Where to Retire: America's Best & Most Affordable Places

by John Howells, Teal Conroy (Contributor)

Where to Retire offers the best advice not only on where to relocate in the retirement years, but why people should pick up and move just as life is settling down. Retirement guru John Howells provides well-researched and completely revised and updated information on how to find the ideal home base for the retirement years. To help the decision-making process, the author offers a list of items to consider when selecting the ideal safety; climate; housing availability; cultural and recreation opportunities in the area; social compatibility; affordability; medical care; distance from relatives and friends; transportation; and jobs and/or volunteer opportunities. Howells gives readers clear snapshots of life in hundreds of the most affordable, comfortable, and stimulating places to retire in the United States, including locations in Florida, California, the Pacific Northwest, the Gulf Coast, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, the Southwest, and the Rockies. This guide tells not how to retire, but where readers can retire happily.

Genres: Nonfiction

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 28, 1994

Reviews

[Cheri Bernard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best to read like a reference book looking at areas that are of the most interest.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started a list on my own of things to consider for the "where to retire" decision - I then thought to see what books might provide advice and found this at my local public library. It was very helpful in confirming much of what I was already considering but in filling in some blanks.

The book presents much of the information as though one would use it to make a specific decision to retire in location A rather than location B, but for me, after reading the information about those specific locations of interest I came to regard the book more as a set of case studies that provide examples of how to think through such decision making, and I read parts of the book about locations that are of no personal interest, to get a feel for how the different factors interact.

[Sherry · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is more of a reference book, so I didn't read it entirely, but I found the information it provided to be incomplete. A full 1/3 of Where to Retire is devoted to the most popular retirement states: Florida, California, and Arizona. The entire Mid-Atlantic region is completely missing. Perhaps New Jersey isn't all that affordable, but many people choose to stay here to be near family, and it would be informative to include the tax rates there, as it does for the states that were reviewed. I know many people retiring to Delaware for the favorable tax rates, but it's not included in this book either. The book advertises that weather is covered; but it only records average temperatures and rainfall. I'd like to know if a location is in tornado alley, very humid in the summer, prone to hurricanes, near a volcano, etc. But I guess that being brutally honest would hurt sales.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a planner, I can't help it. This book is helpful. Took some notes for "someday". Ed and I may keep these places in mind as we travel during the next 10-20 years.

[Steve Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent retirement places book

[Barb · Rating 5 out of 5]

A girl can dream....thinking coastal Alabama.