Cooler Places in AZ

[thedirtman]

If a large body of water in Arizona is your dream you might consider Page on the Utah border. Nothing is a match for Lake Powell either inside or outside of Arizona. While there is no forest just outside of town you can get to the trees north of the Grand Canyon and southern Utah in an hours drive.

I can't say that shopping is something people come to Page for, unless you're interested in trading posts and restaurants that do most of their business in summer during the tourist season. Page has the basics (Walmart, Safeway, hardware etc.) The Flagstaff Mall is two hours away.

[Home_Kid]

for the next 5-10 yrs i would say AZ is a place one might move to for retirement and/or health reasons. retirement perhaps in a resort that has the amenities one might be seeking. jobs, economy, health system, and education are no reasons to move to AZ, simply dont have that here in AZ. with the budget crisis for fiscal 2011 (starts july 1st) AZ may be forced to cut public services even further, including health programs and police.......

AZ is also a main corridor for illegal drugs and human trafficking !!

[Landshark3888]

I am looking to retire in AZ. I am looking for land, min 10 acres, prefer 30-40 acres. Other preferences are: water table for own water well; level to slightly rolling land; within 30 minutes to medical/DR services; within 1 hour to large store shopping--grocery/Costco/Home Depot, etc; mild winter temp, summer temps as close to 100 or less as possible. I plan to live off the grid--own water well, solar and or wind power, minimum 6 months above freezing for gardening. Looking at St Johns/Show Low/Payson or something similar. Any tips are appreciated. Plenty of time for searching.

[ckzona]

Flagstaff has everything your asking for. Cool weather 20 plus lakes within an hour drive. A few creeks also. The white mountains though is the spot for cool weather and fishing. Temps near ALpine and Greer are usually 70f in the summer and tons of snow in the winter. Springerville is no more than an hour. And there are over 100 lakes there

[Moveeast31]

An amazing, yet scary for me in the car lol, ride is to Canyon Lake. It is so beautiful.

[kozycabin]

Show Low, Alpine or Eager would be my choices if you like trees. Big ponderosa pines. Eager & Springerville always seem to have a cop opening. Lakes abound up here and everyone seems to have a favorite. Temperatures average in the 80's in summer but humidity runs high because of the monsoon moisture. They run mid June through the end of Sept.

[marmac]

Cooler ?

Flagstaff and Sierra Vista.

Sierra Vista has many military retirees there.

Flagstaff?........I'm from Minnesota and researched Flagstaff for retirement year around.

Decided I don't want a place that gets over 100 inches of snow annually.
( that's over twice the amount we get )

[BacktoBlue]

Prescott and Flagstaff are both what you're looking for

[ckzona]

Originally Posted by Landshark3888

I am looking to retire in AZ. I am looking for land, min 10 acres, prefer 30-40 acres. Other preferences are: water table for own water well; level to slightly rolling land; within 30 minutes to medical/DR services; within 1 hour to large store shopping--grocery/Costco/Home Depot, etc; mild winter temp, summer temps as close to 100 or less as possible. I plan to live off the grid--own water well, solar and or wind power, minimum 6 months above freezing for gardening. Looking at St Johns/Show Low/Payson or something similar. Any tips are appreciated. Plenty of time for searching.

The places you mention do not have 6 months of no freeze. Probably only 3 months of no freeze. Maybe Kingman has 4 or 5 months of no freezing

[cacto]

Organ Pipe Nat'l Mon. is pretty cool. A lot of the Tucson area is cooler than PHX. Saguaro Nat'l Park is the coolest. A lot of the Sonoran Desert way out is the cooler part of AZ.