25 Best Places To Enjoy Your Retirement In 2024: Eugene And Other Top Spots

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Forbes screened more than 800 U.S. locales for everything from climate risk to crime to doctor availability. Those that made the cut were compared on leisure offerings—from the arts, fine dining and learning to hiking, skiing, watersports and golf. Here are the top 25.

Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampbarrett/2024/09/14/25-best-places-to-enjoy-your-retirement-in-2024-eugene-and-other-top-spots/

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Transcript
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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