Where do you want to grow old?

I inherited my mom's house in an East Coast suburb. I was not originally planning to live or retire here but it's close to family, very close to New York City for culture (LOVE live theater), lots of trees and parks and a full acre of land, great medical care nearby and a walkable downtown with trains to New York every 30-60 minutes. Didn't want to deal with winter, but winters have been much milder lately.

I had originally planned to retire to Vermont or Mendocino, California but, as beautiful as those places are, they're also somewhat remote and isolated, so oddly enough I will likely be staying put. Having had prostate cancer made me realize how important it was to be near a major medical center, Memorial Sloan Kettering in my case, vs. a small town doctor or hospital.

Thanks for your response @thisismarilynb. I certainly understand your resistance to snow. It just seemed like at my age I would be o.k. playing house guest during the snow days. As a matter of fact, I was born in Montana and lived for about 10 years in a village named Idyllwild which is located at 6,000 feet in the mountains of Southern, CA. Then my diary includes time in Hawaii and San Diego.......where I think I missed the seasons. We all have different experiences and still can make good decisions.

I think our Director of Connect lives in Winnipeg and so does her Mother. There you go!
Chris

I am very interested in people’s responses to your Post…. I also am considering moving to Rochester MN area.

I would like my husband and I to age in place and have help at home approx 2/3 x a week. However prices for this are astronomical and we cannot afford a facility because of income. We would have to scale down to Medicaid. Not a happy ending to years of work and service to others and major personal losses.

Where do I want to grow old? It’s already happened! I’m 84 years old. My family (spouse, children, grandchildren, cousins) and friends are nearby (walking distance). We live in a three bedroom home located in a quiet diverse neighborhood. The weather is very good (temperature range 60-75 degrees, rainy season about 2 months.) I’m still healthy and fit (tennis 3 days a week, 30 pushups and squats before and after bedtime.)

Check it out -- there are a lot of great small communities nearby that are more affordable for retirees than Rochester itself - with Mayo Clinic, the college and all of the related hi-tech, it's a pretty pricy place to live, unless maybe you are moving from California or New York...

Also, once in the area, Mayo Clinic has a whole lot of satellite primary care clinics in the area, because Mayo Clinic itself doesn't do primary care. @johnbishop may be able to tell you more about that - and the surrounding towns.

Hello @mercuryrose, There are quite a few small towns near Rochester each with their own uniqueness. We settled on Mantorville, MN when I took a job in Rochester in 1978. It's a great little town with some historic significance, the county courthouse, great restaurant and more - https://www.mantorville.com/. 3 miles south is Kasson, MN with a Mayo Family Health Clinic, a good sized supermarket Hy-Vee and a local telephone company that supplies fiber to the home Internet to most all of the small towns in the area - https://www.cityofkasson.com/.

There is also a Mayo Clinic Health Systems in Zumbrota, a small town north of Rochester on Hwy 52 that has a few other small towns close by - Pine Island, Oronoco that are easy drives to Rochester. I think the best way to choose a community before moving is to plan a few day trip outings and drive around some of the small towns near Rochester and see what's available in each one to see if it will meet your needs. We chose west of Rochester mainly due to the small town feeling and Minnesota nice folks living in Mantorville. Next weekend is our big Marigold Days celebration which is always the weekend following Labor Day - https://www.marigolddays.com/.

Grow old in Orygun.
Moderate climate
Hardly any snow
Lots of rain in the winter
Western Orygun is a garden land

Plan to stay where I am..the idea and stress of selling house and being at the mercy of the market in order to find a new place...moving etc...Am going to be 86 and am happy painting in my living room....instead of basement studio...caring friends and small village where we have community service and my doc with in walking distance...just have to resist the helpful people who don' know that suggest the house and property is too big and I am too old....(a family member lives with me and does the heavy jobs) Just have to stay in shape and keep creating and not be forced by practicable people into a sterile old peoples place where I could not paint or be myself but have to kowtow to a lot of rules and regs of an efficently run old peoples place. I hope to be carried out with my paintbrush in my hand..

This is a very positive and optimistic outlook and I greatly appreciate it. I love that you take stairs as a form of exercise rather a hindrance. I believe that as people get older, their physical mobility tend to lessen and that causes an amount of health complications or limitations (e.g, going up and down the stairs). I wish you many many healthy years to come for you and your spouse!