard he was really, really bad. My husband just thinks he's great. I never liked old Bob--his voice never sounded good to me.

[antivenom]

Texas has NO employment tax...BUT high property tax...NOT a good place for retirees...should live in a state with HIGH employment tax and NO property tax....

[don-o]

Whatever you do, please do not consider moving to Upper East Tennessee.

This place really is terrible, so you should never, under any circumatance, even remotely consider retiring to Upper East Tennessee.

And that goes for all retirees. Choose Buffalo over Upper East Tennessee. Thanks

[Dakotabound]

Interested in 40 acres and a house in the middle of nowhere, Florida Panhandle? In a few years?

[RightOnline]

"Brevard, North Carolina is number one. Ashville, North Carolina is number two. I agree, A marvelous city. Both of thes choices tell you just how good is North Carolina."

Um...........I dunno. I live in Raleigh, NC and have for the past seven years (that's a record for us), but I've lived in many States: California (total of over a dozen years: Merced, Davis, Sacramento), Texas (also a fair number of years: San Antonio, Lubbock, Abilene, Austin), Colorado (went to the AF Academy in C-Springs; four years), Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee, North Carolina........you get the idea.

NC is ok; VERY pretty..........but dull as dirt and Raleigh is, believe it or not, more expensive than Sacramento. That's a fact. Nice climate, etc., but still.............

As for Asheville: It's drop-dead gorgeous..............and home to THOUSANDS of ultra-freaky, Devil-worshipping, crytal-gazing/kissing, long-haired satanic maggots. Think I'm kidding? I wouldn't let my oldest daughter attend university there due to Asheville's well-deserved reputation for such demonic bulls**t inhabiting its core and environs. I really am serious. Damned shame, though; really is pretty there.

Sacramento was pretty cool; hour-and-a-half from anywhere (SF, Reno, Tahoe, Napa Valley, etc.). Lots to do, but crappy State politics (as we FReepers know all too well).

Colorado has its beauty, no doubt, if you live in the right area............but I found the people there to be a**holes (sorry, CO FReepers, but it's true).

If there's anything I've learned living all over the U.S., its that the PEOPLE.......followed by climate.........make or break an area as far as quality of life is concerned.

Coolest people? Probably Texans. I love 'em. Northern Californians are VERY cool, as well. Don't fall into the trap of believing that all of CA is like SF or LA. Far from it. Most of CA is made up of agricultural land........it's a quite conservative State. Unfortunately, the liberal (and HEAVILY populated) Bay Area and LA region trump the Conservatives in elections.........at least for now.

I'd look at Montana. GORGEOUS state. The desert SW? Well......................if you're into desert (I'm not; not by a long shot).

I wish you the best in your hunt.

[RightOnline]

"Six of the states studied rank among the the bottom ten in total state and local tax burden per capita: Mississippi (50), Alabama (49), Tennessee (48), Arkansas (47), Oklahoma (44) and Louisiana (43)."

I almost forgot Tennessee.

I'm not quite sure what it is, to be perfectly honest, but there's just something about eastern Tennessee................

I'm talking about the Knoxville-Chattanooga corridor and that region. It's positively, unbelievably gorgeous (HINT: just "this side" of Asheville, NC........the topic of "our previous discussion above"). No State income tax in TN. Just....................beautiful. We've driven through that area many times in our travels and it always just makes our hearts stop. I'd give it a serious look.

[sayfer bullets]

If my street has 10 families on it, and half pay $5,000 each in property tax while the others pay none, the per - capita taxation is a neat and tidy $2,500. right?

"per capita" is still an aggregate figure. Consider the percentage of people in Arkansas that receive (tax free) government benefits. Someone's payin' those people's per-capita, and I remember the govmint folks bein' excite that in 1998 they exceeded 59% graduation rate from High School.

We read, when we were moving there that home prices were very low....on average, but when we looked for houses? we experienced the same result. Statistics look very different when you look past the averages.

c'mon....the bent one was entrenched for what 12 years there? whaddya expect

Oh well, could be I just didn't know how measure such things, but I do remember having to report the number of rooms in my household for my personal property tax. Then there was my state income tax, .....hhhhhmmm.

LIke I said, it's gooooooooorgeous.

[BrucefromMtVernon]

I rather like New Hampshire.

[Vinnie]

As for Asheville: It's drop-dead gorgeous..............and home to THOUSANDS of ultra-freaky, Devil-worshipping, crytal-gazing/kissing, long-haired satanic maggots. Think I'm kidding?

You aren't kidding. I have family over there and go often.

On a recent trip, we went to a festival in a downtown square. Ended up people watching. I couldn't believe all the weirdos.

I've heard that N. of Boone, around Surrey Co. is very reasonable.

[The Right Stuff]

Hey, Don - my novel suggestion

Buy an RV! If I was retired, I'd be on the road constantly.

We have an awesome country. Every single part of it that I've seen has its' own beauty and its' own uniquiness.

I've been lucky enough to see the plains of Kansas and Nebraska abloom with spring wildflowers. Lucky enough to see the flatlands of the Texas Panhandle. Lucky enough to appreciate the dry gasps of the pioneers, making their way across the Great Salt Basin.

When my kids go to college, I'm going to full time RV - interspersed with trips to the Caribbean, etc.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

There are many beautiful places in the Southwest.... Northern New Mexico is wonderful, especially the mountains. But if you are tired of the cold, Central Texas is nice- stay away from the trendy areas like Austin, or Kerrville - prices are a little higher there - but the smaller towns are very inexpensive and some of the nicest people in the world! Northern Arkansas is fantastic - and Arizona is great as well.....

[Arkinsaw]

You definitely need to stay out of the cities, but hey, he's talking about retiring so he needs to stay out of those anyway. My friend has a very nice old tourist house made of stone on the lake, huge long deck on the second floor. The house is from back in the 50's made of local stone and looks out of date from the outside but is great inside. He's in a north central county up fairly near the Missouri border. His taxes are very low being out in a rural area. He paid $62,000 for the house two years ago. Has the deck, the lake, 2 car carport, half-basement, two bath, four bedrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms, dining room. The house is divided so that you could block off the top floor and enter it from the front as one apartment and enter the bottom floor from the back as another if necessary.

I live in a mid-size city in a modest house and my personal property tax is nothing and tax on my house is probably about national average.

Arkansas does have an income tax but its pretty low.

The main complaint is that they collect sales tax on groceries and food items. Hate that.

The REALLY big complaint is that the government seems to want to issue bonds on anything they want to do rather than pay as they go. There was even an effort by the bond traders to get us to buy bonds for our tobacco settlement money so we could "get it all at once, spend it all at once (waste/steal it all at once", and pay them back for years with interest. That sort of thing is REALLY hard to stomach.

But thats why I want all good freepers from Alaska to move here and vote actually :-)