I went to grad school there but would never live there.TomatoTomahto wrote:Champaign-Urbana, Illinois -will research
Victoria
I went to grad school there but would never live there.TomatoTomahto wrote:Champaign-Urbana, Illinois -will research
My wife's brother and SIL live there, and my wife has run the Charlottesville marathon twice. It is a location under consideration.VictoriaF wrote:Just by looking at the map, Charlottesville, VA, seems preferable to Charlotte, NC. Charlottesville is a university town, closer to the mountains, and closer to a major city.
Victoria
You wouldn't be one of those "I will be unhappy wherever I go" people, are you?TomatoTomahto wrote:As a first pass, with only a few reasons for what I don't like.
[ long list]
UGH!!! We just had our first baby earlier this year and my retired father thinks it is fair for us to go visit him equally for every time he visits us. Traveling via commercial air for a couple with a baby with all baby gear in tow with dual careers VS two retirees who can come and go as they please.TomatoTomahto wrote:I would factor it in if I knew where my kids were going to wind up. Right now it appears they'll mostly stay on the east coast, but who knows? Wanting extra bedrooms and being near an airport is partially to allow for them to conveniently visit us.pennstater2005 wrote:Have you factored in the possibility of grandkids in the future? I know someday, per my wife, it will factor into where we move
When I replied, you said:sscritic wrote:I missed the part about what you don't like about where you live now. Is moving a requirement?
How do the suggested cities rank in terms of what you don't like, rather than what you do?
Most people consider me to be an optimist who goes with the flow. I can be happy anywhere in the US, and probably half of the rest of the world. I will be happier in some places than others, and the same goes for my wife. When I say "no thanks" to Baltimore, for example, it's not that I couldn't live there happily, but that there are many places I will probably be happier at.sscritic wrote:You wouldn't be one of those "I will be unhappy wherever I go" people, are you?
What does your glass usually look like?
Just a little.TomatoTomahto wrote:sscritic, you're messing with me, right?
I think you missed the part where I said, with emphasis added, "to allow for them to conveniently visit us." I would like for them to visit me, but I have enough memory and imagination to know that it can be inconvenient; I just don't want my home to add to the inconvenience.TDAlmighty wrote: snip ...
UGH!!! We just had our first baby earlier this year and my retired father thinks it is fair for us to go visit him equally for every time he visits us. Traveling via commercial air for a couple with a baby with all baby gear in tow with dual careers VS two retirees who can come and go as they please.
And on the other side of the family, my wife's dad has this grandiose vision of spending a lot of time with his grandkids at his property and talks about this all the time. I am sorry, but my kid is not going to be shooting any guns for several years, and what if he has no interest in doing these things when he is old enough? This property is in a fairly remote area across the country which would require two connections plus a long drive...
So now both sides of the family expect us to travel to their locations instead of coming to ours. And of course we plan on having more kids. These kids will likely have year-round activities. In addition, we will have limited vacation days and want to take our own family vacations. All I am saying is make sure your vision of how you are going to interact with your grandchildren is realistic and convenient if you want to spend time with them. If not, more than likely those extra bedrooms will get very little use.
I can't imagine anyone moving there on purpose. (Just my personal preference/opinion, of course.)TomatoTomahto wrote: Sheboygan, Wisconsin- i will look into it, but it seems random
I'd like the accent and the youth hockey.sscritic wrote:Just a little.TomatoTomahto wrote:sscritic, you're messing with me, right?
I haven't lived that many places, but I have found something to like wherever I have been. When I lived in Minnesota, for example, I didn't focus on the two seasons: freezing and mosquito breeding, I concentrated on .. now what was it I liked? Darn memory. I remember I liked something but I can't remember what it was.
I have never thought much about Central California. Central Valley and Central Coast, yes, but not Central California. According to wikipedia, the largest cities are Fresno, Modesto, Salinas, Visalia, Clovis, Merced, Turlock, Madera, Tulare, Porterville, and Hanford.sunnyday wrote:Have you considered Central California? Checks many of the things off of your list -- amazing beaches, mountains, great climate, liberal, great college towns, plenty of airports.
Central California as defined above includes the following 10 counties:
Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced
Monterey, San Benito, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne
You might be literally correct about Charlottesville's proximity to mountains and to a major city. But Charlotte NC is closer to bigger and perhaps grander vistas of the Blue Ridge or Great Smokey Mountains. And Charlotte is a "major city" and definitely an up-sized version of Richmond Virginia, the closest city to Charlottesville, VA. Though Charlottesville is a "university town," the town area for gatherings is quite small, with a nice urban village type mall and the "corner" for campus or grounds happenings. UVa is a great school (all my children went there for summer camps, two graduated from the college and one from the law school, and one seriously considered going to the Darden B-School), but it is not, in my view, a good fit for retirees, unless you're a former college faculty member or a retiree doing research at the school. Doesn't strike me as the type of place where students on campus or grounds will easily strike up conversations with some old folks like us or a place where u can easily audit classes. If campus variety and diversity were important to the OP, Richmond VA, Chapel Hill and even Charlotte NC has more variety of colleges and universities.VictoriaF wrote:Just by looking at the map, Charlottesville, VA, seems preferable to Charlotte, NC. Charlottesville is a university town, closer to the mountains, and closer to a major city.
Victoria
Most of the places on your list are not near a "convenient" airport hub. Unless the kids/grandkids are near a hub in the same region of the country, the travel will be expensive and non-convenient.TomatoTomahto wrote: snip ...
I think you missed the part where I said, with emphasis added, "to allow for them to conveniently visit us." I would like for them to visit me, but I have enough memory and imagination to know that it can be inconvenient; I just don't want my home to add to the inconvenience.
My kids played travel hockey and had rigorous school schedules, so I know how it can be tough to visit. If invited to visit them, I will. They will have an open invitation to visit us. One of my parents used to complain that I hadn't called; I never understood how they got one of the phones that didn't have a keypad.
More specifically, from Malibu to Santa Cruz -- where the nice beaches and mountains aresscritic wrote:I have never thought much about Central California. Central Valley and Central Coast, yes, but not Central California. According to wikipedia, the largest cities are Fresno, Modesto, Salinas, Visalia, Clovis, Merced, Turlock, Madera, Tulare, Porterville, and Hanford.sunnyday wrote:Have you considered Central California? Checks many of the things off of your list -- amazing beaches, mountains, great climate, liberal, great college towns, plenty of airports.Central California as defined above includes the following 10 counties:
Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced
Monterey, San Benito, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne
I think this is a pretty good plan, especially with your assets...TomatoTomahto wrote:@tibbitts, talk to livesoft; he wants me in 4 or 5 houses! I would not be surprised if we lived in one place and took extended vacations in various places with climates different from what we are getting sick of at home. The logistics of more than one house are not something I want to deal with; my view is that's what rental apartments are for.
You'll get a lot more visits from the grandkids if you have a jetski...TomatoTomahto wrote:Lakefront home, probably one that prohibits jet skis and loud motor boats.
MN. Nice but unpredictable summers. Short falls. Long winters. Long springs.Peter Foley wrote:Minnesota and Wisconsin have a lot of lake with reasonably priced homes. I would not recommend Minnesota for residency, however, as it has a low threshold for inheritance taxes. If choosing one of these states it would almost require a second house in a more moderate climate.
Now don't get huffy because I'm reluctant to move to your home stateubermax wrote:Op, reviewed your resume & I think nothing short of Beverly Hills would be appropriate .
Try Montecito. Then again, given your attitude toward your current neighbors, you might not like living next door to Oprah and Ellen. Do you like playing polo? Actually, the Polo Club is next door in Carpenteria.TomatoTomahto wrote: Fwiw, my wife spent some of her youth in California. Liked Santa Barbara, but not LA.
Curious why CA has been notably absent from this entire thread. Sure it is pricey here, taxes, homes, etc, but the weather is amazing year round and there are many major airports. Santa Barbara, Montecito, Napa/Sonoma, Paso Robles, any number of suburbs in LA area, San Diego... with your nest egg you can afford any of them easyTomatoTomahto wrote:Now don't get huffy because I'm reluctant to move to your home stateubermax wrote:Op, reviewed your resume & I think nothing short of Beverly Hills would be appropriate .
Fwiw, my wife spent some of her youth in California. Liked Santa Barbara, but not LA.
You can live in Montecito and not play polo. Orchid growing is big in the area (commercial growers in Carpenteria).TomatoTomahto wrote:@sscritic, going completely OT here, but my wife rode horses as a teen, and took it up again briefly as an adult, but never played polo. At a company team-building event, they played polo, and my wife said that you could not imagine how well-trained the polo ponies were. They knew where you should be headed before you knew, and it was only the ponies' skill that avoided a number of mishaps among the amateur players.
Back on topic, she has no desire to resume the horse riding phase of her life in retirement.
I would recommend determining a budget for your future home before looking further. Even though you have done very well, it is more "average" than what you might think when it comes to waterfront real estate. Especially with all of the overseas wealthy buyers using cash to buy high-end homes in the US. I think you might be surprised how many properties/areas that you will be priced out of.TomatoTomahto wrote:Now don't get huffy because I'm reluctant to move to your home stateubermax wrote:Op, reviewed your resume & I think nothing short of Beverly Hills would be appropriate .
Fwiw, my wife spent some of her youth in California. Liked Santa Barbara, but not LA.
There are some references to CA in the thread. 80% of our family, including all the kids, are on the East coast.tommy_gunn wrote:Curious why CA has been notably absent from this entire thread. Sure it is pricey here, taxes, homes, etc, but the weather is amazing year round and there are many major airports. Santa Barbara, Montecito, Napa/Sonoma, Paso Robles, any number of suburbs in LA area, San Diego... with your nest egg you can afford any of them easy
I take your point. If, by "waterfront," I meant the Hamptons, we would be the paupers in the neighborhood and could only afford a shack two blocks from the beach.TDAlmighty wrote:I would recommend determining a budget for your future home before looking further. Even though you have done very well, it is more "average" than what you might think when it comes to waterfront real estate. Especially with all of the overseas wealthy buyers using cash to buy high-end homes in the US. I think you might be surprised how many properties/areas that you will be priced out of.
TomatoTomahto wrote:@johnep and ChrisC, I will add the Charlotte area to my list. 2 months of hot and humid is tolerable for us, and most likely we would use some of that time to travel.
We wound up rescuing a pit mix puppy recently (long story, but fwiw, I was anti pit until very recently) and she has more difficulty with the heat and humidity than I do!
Your OP should have been: "My son is going to college in a couple years but doesn't know where. We want to be within a short drive from him. Where should we move?"TomatoTomahto wrote:
I told my son, who was considering some CA schools for college, that it would make school breaks more difficult if, instead of a 100 mile drive, he would have a cross country flight. He would smack me if we moved to CA before he graduates
There are many great choices on the west coast, and to a great extent it would depend on my wife's tolerance for flying. She has taken many flights, primarily to Europe, for business in the past 30 years. Oregon and Washington state are contenders.
Oh ok, within a 100 miles from Yale, I would probably pick Newport, RI or one of the smaller quintessential New England towns right around there. My guess is that your wife is a bit type A though and would get bored being retired in a small town (I probably would myself). I'm not sure what field she is in but if it's technology or non-profit, maybe she could semi-retire and be a consultant at "Silicon Beach".TomatoTomahto wrote:@sunnyday, I wasn't very clear in what I wrote. I was describing discussions from last year, when he was wondering about CalTech and Stanford. He spent some time at Yale, fell in love with it, was lucky enough to be accepted, and will attend in the Fall.
I was kidding that it would preclude CA, but we're talking at least a couple of years from now before we leave NJ, although I want to start looking sooner.
At the time DS and I were talking, and now, we're 100 miles from Yale, but we are not dead set on staying that close. I think up to 350 miles is still easily done for school breaks, but it's tough to book cross country flights around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and realistically, you have to figure on losing a day each way. I like a distance too far to bring his laundry but close enough for a long weekend.sunnyday wrote: Oh ok, within a 100 miles from Yale, I would probably pick Newport, RI or one of the smaller quintessential New England towns right around there. My guess is that your wife is a bit type A though and would get bored being retired in a small town (I probably would myself). I'm not sure what field she is in but if it's technology or non-profit, maybe she could semi-retire and be a consultant at "Silicon Beach".
ubermax wrote:[edited for brevity]
Noticing that you currently hail from Jersey , Bergen County I bet ,
not a bad guess, but you lose the bet -- Essex County
The Rhode Island shore is a personal favorite from Watch hill up to Charlestown and then there's Cape Cod , lot of possibilities there but again a whole different feel in the Winter IMO.
hadn't thought of RI, will consider
Coastal North Carolina could be nice , don't have the climate extremes like NewEngland and the extreme heat/humidity of Florida .
i have to look into the culture/lifestyle issues, but from what I've seen online, the real estate values are wonderful
Good Luck !!!!
thanks!
Oh man, how did you know that was a soft spot for me? As much as I like lobster in Maine, good barbecue is something worth moving for.Leeraar wrote:We are gravitating towards the Carolinas and the Virginias. South enough for good barbecue...