Boating areas to retire
 

Many of you probably boat in an area that my wife and I would love to retire. Please share your thoughts.

Ideally we would prefer clean, fresh water in an area that is performance boat/ personal watercraft friendly.

Year round access to good restaurants, shopping, and medical care, including a Veterans Hospital within perhaps an 1 hour or so ride are important to us.

A reasonable cost of living and reasonable taxes would be really nice. (We currently have our home and our waterfront both in New York, and the property taxes are anything but reasonable!)

If all of the neighbors were and bunch friendly, respectable gear heads that enjoy high performance motorsports, good restaurants, and a glass of decent wine we would we would sell both of our properties and move there in a heart beat!

Thank you in advance for your help!

If I had the loot I would be Szolaks neighbor on lk St Clair. Waterfront and taxes are relatively cheap and there is a ton of places to go. Down side is it is MI and you have to deal with winter. But they run snowmobiles on the lake in winter so if your into that it wouldn't be so bad.

My sister is in Naples Fl and it is nice but salty and expensive. And too hot to boat sometimes. I have another buddy that lives on his sail boat in the Keys and that sounds very tempting for my retirement...

Thank you for the reply. Turns out we have had snowmobiles for decades! Definitely will check out the area!

Orlando isn't to bad, you have a mix of everything here, from fresh water boating, to being able to head to either the Ocean or the Gulf within an hour and a half. South FL in 4 hours. There is a brand new huge VA hospital they just built next to the Airport. There is no state income tax here, and overall tax friendly.

If you do look into it hit me or one of the other guys from here up. Water is clean ( not the brown chit they have at Loto or Cumberland ) and we regularly make trips to Erie and Huron, I even knew a guy that would hire a deckhand and drive his boat from here to Lauderdale for the winter and back for the summer. No noise issues with offshores either.
My gf and I are starting to look at canal homes. For under 300k there are some very nice 3 bedroom ranches (approx 16-2000sf) on deep wide canals with taxes in the 4k range. 4-5-600k will pretty much buy whatever you want.
I have boated here my whole life and out of any place I have been is is the best overall. That is unless I bought a new boat every other year and had the funds to just hop in and use it and pay someone to do all my maintenence. LOL.

Swfl. Cape Coral. Brackish and then salt but boat all year round. Houses are very inexpensive right now. Taxes not bad at all. I'm not retired but I live here for all these reasons and plan on staying when I retire.

I heard good things about Lake Murray, SC if you have to have fresh water, never been there myself.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico or Puerto adventures, Mexico are really nice and safe. I guess there is always Fla. hurricane insurance is outrageous. It all depends if you are retiring on your boat or you want a waterfront home. For me, I want to keep my current home and buy a larger boat and travel. Thousand islands in the summer, Caribbean in the winter. A nice 48 fountain express cruiser. Change it up every year?

I'm trying to make all that work in coastal NC. I'll let you know how it works out in a few years...

Vegas ...?

Great weather.
Hiking, camping, snow-skiing
Fresh water (Lake Mead, Mohave, and Havasu).
Unlimited dining
Unlimited shopping (for anything)
No state taxes
Lots of wicked cars (cars and coffee at two locations every sunday am year-round, Barrett-Jackson annually)
Still some very good deals on nice homes
New VA hospital just opened here
Cool people from all over the world
Alcohol ...

Cape coral 1

Outside Vegas 2

Ive been retarded for a long time now.....

Oh.....

Never mind......

I've been boating on Cumberland pretty much all my life. With the exception of a short period when the spring rains cause the water to rapidly rise 40 - 50 feet the lake is clear as can be the rest of the year. You were either there right after the spring rains but before the water had a chance to settle or way back in a cove like 76 falls after a heavy rain. People from all over the midwest drive 10+ hours to vacation on Cumberland because of the water quality.

Not sure if you wanted waterfront property, but I would agree with Las Vegas or even Lake Havasu City. Extremely friendly to high performance boaters, its in AZ so everything is cheap and you can get some great houses with HUGE garages for fairly cheap. It does get into the 120s at times during the summer (i.e. this week) but theres no humidity so I tolerate it much better than here in Florida! Downside is that its kind of far from other cities, a little isolated.

FL Keys

http://groveok.org/living-in-grove/about-grove/

Lots of retires here.

There also is a new VA "clinic" that is brand new and about the size of a small hospital.
Very nice looking place.

Yep, he's right....
 

I work and live in Michigan, Milford to be exact. And I drive 450 miles to my place on Lake Cumberland. I'm there now for a week of vacation and plan to keep this place in retirement. The season runs from mid-April to the end of October, sometimes longer. The water quality is as nice, or better, than the Great Lakes, and it is sitting at 79-80 right now. Can't be beat. I've been coming here for 30 years, I've traveled the entire country, and it is great boating, freshwater, together with a long season. Check it out.

WOW! Thank you for the replies. You all have provided some really great possibilities for my wife and I to consider.

Yes, we would really like a waterfront home, dock, lift, pool... A quick "Google" on some of your suggestions indicates this is within our means. We don't have any huge ties to where we currently live in northern/central New York, so a major relocation (within the USA) is very acceptable.

Keep the suggestions coming...they are VERY helpful.

Thank you!

BeakBoater35

ICU, hit it on the head, we bought a house down here last October and love it, I retired at 49yo in 2005 and moved fulltime to LOTO, we love the Lake, but the midwest Winter's suck, so we made the move, FMO has a great group of boaters down here and the weather is unbelievable, tons to do, Ft. Myers Beach 30 minutes away, if you have any specilic questions I'll be glad to try and answer them.

Lake Norman in Charlotte, NC

I will be there in 20 years...or sooner if my property taxes keep going up

My self I would want fresh water, and more than just one big lake, which is going to relegate you to something in the northern region. If it were me I would be looking for something that borders the great lakes.

Florida
LOTO
Lake Michigan
Puget Sound

South Haven and Grand Haven in Michigan is pretty incredible. Plus you get to see sunsets like on the ocean over water.

we grew up in northern michigan in the summers. If you plop down in northern lower pennisula, within about 30mins of towing your boat or driving the boat, you can be in the lake michigan, lake huron, the straights of mackinaw, the north channel, the Le cheneauxs(spelling, just north east of st ignace) thats boating for years up there. You also have two monster lakes in Burt Lake and Mullet lake, which I think Burt lake is like a top 10 sizes inland lake in the world. ON the lake michigan side you have all the islands, grand traverse bay, you can run down to Lake charlevoix. Sucks because boating is only may-oct, but I have been to NY, the ocean, OK, and Michigan specially northern michigan is probably the best boating your going to find. Not going to be huge big parties in northern michigan, but the cost of living is probably a fraction of trying to live in florida. Ideally I would live up there then haul a boat down to florida in the winter.

Something to think about is some day that boat wont be possible anymore, happened to my grand father, and you might be stuck on land.

Soldier 4402 hit it on the head!

I'll be heading to Mullett Lake Tomorrow!!!! Love northern MI doesn't get much better than that.

Not throwing stones, but how's the winters (nov-march) up in Michigan, I lived in Missouri most of my life and even though we love LOTO and it's beautiful during the Summer in the midwest, it sucks in the winter (snow, ice, cold) and last time I checked Michigan is kind of North of Missouri, just saying, I'm sure Michigan is wonderful in the Summer too, but it's hard to beat Florida guys, sorry.

youve probably been there but in the inland water way or indian river. Starts in Crooked lake(Conway MI) and goes all the way to cheboygan its a river that spans 2-3 lakes, couple locks, and is all day adventure, has bars, hotels, restaraunts, gas etc. Pretty cool trip and I have seen 40fters in that water way. Also another monster lake is Torch lake, cant remember exactly where it is, but its up there by petoskey somewhere, they have a huge sand bar by the torch river(might be elk river) with tons of boat, one of those lakes where you can see like 1000ft down. Theres also a chain of rivers and such that goes from torch lake to elk lake I beleive.

well on average probably about 25 degrees with a few feet of snow. Im not trying to compare florida to Michigan if your trying to do an all year boating adventure. Florida is also miserable in the summer compared to michigan. Ive just been about everywhere and the little time it does last you can not beat a summer in the north on fresh water.

We've been retired in Traverse City, Mi since 2008 and love the area. Remember once you retire you'll need things other than boating to fill your day. Think about what you like doing and what you've always wanted to do but needed more time. also consider as you age your boating lifestyle could change along with other activities. We have found there are less people still into boating that are our age. Wherever you land stay active within your community and with your spouse ! Travel to warm places in the winter if you retire in the north, we go to Playa del Carmen in December and again in late March for a week to 10 days. We downhill and Xc ski and I still play hockey so the north fits us well.
ed

I'll take Florida. It might hot and humid but if I'm in a boat I can jump off and cool off!!

Was in T C last week and never would have imagined the beauty of that area. Drove to the light house for a quick sight seeing trip and the vinyards, cherry trees, views, way cool. If i were in to winter sports, i would think about TC. Btw.... Nice Porschs last week too!

I've subscribed to this thread - my wife and I are planning to retire somewhere on/near the gulf coast. ....hopefully in 6 years or so.

It's funny, lots of people kept telling us how warm it was in Florida, well last Summer at LOTO we had six weeks straight of almost 100 degree weather with the humidity in the 90%, it doesn't get any hotter than the midwest and the winters are miserable, ...........I thought this thread was where would you RETIRE, we've been here in the Cape since last October and have never had to look for something to do, there's either something going on here at the Cape, on Ft. Myers Beach, Marco Island, Sarasota, Naples, Punta Gorda.....................all these places are less than a hour boat or car ride, crap we can drive to Tampa or Miami in two hours.

It's less than a six hour drive to KW or we can take the Key West Express, do I need to keep going, I'm thrilled you guys love the North, but I lived in the midwest for 57 years and I'm going to finish out what's left down here in Florida........oh, did I mention I can go out back and jump in the pool anytime of the year, yes, even in January and February, we live on the ICW and we love living by Rumruners, it's our hangout, it's great to be able to jump in our boat and fly out to the GULF OF MEXICO anytime we want.....................have fun everybody.

If you havent you need to check out Vivios. Think its pretty close to mullet, its in Indian River. Also Hoppes on burt lake, the biggest best burgers

I cant believe people are suggesting retiring in Michigan, I am sure it's beautiful but retiring there? My bones ache in winter the older I get, and I live in southern VA and I'm only 44! Those MichaiganTV commercials must really be working

Northwest Michigan is amazing but only if you like winter or have a place somewhere warm to spend the season.

Don't forget about Torch Lake in Northen MI. There Clear water is hard to beat, we will be there next week.

Va beach, Chesapeake Bay Area. Tons of killer fishing weather is very good. All kinds of cool places to boat, Florida is way to hot

When you guys are shoveling snow in January and February this coming winter keep an eye out for us Florida guys boating in 80 degree weather out in the GULF.

Lake Lanier Ga