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Just want to repeat that if you get a serious health issue, you're going to need to go to the hospital a lot more than 2 x a year. As I noted earlier, a simple cancer diagnosis has meant numerous trips to the hospital You have to go for the initial exam, possibly a second opinion, for follow up & ultrasound, for biopsies, for MRI, for EKG, for pre-op treatments, for the surgery, for post-op and for dozens of treatments post-op (radiation, chemo, etc.). So, add some sort of overnight stay into the cost. You might need to stay over for 5-6 weeks if you want to only have 2 helicopter trips.
What has been your experience as a retiree living in a rural tourist town or area?
When I retired I moved to a small touristy mountain town and loved it. I got to know the area, and loved helping others with trails, fishing tips, local hangouts, and just being around friendly people.
Stupidly I moved away to one of the most miserable places on the planet and would sell my soul to be able to move back.
For heaven's sake, do tell! I would not likely want to move there, and would appreciate a word of warning, lol!
Re the question about retirement in Michigan, I live on an island where you take a ferry or airplane from Charlevoix. My friend and I set aside money for mainland trips for most of our medical needs. Our trade off is that we save for this instead of doing any extensive more glamorous traveling. When I had a knee replacement, we stayed in a hotel for three weeks after the operation. This got me some specialized therapy before going back to the island where a very good but more general therapist flies in two days a week. Once I was allowed to immerse the knee in water, I searched around for the cheapest monthly rate hotel in the area that had a pool, so that I could do a month of three times a day water exercise. But these sorts of costs significantly affect our travel budget, so while we love living here, we can’t afford this and trips to Europe too.
If an island is too extreme, there are many beautiful small towns up and down the Lake Michigan coastline, as well as on the inland lakes. Check out Boyne City, or Petoskey for example. Look at Elk Rapids, East Jordan, the Leelanau Peninsula. Charlevoix is great if you can deal with the summer traffic. Charlevoix has an excellent small hospital, Petoskey has a very good larger one with more specialized services, and traverse city has a world class big medical complex. Best bet would be to take an extended road trip in one season, narrow down your choices, then take another road trip to your short list in the other season. Go to coffee shops in small towns and talk to people, invite people with whom you fall into conversation to lunch to talk more, go to the library and post office and talk to people there. If you need a larger place, look at traverse city. There are some nice beach towns west of Grand Rapids within easy drives of GR. I’m not as familiar with the UP or the east coast towns, but it’s a big and beautiful coastline.
Last edited by upnorthretiree; 01-24-2019 at 06:52 PM..
Re the question about retirement in Michigan, I live on an island where you take a ferry or airplane from Charlevoix. My friend and I set aside money for mainland trips for most of our medical needs. Our trade off is that we save for this instead of doing any extensive more glamorous traveling. When I had a knee replacement, we stayed in a hotel for three weeks after the operation. This got me some specialized therapy before going back to the island where a very good but more general therapist flies in two days a week. Once I was allowed to immerse the knee in water, I searched around for the cheapest monthly rate hotel in the area that had a pool, so that I could do a month of three times a day water exercise. But these sorts of costs significantly affect our travel budget, so while we love living here, we can’t afford this and trips to Europe too.
If an island is too extreme, there are many beautiful small towns up and down the Lake Michigan coastline, as well as on the inland lakes. Check out Boyne City, or Petoskey for example. Look at Elk Rapids, East Jordan, the Leelanau Peninsula. Charlevoix is great if you can deal with the summer traffic. Charlevoix has an excellent small hospital, Petoskey has a very good larger one with more specialized services, and traverse city has a world class big medical complex. Best bet would be to take an extended road trip in one season, narrow down your choices, then take another road trip to your short list in the other season. Go to coffee shops in small towns and talk to people, invite people with whom you fall into conversation to lunch to talk more, go to the library and post office and talk to people there. If you need a larger place, look at traverse city. There are some nice beach towns west of Grand Rapids within easy drives of GR. I’m not as familiar with the UP or the east coast towns, but it’s a big and beautiful coastline.
Holland is absolutely wonderful. I've been there probably two dozen times in the three years I lived in Indy. It's a wonderful town in its own right, tons of lake views, nice homes, reasonable cost of living, plenty of shopping essentials, and commutable back to GR.
As my husband and I like nice restaurants, good shopping, paved roads, etc. as much as we love serenity and beautiful scenery, it seemed to us that a fairly affluent small town in a tourist area far away from any kind of big city would be a good choice to retire if there is public transportation available and at least one modern medical facility close by.
The only downsides to such a plan that I can imagine would be:
1. Homes in affluent touristy towns tend to be more expensive than comparable homes in suburbia, according to my research, plus many small towns have no public water or sewer
2. Having to put up with increased traffic during tourist season(s)
3. The possibility that, in some areas, newcomers might be viewed with negativity, ranging from wariness to outright disdain, and therefore, it might be difficult to find others with whom to socialize. (However, if one is an introvert, that is not necessarily a negative.)
4. Having to travel quite a distance to do some kinds of in-person specialty shopping, go to a museum or see a Broadway show, etc.
So what is missing from the above list? (I would also appreciate hearing about your personal experience and receiving any advice.)
Thanks in advance!
P.S. I have already been in contact with one C-D poster who has retired to the same area we are planning to retire to (Door County, Wisconsin); and the only things she added to the list is that there are quite a few hunters in Door County, so she is often "treated" to the sound of gunshots early in the day during hunting season, and the fact that winter storms can create problems if one is fairly isolated. This kind of advice is greatly appreciated, although neither has affected our decision. (Btw, she also said that Door County is very friendly and has many newcomer retirees, and she has had no problems making friends.)
We are building 90+ miles due east of you, just east of Torch Lake in Mi. I love the forests, especially in fall at this latitude. If people don't mind the cold, and we don't, Door County should be great. The view of Lake Michigan is fabulous at that time, too. Your (1.) was right on; properties just 5 miles west of us are much more expensive than were we are, and can go as high as 4.8 million. That would put a 'small' dent () in our retirement! We moved just out of the thick of things, and the cost of properties and land dropped big time.
Looks like you will only be an avg of 40+ miles to Green Bay, where you will have every service available. That seems to be a great area!
Well, if I could get a do-over, I wouldn’t move to the touristy small town that is hard to get to. I miss things you mentioned—access to ordinary shopping, good newspapers, good local tv news, quality entertainment, access to airports that have more than a handful of flights. Tourist traffic is bad and the roads can’t handle it.
Maybe if the climate wasn’t so bad, I’d tolerate it better. We researched but obviously not well enough.
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IIRC (Don't let them lead you 'astray'...))
) in our retirement! We moved just out of the thick of things, and the cost of properties and land dropped big time. 
