Finding Information Online About the Best Places to Retire
August 10, 2009 by MJP
Filed under Places to Retire
Lots of baby boomers are searching online for information about the best places for retirement. Most of the sites that are found in such searches are sponsored by actual retirement destinations. They are not necessarily objective in the information that is provided. I’ve found a few sites that go beyond the marketing hype.
Online Information Sites for the Best U.S. Places to Retire
So let’s go through a few that I’ve found.
Best Boomer Towns is a site that features towns that have been selected as follows:
Fourteen months of Boomer research and development have been compiled in one site to meet your needs. The 21 U.S. towns have the following key criteria: excellent health care, university, airport access, fine dining, low crime, cultural activities, beautiful weather, active lifestyle, average cost of living and a range of home sizes and prices.
The towns on the list presumably would qualify as excellent places to retire as well. They are scattered about the country and include a few places (e.g., Danville, KY) that may surprise you. One interested aspect of the Best Boomer Towns site is that it includes columnists from many of the featured retirement locations. That helps with objectivity, as do the links to town activities.
Some sites focus on specific aspects of baby boomer life, including activities that may extend from pre-retirement through retirement. In this article, a NY Daily News writer has compiled a list of the ten best places for baby boomer entrepreneurs to retire and start a business. Although there is no forum for folks who have retired in these places, the article does feature individual success stories from boomers and retirees.
Similarly, U.S. News has generated lists of best retirement places for life long learning opportunities, best retirement locations for food fans. and ten low cost retirement destinations.
Focusing on the financial aspects of retirement, Forbes compiled a list of best places to retire and grow old. There are plenty of objective statistics cited for each area, along with a discussion and summary.
Online Information Sites for the Best Foreign Places to Retire
When considering retirement destinations, baby boomers should not automatically ignore foreign retirement spots. Here are a couple of online sites where you can get relevant information.
Boomers Abroad is actually an online community and social networking site for folks who are living and either working or retired in a foreign country. This is a place to go for some first hand commentary, along with news and blogs about retirement locations in a foreign country.
A more commercial site that is heavy with sales promotion of foreign retirement resorts and real estate is International Living. The site owners really want you to subscribe to their magazine. Nevertheless, there are a number of different ways to find information on what many folks believe are the best foreign countries for retiring. The “Free Expat” section is chock-full of useful information. You can also subscribe to the free daily e-letter but be prepared to see some sales pitches as well.
I will add more sites to this article as I find them. You also might want to review these links to ratings and best places to retire lists that I wrote about earlier. Let me know of any that you come across as well.
Photo credit: Viton
FREE UPDATES: If you enjoy what you read here, please consider subscribing to receive free updates automatically by RSS feed or by email. (I promise that your email address will not be shared or used for any other purpose.)
No related posts.
