00:00Today on Forbes, 25 Best Places to Enjoy Your Retirement in 2024, Eugene and Other Top Spots.
00:10Jill and David DeForest-Kolvig spent six years plotting their retirement escape from Des
00:15Moines, Iowa.
00:17To be clear, they have nothing against the Hawkeye State.
00:20They both grew up in Iowa.
00:22And they spent 30 years of married life together in Des Moines, where they raised two now-adult
00:27kids.
00:28But they imagined a retirement haven where they could hike and bike together, take their
00:32pick of cultural events, and enjoy different scenery.
00:35Jill, who is 57 years old, says that in Iowa, quote, it's hours and hours of cornfields.
00:43We wanted cleaner water and a better environment.
00:47This past spring, Jill retired from her job as a marketing director for Meredith Corp.
00:52And David from his position as a real estate specialist for the city of Des Moines.
00:56In June, they moved 1,800 miles west to Eugene, Oregon, a city of 178,000 that sits on the
01:03Willamette River near lots of lakes and the Cascade Mountains.
01:08The water was a particular draw for David, who is 62 years old.
01:12He says, quote, I like to kayak.
01:16Eugene is one of three Oregon cities that earned a spot on Forbes' new list of the
01:2125 Best Places to Enjoy Your Retirement.
01:24That's the most wins for any state, and demonstrates just how different our so-called
01:28enjoyment picks are from those on our Best Places to Retire in 2024 list, a value-oriented
01:34roster that included no Oregon locales.
01:38The Oregon free list, now in its 14th year, emphasizes high-quality retirement living
01:43at a reasonable cost, thus excluding places with high housing costs or taxes, no matter
01:49how appealing they might otherwise be.
01:52The enjoyment list, by definition, is all about the best spots for pursuing new or lifelong
01:57passions in the greater leisure hours that are at the heart of retirement.
02:02The six interest areas we consider are arts and culture, fine dining, lifelong learning,
02:08outdoor activities on water, outdoor activities on land, and in a category by itself, golf.
02:15Eugene, home of the University of Oregon, has all the pluses of a college town, lots
02:21of arts, free auditing of classes for seniors, good restaurants, and scores highly on everything
02:27but golf.
02:28Two of our picks, Austin, Texas, and Boston, Massachusetts, excel in all six categories,
02:35while three of our selections are single passion specialists, Annapolis, Maryland, for water
02:40activities, Flagstaff, Arizona, for land activities, and Pinehurst, North Carolina, for golf.
02:48To select our passion picks, we started with a list of more than 800 places and then winnowed
02:53it down based on a number of quality of life measures that affect the prospects for a happy
02:58and healthy retirement.
03:00They include availability of primary care doctors, serious crime rates, air quality,
03:06and a place's walkability and bikeability.
03:09We also excluded locations with a very high susceptibility to natural hazard and climate
03:15as calculated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Risk Index.
03:20That index examines 18 natural hazard dangers, including heat, wildfires, hurricanes, and
03:26flooding, along with local preparations to deal with them.
03:30That helps explain why only one Florida town, Sarasota, is on this year's list.
03:36Then after eliminating lots of places, we compare the fun stuff.
03:41National cultural meccas, including New York and Washington, D.C., made the list this year
03:45in part because their crime rates, while still above the national average, have dropped dramatically.
03:52Our 25 picks are spread out across 16 states and all four continental time zones.
03:58Each entry includes information on housing and living costs.
04:01Since high costs aren't disqualifying for this list, you'll find some pretty pricey
04:06places, including San Francisco, with a median house cost of $1.29 million, triple the national
04:12median of $423,000.
04:15Still, 10 of the 25 have medium home prices that are no more than 15% above the national
04:22median, and 5 are less than the median, with 2—Iowa City and Pittsfield, Massachusetts—30%
04:29or more below.
04:32Some of our 25 picks include Asheville, North Carolina, Boulder, Colorado, Hilton Head,
04:37South Carolina, Traverse City, Michigan, and Walla Walla, Washington.
04:43For full coverage and to see the whole list of the 25 best places to enjoy your retirement
04:48in 2024, check out William P. Barrett's piece on Forbes.com.
04:54This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:57Thanks for tuning in.
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