Originally Posted by Strongside (Post 13653073)

I’ll have a house in either Austria or Belgium when I retire. I have an office in Belgium but frequent Austria...both great people, great food, great culture, and most importantly...great beer.

Originally Posted by Rain Man (Post 13652755)

I'm not interested in the tropics, other than Hawaii. Too hot. So no Brazil, Philippines, Caribbean, etc. Plus, all of the Caribbean islands I've been to have been rather dumpy in terms of infrastructure.

No place with lots of corruption.

No place in the eastern USA. I love the western landscape and culture. If I'm in America, I'll be in the west.

No place where the Americans have weird accents. Give me a prime-time television accent, please.

No third world countries where I get hassled on the street by people trying to sell me stuff. On my recent freighter journey, I was physically grabbed by people on the street in both Hong Kong and Vietnam, trying to stop me to give me their sales pitch. Any country where people do that can go to h-e-double-toothpicks.

I could live in a country where English isn't the main language, as long as it's widely spoken. I'm too old to learn a new language.

With those rules in place, here are my top ten places to live on this particular summer day, taking into account general cost of living.

1. Denver. Hey, I like it. It's ideal in a lot of respects.
2. A beach city in the LA area, e.g., Laguna Beach. Small-town living in a major metro area.
3. Juneau or Kodiak in Alaska. Just because it's gorgeous. My wife would veto this, but I would vote for it.
4. Paris, France. I'd deal with the language just to live there.
5. Some place in Utah or western Colorado near the cool parks and rocks.
6. The central coast of California, perhaps.
7. Hawaii, though I'd worry that I'd miss the seasons.
8. Maybe Santa Fe.
9. I'm running out of options. Sydney? Sydney's nice, but it's expensive.
10. Maybe Toronto or Quebec City?

I really liked Japan when I was there, but realistically I wouldn't live there. Cambodia was intriguing, because you could get services there and it was still cheap, but it was really hot. I could probably do London or Scotland.

Edit: ideally, I'd be a vagabond and move to different places for six months at a time. I could really enjoy that type of existence.

Originally Posted by dirk digler (Post 13652761)

I really would like to move to Colorado but I hate winter and I think Missouri winter is bad enough.

Originally Posted by Rain Man (Post 15060360)

I've been doing a locational analysis of retirement locations, taking into account taxes, housing costs, and cost of living. If folks are interested, I'll post the results. I just finished it this week and looked at 80+ locations (nearly all in the USA, mostly in the west but with some other places like Florida.

Tax structure makes a big difference in retirement, depending on how you get your income.

Originally Posted by Warrior5 (Post 15060375)

Would love to see this, Rainman.
My wife and I both grew up in San Diego; perfect thru high school, but would never retire there.
If I could afford it, somewhere in the Bavarian Alps. I'm fairly fluent in German, people there are awesome, as are food, hefeweizen, and scenery. But not an option.
Current job keeps me here in Kansas, but we're considering western South Dakota or Wyoming once I retire. Low humidity, not brutally cold in winter, beautiful scenery, and great tax situation.

Originally Posted by tatorhog (Post 15060380)

If its domestic, I'm staying in rural KS. unzoned property, relatively cheap acreage, I can basically do whatever I want. I don't have the mountains or the ocean, but simply being able to build or do whatever I want easily offsets that.

If I'm moving internationally, I would try for Ascension Island. I looked into a few years back when going through my divorce. Its very remote, relatively unheard of, and stable.