If you were retired and could live anywhere?

[mntngrown]

I will check the articles. Paul, I was looking at New Zealand real estate on the web yesterday. I have only been to the north island but seeing all the beauty from the movies filmed there, I am considering a trip to the south.

[83014]

25 years ago when my wife and I both retired from the Navy we put both kids in our motorhome and drove around until we found a place we liked.

It is pretty hard to beat the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Four seasons, no income taxes, plenty of great roads to ride, access to medical is good, five hours from Denver, Regional airport with direct flights to both coasts in Rapid City.

After all 650,000 Harley Riders can't be wrong one week out of the year.

If my wife and I weren't so settled here in Raleigh, we both agree that Rapid City would be one of our top choices. It could still happen.

Doug

[robsryder]

New Zealand South Island.

I have enjoyed watching some NZ TV programs via streaming services. These programmes (800 Words and Brokenwood Mysteries) make the NZ North Island look pretty nice.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4380324/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3640276/


Retirement location was pretty easy to pick for us. We moved to Ohio in the 1970s after college. On retirement we moved back near my wife's family in the piedmont region of NC. Riding year 'round is pretty nice with a variety of interesting places to visit.

[DennisDarrow]

Is anything wrong with where you are? God has planted me all over this world for a month or more in my places in order to be a valid status point for giving advice. Or at least to be honest about reality. We have been traveling over 3 or 4 months per year for the last 10 years. We just sold the Airstream for a diesel pusher bus and am hoping to stretch the time out for at least 5 to 6 months per year. The WORST PART ABOUT TRAVELING is the durned pets......

It is getting harder and harder to find a farm sitter!!! The show goats are gone over the last 3 or 4 years and with them have gone the pasture guard dogs for the human pests, coyotes, vultures for the babies (goats), and ex-wives. The mules have gone from riding buddies to pasture pets. Many hours and miles spent with them providing a slow-easily plodding through forest that is briar and rattlesnake infested So now all that pasturage has become more of fighting weeds and mowing them. So that is maybe a negative cause you cant hire a farm hand to take care of that as well as the doing the animal chores..... barn cats, dogs, mules. It's not funny cause we just lost the well trained to do nothing house cat. Though one had to turn off the IR burglar alarms by covering them with painter's tape so that his movements didn't trigger the IR movement alarms. We dont talk about his loss though cause I can see in the mental picture of the fella in the claws of a hawk, drooped and dangling, caught at his shoulders, flying limply across the valley just above the tree line while the hawk soared to it's roost, to finish off the job with beak and talons.......poor little guy, just going out to do his number

We are scheduled out to spend this fall heading up into the Northern wilderness checking out the backwoods and weight limit of the covered bridges of Vermont and New Hampshire while the natives there are preparing to head down into my country. We plan on someway avoiding the environs of Boston. From what I understand, has enveloped all the way past Worchestershire where I spent many years learning how to ditty bop and encode messages and then how to figure out how to capture those bops and then to decode them, at Ft. Devens. NOT GOOD VIBES.......Instead, , we want to make a loop over to the base of Niagra Falls, In Raincoats , and over to some kind of boat that carries one over to the base of the falls while keeping my wife's underwear dry for a change........We are still honeymooners dont ya know!!

Finally, we are scheduled to spend from mid-November till late January down at Key West where the Navy has another one of their fine outfits, if you arent IN THE NAVY, at a place with the bus right on the beach front , perched on a place called Sigby Island Naval Station, for $17 a day. That alone is one reason to go there and spend as long as you can...........
Lastly in LATE January we spend a GOVERNMENT ALLOWED max number of days over at the EVERGLADES, Flamingo Campground, attending a Kayak/Sailboat REGATTA at the campgrounds and GOVERNMENT RESORT area that was mostly blown away by a hurricane several years ago. Now it is being rebuilt, with government wisdom, by using tenting, plywood, and travel trailers.

So, home by March.........Anyone want to plant themselves for the winter in Northwest Georgia??????? Where, according to my afterthought below, I have paradise already. lol.....It is.....only, problem is, to much work for an old retired guy and I need to pawn it off to some ignorant person who wants a FREE RESORT VACATION while learning how to be a farm hand. Driving a tractor, running a: industrial chipper, chain saw, bush hog, fertilizer spreader, and a few other "fun" implements while performing modern handiwork............God Bless

Honestly, still looking and traveling looking for ANY PLACE BETTER than what I have been blessed with. You'll see. :

[Omega Man]

You wouldn’t recognize “Devens” now Dennis. Staying away from the Boston area ought to save you some traffic aggravation.
Hope your trip goes well.
OM

[grabcon]

Forrest Gump said it best. “My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”

My wife and I have been to many locations on our travels in the RV, some were short duration others were a few months. We have yet to find that spot for us. There are many reasons for this but nothing has really struck us and said here I am.

[PoorUB]

Is anything wrong with where you are?

North Dakota! Have I said enough?

I am tired of sub zero temps and snow!

[akbeemer]

North Dakota! Have I said enough?

I am tired of sub zero temps and snow!

Ha! We left Fairbanks, Alaska and retired in western Montana because of the short and mild winters. I guess freezing one's butt off is relative.

[PGlaves]

Ha! We left Fairbanks, Alaska and retired in western Montana because of the short and mild winters. I guess freezing one's butt off is relative.

In the past 12 years, 9 people have retired and moved to Montana. You and Annie are part of an elite but unique group.

[TEDZEMLICKA]

I visited a cousin near Hot Springs, SD last week. She's upset, home prices are shooting up. It too has become a Mecca for west coasters. My only objection to her location is the rattlesnakes.

[PoorUB]

Ha! We left Fairbanks, Alaska and retired in western Montana because of the short and mild winters. I guess freezing one's butt off is relative.

Western Montana is tropical compared to ND!

My mom lived in Columbia Falls for twenty years, it rarely got much colder than freezing!

I remember going out to drive a U-Haul truck back to NW Minnesota when she moved back. We left Columbia Falls at 6 AM and snow was melting and water was dripping off the roof. 90 miles later we pulled into Browning MT and it was -20F and that probably was the high temp for the trip across! I remember buying a couple 20 ounce bottles of Coke, tossing one on the floor of the truck and drinking the other. An hour later I reached down for the one and it was frozen solid.

It was a cold and ugly drive!

[mntngrown]

Ha! We left Fairbanks, Alaska and retired in western Montana because of the short and mild winters. I guess freezing one's butt off is relative.

So how is the wild fire situation there? I enjoyed a week long trip to Kalispell years ago and skied the local resort. Other folks I have interacted with say the summers are pretty smoky near Glacier park etc? Thanks

[Rich]

North Dakota! Have I said enough?

I am tired of sub zero temps and snow!

Oh come on now, is it really that bad??

You guys on the eastern side of the state have it even worse than us westerners. I spent two years in Wahpeton and it was the worst cold I've ever experienced. You mentioned the cold and snow, even worse is the accompanying wind. Put the 3 together and there you have it, ND misery. I don't aim to live here forever either.

[akbeemer]

So how is the wild fire situation there? I enjoyed a week long trip to Kalispell years ago and skied the local resort. Other folks I have interacted with say the summers are pretty smoky near Glacier park etc? Thanks

This is our 11th summer in Montana and I think the third where there was any appreciable smoke, but this is the worst year by far. Here are headlines from a local online news outlet.

• Granite Pass Complex fires surpass 4,000 acres
• Thorne Creek fire grows to over 10,000 acres
• Hay Creek fire near Polebridge grows to 1,800 acres
• Stateline Complex fires grow to 3,740 acres
• South Yaak fire grows quickly to 3,382 acres
• Revised estimate puts Big Horn County wildfire at 75,000 acres
• Mandatory evacuations issued for Woods Creek Fire
• Jet fuel shortage is hampering aerial firefighting efforts in Montana

[GTRider]

Oh come on now, is it really that bad??

You guys on the eastern side of the state have it even worse than us westerners. I spent two years in Wahpeton and it was the worst cold I've ever experienced. You mentioned the cold and snow, even worse is the accompanying wind. Put the 3 together and there you have it, ND misery. I don't aim to live here forever either.

But having lived in Bismarck, Dickinson, and near Minot I don’t think there’s anything prettier than a late May day on the plains, with it’s rolling expanses of gently waving prairie grasses overseen by meadowlarks singing on the fenceline, as they keep a wary lookout for the birds of prey soaring overhead in their search for rabbits and rodents. Just sayin’…

But yeah, when I lived there a popular tee-shirt proclaimed “North Dakota: 40 below zero keeps out the riff-raff”


Best,
DeVern