Big City for Retirement? (relocate, communities, state, retired)

[TheOldPuss]

We're counting down the months - 19 left to go, and then retirement! How many of you relocated to a smaller town/rural area, as opposed to remaining in a larger metropolitan area?

[mathjak107]

tried it and went back to the city. rural just is not for us

[WellShoneMoon]

I did the reverse. I grew up in a small town, and lived in suburbs all of my adult life, until two years ago when I moved into the city. And I love it. Everything is so much more convenient when you don't have to drive everywhere you go.

[TheOldPuss]

Mathjak107, we did the same thing, and we are heading back to the city once we pull the plug. Although we love the "fam" (moved closer to them as my parents are aging and DH landed a job after a layoff here), we're clearly outsiders here & miss the connections we made in the cities over the years. We'll be leaving a low tax area for a high tax state/county, unless we head to the Southwest, and that has its own issues (what place doesn't?) Can't believe that we're heading back to MN, but that feels like home; DH raised there, I lived 25+ years there. The older I get, the more relationships mean to us, and we miss MSP. We see our family about as often as we did when we lived there, and they thought it was fun to visit and take a break from semi-rural life. Glad we've had this experience, but like you, we're heading back to the rat race (and the rack pack we hung around with over the years). Money can't buy everything, and as I've learned, there are some things worth the "cost".

[JRR]

We moved from a city with a population of 45,000 on the north side of Orlando, to a town in Tennessee of 4200 on the edge of a city of 33,000. Been here six months and loving it; no regrets whatsoever.

[dothetwist]

Went from DC suburbs, both inside and outside the Beltway to a series of small funky artsy towns. Bisbee, AZ, Ajijic, Mexico and Gulfport, FL. Now back in Mexico. Life takes some funny turns sometimes. Highly recommend all three!

All share walkability, arts and LGBT communities, many eateries, city-sponsored events (that attract people from nearby big cities).

[Burkmere]

Just depends on what you want. I retired to a "city" of 250k metro after living in the San Francisco Bay area, but now am going to try out the Phoenix Metro this winter with thoughts of making it permanent there.

[Pine to Vine]

Moved from the sunbelt (Houston) to a more traditionally urban city (Philadelphia) upon my retirement 6.5 years ago. It’s worked even better than we imagined. Walk everywhere. Ditched one car and don’t use the one very often.

[Mr5150]

Just goes to show it's personal preference. We hate cities. Happy living where we do. Mrs5150's best friend is retired in San Jose.

[Q44]

I'm born and raised in NYC and my wife is from Long Island. I transferred from the City up to Albany a few years back and we had our home built about 25 minutes southeast of my work. Cool thing is it's a very rural county in the Hudson Valley with everything you'd expect from a small rural town. Orchards, farmer's markets, dairy farms, plus beautiful views all around. The bonus is we can drive down to NYC in a little over 2+ hours. We can hop on Amtrak too if we don't feel like driving, that's also just over 2 hours. When we want, we can't head east to Boston, that's about 2 1/2 hours. We've also spent long weekends in Philly, Montreal and Portsmouth, all in the 4 hour drive range.

We think this spot is ideal. Relaxing country setting and a choice of cities to take advantage of. Add towns like Saratoga, Stockbridge, Tanglewood, and Rhinebeck and there's a bit of everything.