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We were thinking of taking Amtrak to visit as the hotel we want to book is in the downtown CBD area and parking is tight and pricey. Perhaps if we like what we see, the next trip we'll take the car and stay in a hotel outside the downtown area.
If we do decide to live there, we will get a condo, as prices for newer places are quite good.
Do you plan to live in a condo in the city? If not, you may want to stay in a place in the area where you plan to relocate.
We have made 3 scouting trips to WA looking for a suitable retirement location. We tried to stay at an airbnb right in the areas where we would prefer to live in based on our online researches
I'd also recommend having a rental car to allow you driving to different places checking out all the places important to your new life (restaurants, stores, libraries, churches, gyms, recreational activities/places etc.). Driving around to check out the neighborhood, surrounding areas and traffic will also help.
If you plan to live in the city and don't own a car, you definitely should try out the public transportation.
Even if you don't plan to buy a home right away, you should check out few dwellings representative of what you want to buy. Sunday afternoon open houses are great for checking things out on your schedule instead of having to spend a lot of time with a real estate agent. You can also do the homework ahead of time identifying few houses/condos in your price range and in the neighborhoods where you think you want to relocate then contacting a real estate agent to see them.
In our first scouting trip to Vancouver WA area, we were very disappointed in not being able to find a house which both in our price range and meet our criteria. We also found that it was at least 2 hours drive to scenic areas (mountains, beaches). We switched our focus to a different WA area after the trip.
In our second trip to the Olympic Pennisula, after our stays at different airbnbs and driving around visiting different places (including trips to the rowing clubs and the airports important to our flying/rowing hobbies), we switched our location preferences from Sequim, Port Angeles and Port Townsend to PT, PA then Sequim (we found Sequim valley too boring!).
While in OP, we checked half a dozen of houses and decided to put an offer on a beautiful house in PT. It was a backup offer since the house already had a pending offer. We did not get the house but did not have any regrets after experiencing horrible traffic in our return trip to Seatac. If we had bought the house, we were likely to enjoy living there but would feel miserable each time that we have to go to Seatlle for cultural events, travel or any needed medical appointments.
In our last trip, we went back to the OP and drove from there to eastern WA checking several towns/cities along the way. We only stayed one night at each airbnb but made a point of checking out all the businesses/places essential to maintaining our way of living. BTW, we also experienced horrible traffic driving back from the OP to Seattle area. This reaffirmed our feeling that living in the beautiful OP would not be ideal for us.
After the 3 trips, we decided the best location for us would be the area between Spokane and Coeur d'Alene (near Felts Field airport and between Spokane and CDA rowing clubs). We plan to go back there spending at least a week in the worst and best season before deciding whether we want to relocate there.
Bottom line is that I highly recommend staying at airbnb to learn from the host (you may want to stay in different neighborhoods at least one night, preferably 2 or 3), to experience living there (talking to the locals helps greatly), and to rent a car to drive around checking out the location.
When I decided to relocate from Chicago to Portland, OR back in the 70's, I had visited one time for a few days and another for about four more. I also knew someone who had lived there who told me about the city from a resident's point of view.
When I decided to move from Portland to the Cleveland area, I had already been there several times, once for a weekend, then for a week. I also knew a friend of a friend who lives here tell me about it.
The problem I used to see in Portland is that people would move there blindly on it's reputation of being a "hip," "cool" place to live. Because they are going only by reputation only, they don't realize that this is like any city city where a only a few areas meet this description and it's way more expensive than they had ever imagined. I've known many people in this boat. Also some had visited before but only as tourists so they did not explore the COL or other important things needed for day to day living.
This could be applied to many cities, especially the more popular ones. But even the smaller out of the way places should be checked out thoroughly for living conditions. So my advice is wherever you go don't go as a tourist, check out that everything you will need to live is in place and for certain, make sure you can afford to live wherever you are thinking of relocating.
We didn't put politics in line as one of the most important factors in picking our new retirement area. I guess we would be described as moderate Democrats and the area we are moving to is rather conservative with a dash of liberal supplied by the university. However, we are not the type who feel that anyone who thinks differently than us on politics is stupid and misinformed.
In the late 70s we lived in a small town in South Carolina for four years and got along with most people just fine, even though to begin with, we really didn't have much in common. I don't feel that I want to live in an area where everyone thinks the same way, just like I wouldn't want to live in a community of all retired people. I could be wrong, but I think that we will be just fine when we get moved.
Just my opinion, but I think that sometimes people throw up too many walls when it comes to interacting with others. Especially when it comes to politics.
We didn't put politics in line as one of the most important factors in picking our new retirement area. I guess we would be described as moderate Democrats and the area we are moving to is rather conservative with a dash of liberal supplied by the university. However, we are not the type who feel that anyone who thinks differently than us on politics is stupid and misinformed.
In the late 70s we lived in a small town in South Carolina for four years and got along with most people just fine, even though to begin with, we really didn't have much in common. I don't feel that I want to live in an area where everyone thinks the same way, just like I wouldn't want to live in a community of all retired people. I could be wrong, but I think that we will be just fine when we get moved.
Just my opinion, but I think that sometimes people throw up too many walls when it comes to interacting with others. Especially when it comes to politics.
I totally agree with you on this. The reason I made politics a consideration is because I currently live in a very liberal State and feel like I no longer belong here. My way of thinking is in the vast minority and I'm just tired of feeling like a fish out of water where politics is concerned, so for that reason it became a factor in my decision process. Diversity and open mindedness is a good thing. There's not much of that where I currently live.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I've narrowed my search to just 3 small towns in the state I want to live in. The towns are within driving distance of each other. I already know the people in these town are conservative like I am from online searches. The crime rates in these towns are practically non existent so there is no "bad part" of town.
When it's time, I'll visit each town for a couple of days, attend church there, read a newspaper, look at houses, find the local watering hole and have breakfast or lunch there.
The last thing I want to do is spend what moderate amount of money I have traveling across country several times and renting a house when that money could be going to my new home and cost to move there.
There's lots of different kinds of conservative. Racist and conservative are not necessarily the same, and if the conservative place you go turns out to be basically racist, and you are not, you may find it very difficult to connect.
But the real biggie is that older people don't reach out to new people. They just don't. Even if they are like you, if you are the only new guy in town, they already have all their friends. It can be very very hard unless there are a lot of people who have moved there from somewhere else.
I have to admit that when my parents moved to this beautiful town, which seemed like them but wasn't, I thought they would fit in just great. It turned out to be the opposite of that.
There's lots of different kinds of conservative. Racist and conservative are not necessarily the same, and if the conservative place you go turns out to be basically racist, and you are not, you may find it very difficult to connect.
But the real biggie is that older people don't reach out to new people. They just don't. Even if they are like you, if you are the only new guy in town, they already have all their friends. It can be very very hard unless there are a lot of people who have moved there from somewhere else.
I have to admit that when my parents moved to this beautiful town, which seemed like them but wasn't, I thought they would fit in just great. It turned out to be the opposite of that.
I know, I have to take my chances and hope for the best. BTW, their's also different kinds of liberal but that's for another forum. I don't expect people to roll out the red carpet for me. I've said this before, but if I get a smile and occasional hand wave saying hello, I'll be happy. I do realize I will be the outsider. I plan to work a minimum part time job and meet people there, attend church and just see what happens regarding making new friends. BTW, I'm not moving there so I can make new friends although that would be nice. I don't expect very much from other people and if I make one or two good friends with due time, I'll be most happy.
Last edited by marino760; 07-08-2016 at 01:58 PM..
My experience with living in an area dominated by people with political/religious beliefs vastly different from yours is that:
1. You have to find more like-minded people to socialize or make friends. It may be hard to find but they are there. The best place to find them is to join organizations/clubs which are likely to attract people with the same political/religious persuasion as yours.
For example, I would expect members of a Southern Baptist church to be more conservative, and members of Unitarian Universalist Church to be more liberal than some other churches.
My own experience of belonging to different organizations is that members of pilot clubs are quite conservative, members of rowing clubs tend to be liberal, and scuba diving group is a mixed bag of political extremists from both sides and people who are apolitical. Art and literature groups tend to be liberal whereas many hard-core gym goers and many sport fans (especially football and Nascar ;-)) are very conservative. Scientists tend to be either apolitical or liberal, and you are more likely to find atheists and agnostics among them than in other groups.
2. You still can join/participate in organizations/groups with most members having different or opposite political/religious opinions from yours but sharing the same hobbies/interests. The key thing to enjoy club activities is to keep political/religious discussions outside of your social interactions with club members. If the conversation veers toward these topics, you can state that you rather not to be engaged and/or tactfully steer the topics back to club businesses.
3. The same suggestion in 2 applies to making friends with your neighbors, co-workers, in-laws/out-laws ;-)
4. If you enjoy political/religious discussions, you can always find online groups or meetup groups of like-minded people either locally or in nearby cities. If you enjoy political debates or arguments, you can do more safely online. You gain nothing by making political/religious enemies out of your neighbors, co-workers or bosses ;-)
More than one visit is good -- we changed our mind on the third visit to one town when we went to look at houses. Wife decided it was too touristy so we kept looking.
How about six months of renting?
I would think at least a week so you have time to visit and explore all the things you are interested in.
Volunteer organizations like Rotary, Kiwanas, Lions.
How about religious venue.
How about a city council meeting.
How about the library.
Do they have a senior center?
Not sure if any or all of those apply to you, but maybe some do or different things along those lines.
Can you stay in the neighborhood where you want to live?
So many great posts that have given me a lot to think about!
Our plan has always been to move to a city. While the one we're looking at now isn't our first choice, it could well end up being a good compromise. With our first choice, the COL is really high so it would take a lottery win to get us there LOL!
We plan to buy a condo as we are both so over shoveling snow and mowing the lawn. During winter storm Jonas, our wonderful neighbors came over to help us shovel out, despite us telling them they didn't have to. One neighbor offered to come over with his snow blower. We've now become the older couple on the street where others feel like they should help us out. But I digress...
The city we're looking at has a bus system with several routes. However, their website is terrible as I couldn't find a system map---just route numbers and schedules. They also have a water taxi, which I'll have to look into. Having good public transportation is imperative as we age, should we both reach a point where we can't drive anymore.
We've identified an area where we would like to live should we go to this city. The condos are newer ones and very reasonably priced. Plus there's a supermarket in the area. During our first trip, we will go visit this area to see how it feels to us.
We've started looking at health plans available in the area to see what our options would be like---still need to do more research on that topic.
I'm going to research info on the senior center. If possible, the first visit we will see if we can go there and check it out---maybe talk to those who use the center.
As for different political views---we're already aware that most people in the area are not likely to be on the same page with us, but that's okay. Where we live now has been changing and we've managed just fine We're not the types to get into political discussions with random people when we're out and about.
Every city has its bad areas. Our daughter and her family recently visited this city and when they got off the interstate, they had to drive through the bad part of town but had no problems. She told us the area we are considering is nowhere near the bad part.
So...next up---picking the dates we want to make the first visit. We figure with the first visit, we will see how walkable it is. What I've read online, the walkability rating is above average.
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We're not the types to get into political discussions with random people when we're out and about. 
