squirtdad

With gugie sharing his retirement, and other are close I thought I would throw this out

What are peoples ideas of good retirement locations for us C&V types if you will move after retirement?

I am looking at Florence Oregon and the San Luis Obispo, Ca areas any thought on those areas?

for me I a am looking at

• housing affordability (but am lucky there, bought my house at the end of last real housing down market in San Jose in 1996)
• good biking
• close to an ocean (sea kayaking) or alternately water to play in
• overall lower traffic, and good access to healthcare
• how many C&V people are close
• Bonus points for some what close to skiing

any good ideas

tmnguuyen 

Good list,
I got a place in Los Osos, cool place 2 miles from Montano D'Oro. I would retire there if i can get a part time teaching job at Cal Poly, SLO.

Central Coast, CA is big in gravel bike, Cycling in general.

Florence OR was on the list while my son was going to school there.

thinktubes 

Savannah GA

SwimmerMike 

My goal has always been to stay where I'm at since the Bay Area in CA has great riding and great weather, I'm near the edge of the valley, so I probably don't have as much congestion as @squirtdad. If things change, I could easily see moving down to the central coast near SLO (again, great weather and riding).

VRJAKE 

Lots of experience in SLO California. Wonderful place. Extremely high cost (housing) but probably comparable to SJ, more limited healthcare especially for Medicare and high complexity care. LA and SF not too far for more severe healthcare needs though. Biking is good, but can be somewhat limited on narrow rural 2-lane roads with minimal shoulders. Yet some spectacular riding as Eroica has demonstrated. Far from skiing (June Mountain).

Portland's pretty solid

rccardr 

Despite what some folks say, our retirement in Northern Virginia just outside of DC has been perfect for us. Excellent riding opportunities, both local and within easy driving distance. Two airports within a half hour drive. Super cultural opportunities (music, museums, art) much of it free. Foodie paradise. Awesome healthcare. Mild winters and summers that one learns to tolerate. Traffic? We align our local travel around rush hour, easy to do when retired. Not far from river (Potomac south of DC is gorgeous and very swimmable) or Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic only a few hours away.

Yes, like any large metropolitan area, real estate is pricey (but we bought our home in 1988, so it’s long paid for) and there are taxes that pay for the public schools and services we enjoy.

But the skiing sucks. So, there’s that.

Piff 

SLO is beautiful, rich in outdoor recreation of all types, but isn't a place where you can find in safe road biking right outside your front door. Good roads are out there, but there also are many other country roads that are fast and narrow. More people driving these days, more angry and distracted people driving these days, makes for an uncomfortable ride. During large parts of the year they often have slightly wine-drunk tourists driving on them because of the recent winery boom. I come originally from San Diego and much prefer riding down there compared to SLO since it was easy to hop on my bike and ride from the front door. That isn't to say SLO doesn't have some good climbs and routes, but the county has some way to go before I'd call it a road biking mecca. People generally respect the 3-ft rule, but I still find some of the country roads to be a little unsafe.

It does have beautiful and healthy oceans given the distance from large cities, amazing kayaking (seals, sea lions, otters, seabirds, dolphins, whales, fishing...), low traffic. There are some local C&V peeps, and a fantastic bike kitchen.

Big caveat, you have to be okay with having lots college-aged people around. About 40% of the town is college students. I think the young influence on the town is mostly positive, but there is the undeniable factor of everyone at that age wanting/needing to one-up each other in having fun loudly/boisterously. Also, the town is seeing a lot of development recently and will probably continue in this vein for the forseeable future on a trajectory to be more like Santa Barbara in my opinion. Anyone's guess if it continues to hold onto its smaller-town rural character that makes the place special.

SurferRosa

Comes down to weather for me, and I can't stand the heat. Lived in the South waaay too long.

52telecaster

I needed to retire where I could afford a house. That, for me, is inner city Peoria IL. I bought a house 5 years ago for 36,900 and have never looked back. I ride to gigs and can afford great tent camping vacations. Not to mention buying pretty much any old bike I come across. It's a good life.

juvela

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WRT SLO & environs -

in addition to the beautiful scenery and enjoyable cycling roads there are many venues of interest to visit nearby

just a few miles to the south is the five-cities area with beachfront locations, interesting restaurants, wineries & suchlike pleasures

old town Arroyo Grande is fun to stroll around and has the charm of cockerals wandering freely about the streets

I enjoy visiting Grover Beach to go thrift store exploring

don't miss the old port of San Luis

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randyjawa 

This is where I retire during the warmer months in Canada...





and, during the colder Canadian days, I spend my retirement time in Jamaica...

repechage

SLO - you can transport your property tax base from an assumed favorable assessment. The terms are not perfect but 27 years at 2% increases is less than market.

Oregon will prob be cheaper.

Steve B.

My wife worked in Santa Fe, NM for 10 years, seasonally (March to Aug.). I was on my 6 week vacation there, part of May, as well as June thru Aug. To put it simply we fell in love with the SW, especially NM and are making tentative plans to sell our Long Island, NY house and move to Santa Fe. It would be a wash pricing wise, SF is not cheap, but the prices I see on Zillow are in line with what we would get in NY. I have been concerned about drought conditions generally, but would buy in the city so as to have city water, which as far as I can tell is reliable and not seeing issues. There is a lot of road riding, tons of mt. biking once I re-acclaimed to 7,000 ft., some nice pool facilities, but not much in the way of great kayaking, which I do a lot of on Long Island and in New England, so that would suffer. As well, we have a teardrop trailer so would be able to take advantage of the millions of acres of Nat’l Forest all through out the SW, in which to camp.

TmMc

I went to CalPolySLO, graduated in 1982. There were roads that were then marvelous: Los Osos Valley Rd (headwinds!) thru Baywood - Morro Bay to the climb on Morro Rd/Hwy 41 to its first crest and then coast back down, Orcutt Rd down to Lopez Lake. Skipped Hwy 227. Back then it was great, guess now these would be busy.

nlerner

My wife and I are considering retiring to Portland in a few years—no, not the one in the PNW, but the one in Maine. We’ve been visiting there for 25 years and have always liked the small city vibe. It’s become quite the foodie and microbrew destination the last 10 years or so, which has pushed up real estate prices, unfortunately. We don’t mind winter weather, and there’s actually quite a vigorous cycling community and decent infrastructure. We’d be two hours from Boston and two hours from mid-coast Maine where we vacation every summer.

Bad Lag

I don't think you can do better than coastal California, in terms of overall, all year long weather conditions. I'm in Los Angeles County. It is August 18th, 2:00 PM and here it is 68 degrees, sunny, with a nice breeze blowing in off the Pacific Ocean.

Cambria is somewhat similar but unless you are right at the coast, it gets a bit hotter in the town than here. SLO is a lot hotter than here, too.

The issue I am concerned about when it comes to Central California, especially near the coast, is water. Seemingly, they have none,... or very little. So little you are not allowed to drill wells for the ground water, etc. New construction is dependent upon getting a permit for a water supply. I am just an observer on this at all but it is pretty obvious and concerning when you read the property listings. Don't buy without understanding the water supply.

merziac

Right where I'm at, PDX born and raised.

jdawginsc 

Unfortunately I have retired to the same place I taught. There are some upsides but CV is not existent and most bike groups are gravel oriented (not a bad thing as I hope to work up to joining them once I am able to ramp up activities.)

John E

Plan is to age in place, to move when the coroner carries me out. You can see my location in my signature. I paid off the mortgage 30 years ago and have avoided taking on any debt ever since. Both sons and their families, including two grandsons so far, live within about 10 miles.

My "retirement" so far, after a full-time-and-the-some 40 year run in the semiconductor industry, including a couple of startups, is teaching about 75% time at a local university, plus some industry consulting on the side.

TiHabanero

Outside of the hurricane that is about to hit CA, the coastal areas are nice, nice and pricey, but nice. I know few think about Detroit, MI, but housing in the burbs of the arm pit of Michigan is fairly reasonable. If willing to move into the arm pit itself, well the prices are down right cheap! Detroit has an active CV scene, a velodrome, and a few good bike shops.
Access to fresh water lakes is readily available, and there is good fishing in those lakes and accompanying rivers.

Piff 

This is not something to understate! Freshwater supplies in CA and the southwest in general are going to tighten significantly as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act ramps up from now until 2040. Especially in the Central Coast where it isn't as strongly linked to federal/state water supplies and local groundwater is highly depleted.

Spaghetti Legs 

My current hometown, Charlottesville VA is a wonderful place to retire and there’s a decent chance we will stay here although I really, really want to move to coastal California. I was just looking at Pacific Grove homes on Zillow and saw $24k annual property taxes - certainly would require a recalc on retirement expenses. It’s hard to get back into California, expense wise, once you’ve been out a while.

Anyway C-Ville is good with fantastic bike riding, good culture and restaurants, large academic hospital and cost of living that is high for anywhere in Virginia except NoVa but not bad all things considered. The god awful and getting worse summertime heat and humidity is one of the factors that keep me considering a move. I guess that’s what long term air bnb rentals are for though! Anyway we have one kid in Cali already, so if he stays there and we can get the other one to go out there, might help the decision process.

Squirtdad, I looked hard at moving to Eugene and working there or in the hospital in Florence a few years ago. A lot to like about that area.

jamesdak 

$24K??? Is that a typo? That's totally insane to me. No Offense. Please tell me that's on a Ten Million piece of property or something of the like....

SwimmerMike 

probably a $2M-$2.4M house. The property taxes in CA range from 1% to probably 1.3%.

the high end houses in Pacific Grove will have much higher property taxes. The most expensive house on Zillow is $6M in PG.

Spaghetti Legs 

Yeah it was around a 2M house. They were lower on homes in Aptos and Capitola but assessments were lower and would probably change when the house is sold.