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Where would you retire?

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
bungeejumper
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Re: Where would you retire?

#312729

Postby bungeejumper » May 27th, 2020, 6:19 pm

Mark wrote:I have travelled to a number of nice places in the area, but given its size I would be very interested to hear views on what the most pleasant villages/towns in Provence would be to retire to, or to have a holiday home.

No direct suggestions to offer, because Provence itself doesn't interest me as such as Languedoc-Roussillon. But I'd definitely start checking out any recommended locations with a detailed look at their weather records. The point is well made by other posters that southern France can get absolutely freezing in winter - notably because of altitude, I suppose.The following is not intended to put you off, but just to caution on the need for good research.

A friend bought a charming hillside cottage and smallholding close to Arles, for an absolute snip of a price. With one previous owner, an old lady who had drunk herself slowly to death. No piped water supply, but the broadband was amazing. :D It was only when the hard winter frosts started extending into May and June that my friend and his wife wondered whether they might have made a mistake? Everything they planted died of the cold. And then there were the summer forest fires to think about. And the boar hunters tramping through their land with heavy weaponry... :?

Another friend bought a large townhouse in an extremely attractive town a little further north, and subsequently found out to his cost that the sun quite literally didn't rise on his half of the town for four months of the year! (It just didn't make it over the mountain ridge between October and February.) That was why it was cheap. :| Brrrrrr!

How's your French? Acquire the habit of reading the local papers. It'll all help. There are any number of French-living UK expat websites, of course, and they're packed with useful information,

BJ

Eboli
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Re: Where would you retire?

#313434

Postby Eboli » May 29th, 2020, 6:22 pm

I always find this question loaded.

FWIW I considered retiring outside the UK when I retired many years ago. In the end I decided that my tap root was too deep to move too far away from London - I downsized from a large house (6 bedrooms) within London to a nice (3 bedroom) flat within a gated estate in Epping Forest just outside London (and this proved to be by far the most important decision of my life). I can still be in the city in 40 mins and the West End in 55 mins (though I have not tried it since COVID-19). The most important consideration, however, was that security on the estate will look after the flat whilst I'm away and so the downsize afforded me freedom so few people truly enjoy because they are tied to their houses and gardens that become like prisons.

With security at home sorted I now stay in England from about the second week in April until the clocks go back in October. From October though to April I retreat to all or some of the south of Spain, or Turkey, or Thailand or New Zealand (spending more and more time in the last two in recent years). The freedom to be able to travel when I want for as long as I want is far more satisfying to me than the idea of living elsewhere. And I can indulge in all the things I like about the UK during the spring and summer when I rather like England and its countryside. I return for about 2 to 3 weeks around Christmas and New Year (mainly to see family and friends and because I like twinkle lights) and for some anniversary dates that are important to me in the 2nd/3rd week in February. But I was away for a total of 16 weeks in the autumn/winter of 2019/20 and enjoyed every minute of it. The most important consideration, I suppose, is the ability to do long-haul comfortably and, I suppose, COVID-19 may impact on that, we'll have to see.

Eb

TahiPanasDua
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Re: Where would you retire?

#313990

Postby TahiPanasDua » May 31st, 2020, 5:30 pm

Everybody is, of course, different and has individual requirements for a retirement location.

Having spent 42 consecutive years in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Slovakia, Romania and Sri Lanka, my wife and I felt we could have retired in any of them. Well, not quite. The one exception was the Philippines due the high crime rate. Indeed, we did retire to Hong Kong for 7 years but were eventually driven out by the horrendous pollution. Hong Kong will appear to most as a strange choice but we had lived there previously for 22 years and still had kids there. And we love it. The massive cost of living alone would rule it out for most people. You need to live there to appreciate it. (or hate it, it's a marmite choice).

We would never consider retiring to a country we hardly knew solely because it has a nice climate, great beaches or low taxation. In recent years we have been visiting our favourite places, Vienna twice a year and Penang and Hong Kong once each. Of course, all that has been hit on the head by the virus.

So where did we eventually retire? Anticlimactically, we ended up back in the sticks of our native Clackmannanshire. We inherited a house and moved in temporarily on our return to the UK. To our utter surprise we loved it and stayed. Each to their own!!!! (the best laid plans of mice and men...... etc., etc.)

TP2.

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Re: Where would you retire?

#318353

Postby Lootman » June 14th, 2020, 3:25 pm

BrummieDave wrote:
Lootman wrote:
BrummieDave wrote: I am still hoping to visit St George UT (USA) in September, a town growing in popularity with retirees, but who knows if that will happen.

I have been there a couple of times. It's a great little town with a "proper" downtown area, and has good weather.

From there you can head north to the Zion and Bryce national parks. Or head east to the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

It is popular with retirees as you say. And a fair number of mormons. Only problem is that it doesn't have a proper airport, just a regional one. You need to drive to Las Vegas, a couple of hours south of there.

Yes, all that's in hand. We're flying into Vegas, car to St George then hiking Zion, Bryce and Grand Staircase Escalante, with lodgings booked accordingly, then back to St George, and home via Vegas. Booked for mid-September so who knows!

About half way along the drive from Las Vegas to St. George is the Valley of Fire State Park. Not as grand as Zion, Bryce etc. but a nice place to stop on the journey. There will be a small vehicle fee to enter.

When you cross the state line from Nevada to Utah, there is a small town that has a huge licquor store. It is on the Nevada side of the border because buying booze in Utah can range between difficult and impossible.


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