Working on a retirement plan...7 years at most. I live in a very small town in the mountains of north Ga which has some of the best driving roads and most beautiful scenery in the country....we love it here.... but it is a good ways from the ocean and we “ need” saltwater in our lives.
Our solution is to spend April through November here and November through April on a sailboat. We want to hop around to see “ the world”. I have sailed the Bahamas down to the Turks and Caicos extensively. Want to see the southern Caribbean, Western Caribbean and Central America. From there, have the boat moved to Europe and see the Med. and perhaps the “Far East”.
We have also looked a canal boats to tour England and holland, you can pick one up for not a lot of money and sell it when your done.
Here’s the thing, nothing is permanent. Do something and if you don’t like where you are, try somewhere else. Ideas and emotions tie more people down than hopes and dreams will ever set free. Dream big and don’t be scared to make a change if it’s not right.

I want to go west to Sedona and my GF wants to go east to Hilton Head.. So looks like SC for me..

One thing I need to figure out is how remote from good health care do we want to be, and how ferry-dependent?

The other is, how isolated do we want to be? “We” being my wife and I. We may have different views about that.

Oh, and I just can’t stand humidity. Grew up in New Jersey, spent a good deal of time on the Eastern seaboard from New England to NJ, like a lot of places there but not in the summer.

Prescott is cool, if you like wearing cowboy boots and hanging out on whiskey row. It’s a little too much of a cowboy town for my taste though.

I looked in north Georgia (ellijay) a few years back. Prices were good and so were taxes. The unfortunate part is it is not near anything and at the time all the chicken farms had closed. The unemployment was bad and there were a lot of meth being made for income.
Next I looked in Tennessee. Next was Aiken, SC, New Mexico, Wisconsin. Who know's where I will land, but I just want out of NY

I get it, trust me: I sweat like a Redneck writing a love letter in the summer humidity...I hate it.

Both my kids will be staying on the East Coast. My daughter and her fiance live in Charleston and my son will be in Norfolk for the foreseeable future so getting my wife to commit to full time in the West is simply not going to happen.

That and I really want to be able to stay for at least two months in places I have been but never got to stay for more than a few days: Show Low, Crescent City, Kashmir, etc.

I have no desire for a second home so I don't plan to buy a retirement home until I retire. My wife on the other hand seems to think we should have multiple houses. I keep telling her we can rent a house anywhere in the world for any length of time and then rent one somewhere else. Why own a house you don't live in over 80% of the year?

You can get on/off Whidbey Island via car only and they have a hospital. The San Juan's not so much and the ferry system is getting more expensive and less reliable. You need to be legitimately well off to live in the San Juan's. My sister moved to Lopez Island in the San Juan's many years back and owns a grocery store there. Tech money has taken over since and housing prices have grown astronomically.

Wherever you move to. It's only as good as your neighbors.
Great neighbors make a Hell Hole tolerable.
Bad neighbor turn a great neighborhood into Hell.
We moved out of Los Angeles about 3 years ago.
We moved to Mariposa Calif.
I'm 20 min. from Yosemite, 30 min to Bass Lake great driving roads with no traffic.
2 hrs. to the Bay area & 4 hours to So. Cal.
Very active Porsche community in Fresno/Clovis.
I love it here.

I could live in Rotterdam

Ireland: Beautiful country, friendly people and I don't need to learn a new language.
Iceland: Same as above.

Settled in a CO mountain community...weather is perfect, hate heat and humidity. I would consider Tennessee (taxes, but not weather), but if I moved internationally, I'd look at Portugal (visas there a bit more flexible, weather is nice), or Ireland...as stated above.

I too like Colorado.

I like Sequim too but doesn’t have a real hospital so I’d say Port Angeles, WA.

I would take 90* and 90% humidity here in WI over the 118* and 30% humidity that we had when I lived in El Centro.

My wife says she can tell if I am still alive by checking if I am sweating.

181 days in Patagonia Argentina or Punta Arenas Chile and the rest back in FL

Plan is:
- Sell current CA house and use 1/2 to buy a manageable apartment in San Diego
- use difference to purchase a stone and wood beams country house in Provence, nowhere near the coast, where it's cheaper, in a nice village. Enjoy fresh croissants and good food 1/2 the year and use as jump off point to travel all across Europe. Fly back to the US for the other 1/2 of the time (winter likely).

Somedays, uncontrollable urge to go straight to part 2 and leave this rat race now while relatively healthy.

You already speak alcohol then eh?

Love that plan!

Love that plan!