Kelowna for Retirement-Canadian living in US (college, restaurants, cost of living)

[workingguy]

Looking for information on living/retirement in Kelowna. Originally born in Windsor. Grew up in Winnipeg. Moved to the Us after college and have been here 30 years. Have never been to Kelowna. Only Vancouver and Whistler but they look to have an extremely high cost of living. From looking at Kelowna on the internet it looks beautiful with a nice four season climate and reasonable cost of living. Any input/experiences appreciated

[509]

Kelowna is a very nice town.

[BMI]

I like Kelowna too.

Only problem with BC is the many forest fires they have been getting the last few years.

Of concern to me, before I would move, smokey air ....not so good.

[ssiguy]

Kelowna is OK but I prefer Kamloops which basically has the same weather. If you are coming from Windsor, you will not find Kelowna much warmer in the winters nor have much less snow than you get in Windsor/Chatham. Kelowna certainly is a beautiful areas but if need your urban fix, be prepared for a very long drive to Vancouver. Kelowna is also ghastly expensive.

[svelten]

Interesting someone prefers Kamloops, I would consider Kelowna superior in almost every way aside from work opportunities in natural resource extraction/forestry. It's much cleaner, better restaurants, wine country, beautiful lakes and shorefront housing, connectivity to other urban areas in the Okanagan, more cultural and urban amenities and at the center of a concentration of new urban developments and skyscrapers. Winter activities would be a wash with ski hills nearby both. For a retiree IMO I can't imagine why other than cost of living one would choose Kamloops over Kelowna, but that's just me.

[jambo101]

A bit dated but Some interesting demographic info =//www.city-data.com/canada/Kelowna-City.html