Certainly, you could do a lot worse than retire in South Florida and in Greater Fort Lauderdale. This area offers a lot that retirees love: plenty of great shopping; a wide variety of distinctive (and casual) restaurants; 30 miles of beaches; plenty of golf; an arts scene that’s every bit as active and exciting as that where they came from, especially during the Season; the cosmopolitan environment of a growing city as well as the rural green lanes of horse country. And—oh, yes—wonderfully warming sunshine all year long (again, especially during the Season). But even retirees who live here year-round will tell you that summer isn’t such an imposition, once you make a few accommodations for it. For example, you can still play golf in the summer; you just have to plan on doing it earlier in the morning. And you won’t have to wait for the hordes in front of you to tee off either, because there won’t be any hordes in front of you!
There are other advantages as well. Greater Fort Lauderdale has some excellent medical centers and physicians, many of whom specialize in caring for seniors. And, because you’re smack in the middle of a metropolitan region of some six million people in South Florida, there also are good facilities just down (or up) the road.
And, if you’d like to be surrounded by other seniors, there are plenty of areas where you can be. There are two huge Century Village communities (senior “villages”) in Broward County, in the northeast in Deerfield Beach and in the southwest in Pembroke Pines. There are areas of Coral Springs that cater to seniors, in which there are assisted-living facilities as well as condos with large senior populations. Tamarac, right next to Coral Springs, has a number of senior condo developments (and a lot of parks near them). Lauderhill, also in western Broward, has some areas in which seniors have a large presence. Also, the “condo canyons” along A1A in Hallandale Beach are filled with retirees. And there are plenty of other senior-dense and senior-heavy areas in Greater Fort Lauderdale.