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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You'll need t decide if you want to live in a resort and/or gated community or in a town or city that isn't completely dependent on tourism.  There are pros and cons to each.  A good example is Hilton Head (resorts) vs. Bluffton (planned communities) vs. Beaufort, SC (small town) vs. Savannah, GA (city).  They are all right next to each other, but each has a different feel.  I'd go visit that area and spend some time in each and see where you feel the most comfortable. Once you figure that out, it will narrow down your search.

For example, there are lots of people from the DC area who have retired to The Landings in Savannah.  It's a planned golf community and we have friends who have really enjoyed it there.  Landfall in Wilmington, NC is similar.  There are lots of others (e.g., in Bluffton), but you can start narrowing the search by type of development, if that's what you want.

The resorts and big cities are pretty obvious, and there are lots of threads on this board about the various options.

If you are interested in small towns, there are lots of lists of "Best Small Towns in the South" etc.

Here are a couple of examples:

https://www.southernliving.com/souths-best/small-towns?slide=6b029c0d-a694-4546-ad07-3ee55b37ab4d#6b029c0d-a694-4546-ad07-3ee55b37ab4d

https://gardenandgun.com/feature/small-town-escapes/

Since you want to travel abroad, check out the airport situation and look at specific routes to places you want to go. Since you'll be retired and will have more time, does the ability to get non-stop flights matter to you, or will you be ok with making a connection in Atlanta or Charlotte?  If you want non-stops to Europe, you'll need to draw a circle around Atlanta and Charlotte (and maybe Orlando or Miami) and look from there.  Also look at how many options there are with re: to airports.  Charleston and Savannah have larger airports.  However, if you like small towns, Beaufort, SC does not have an airport, but it is less than an hour to the Savannah Airport, not far from Hilton Head, and probably an hour and half to the Charleston airport. That sounds like a long way, but it was an hour+ from my house in the Virginia burbs to Dulles.  Having more options is helpful when the airports are relatively small and you're having to make a connection at a hub.

In our experience, you only have to spend a couple of days in place to include it or exclude it from the list of possibilities.  We just started planning our vacations around visiting places we thought we might like, and we knew almost immediately when we'd found "the place."

As for climate, we decided to move South for our permanent residence, but we travel to cooler climes in July/August/September (June is actually not bad where we are) and spend some time around Christmas at a ski area. I actually like cold weather, but I have found that it is nice to have cool, but pleasant, weather in the winter.

For now, we're spending the summer in different places, sort of checking them out the same way we did the warm-weather location, but we are in a similar situation in that we are waiting to see where our kids settle before we buy a second home.  We may decide that we don't want to be tied down to a second home, but I do think the charm of traveling will wear off and we'll eventually want a summer "home base."

It sounds as though you aren't afraid of the South, but rest assured that any of the places you'll consider moving, including the small towns on the lists above, are chock full of people from all over the U.S. (and the world).  In fact, the biggest issue in most of these towns is how to deal with population growth.

Have fun looking! [/quote]

I would add that a big factor for me in deciding which small town in the south to retire to is proximity and availability of good health care.  I have friends who found a lovely place on a golf course in a community in a small NC town near the coast which they love.  Then the husband had some serious medical issues.  That's when they realized that health care in their small town is not that great.  They are more than an hour from any decent sized city with better options.  It has proven to be a detriment they had not anticipated.[/quote]

Yes, this should be taken into account and is an issue for relatively remote areas anywhere.  I have friends who sold their house on the Maine Coast (near MDI) and moved to an exurb of a city in the South when the wife was diagnosed with cancer.  [/quote]

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