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My parents retired to the south. I hate it down there. It makes it hard to make me want to visit. They say it is warm, but it's just weather so I mean is it that important? Plus you sweat all the time down there. I'm talking about the southeast. The south has no good cities and it is either country or sprawl so why would anyone retire there or even live there? Is it too expensive to retire to real cities?
My parents retired to the south. I hate it down there. It makes it hard to make me want to visit. They say it is warm, but it's just weather so I mean is it that important? Plus you sweat all the time down there. I'm talking about the southeast. The south has no good cities and it is either country or sprawl so why would anyone retire there or even live there? Is it too expensive to retire to real cities?
Some people dream of retirement AWAY from cities because they like the country and small towns better.
Seriously, I think they want to get away from the cold, dark winters and ice. It probably is less expensive too.
I'm of retirement age but I would never retire in the south because, as you say, it's too HOT and humid.
Look at the cost of living in a place like Boston -- it's unbelievable. There's no place anywhere remotely near Boston that's affordable, as far as I'm concerned. That's a main reason people are moving south. Anyway, lots of people don't want to live in a city. New England has gorgeous countryside but that's very expensive too.
OP, you can go and visit them in the winter and learn to appreciate other things than city living. Beaches, walking, biking, nature......or just plain relaxing.
Leave the rat race. In the major northeast cities the people are forced feed off each other in one form or the other, legally and illegally, the growing feeling that one is being extorted day in and day out. After years of this the thought of a better life for many is to leave to a calmer less stressful area and that isn't the northeast and isn't even the mid Atlantic areas such as Washington and Baltimore.
Ok look I'm sorry I got carried away with the tone in my post. Hope this can stay on topic.
Okay, fair enough.
We live in the Heartland. We hate the freezing cold winters, the heavy snow, the ice slick roads. We hate the hot, humid summers.
So the advantage is getting rid of the crappy winters. We still get the hot humid summers in the south, but I prefer that over the winter.
There are a number of southern states that are nicer to the pension plans of retirees which is an attraction. Tennessee for example. No state taxes are nice, too.
I personally would never retire to any place further south than South Boston. The humid summers (hot or just grey and sticky) bother me more each year, and I swear my aches and pains are far worse.
I think most people really complain about winter more than humid summers (at least within my hearing). If you're not driving to work every day, you can stay in air conditioning or at a pool or whatever in heat/humidity and be retired without winter.
I do think most people would love two lives, for weather purposes, but it's hard to arrange for retirement, and almost impossible while working.
Right now, I have to work during humidity. My job has lousy-no ventilation at night in the summer. I dread it more every year. The night crawls by and I get prickly heat rash for weeks. Meanwhile, co-workers wear parkas all night long and don't seem to mind when it's 80+ and humid.
Also, the expense part of things. Even if my house were fully paid off today, I'd still be paying $450/month for taxes and insurance, and going up all the time. I see that housing is a lot less in many hot and humid places.
I'm hanging on hoping to stay here or be somewhere colder.
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ditto
