Best Swimming Places to retire

Thanks for posting this thread. I'm not at retirement, but I am looking at possibly moving to a more economically friendly place. I've been in Austin, TX for just over 6 years and have been unable to reach most of my primary goals, mostly due to the toughness of the job market here (especially if you are "older"), and the high cost of living. (Property taxes are high here. Most of my friends my age say they will work till they die so they can keep their house.) If you have a lot of "spreadin' around money" however, Austin is a great place to retire for swimming, as Gull mentioned. The SNAFU is that there are no USMS pool meets here, mostly OW events (that may or may not be USMS sanctioned). If you offered me $500K I might swim in Ladybird Lake, but anything less and I'd have to think about it a long time. Lake Travis is OK, most of the year. There is a lot of competition for lane space here, but if you like swimming with a program, then there are nearly limitless choices. So if you got lots of cash, and like swimming in coached sessions, Austin is a fantastic place to retire, especially if you like Music and Art festivals. Politically Austin is pretty liberal, but this is Texas... and then there is the heat... and water shortage.... Yep... dang ol' tell you what man.... Don't know if this will help you, but this is the process I'm currently using to see about relocating. First I narrowed down the State because I have some health issues and want to have the option to possibly partake of a unique treatment ('nuff said on that). The short list was OR, NM, HI, CA. Since cost of living (COL), water availability, population density, and general economic stability are top issues, that left OR. I've been judging the COL using Property Taxes, and (as mentioned early in this thread) the COL Index. I then went to the USMS Places to Swim page and started looking up what pools were listed. My reasoning is that if it is listed there, it must be a pretty decent pool. Some LMSC webs have great lists of their groups and pools. Once I identified cities through the above process, I started looking up info on them. Wikipedia is a good resource for that. There are a number of web sites that allow you to compare cities, and list loads of demographic info, etc... try: www.google.com/search I've moved a lot. I'm convinced now that I'm part Gypsy. A few times I've just "bottled up and went". All I can say for sure is that you cannot know for sure if you will like a place till you live there. As for Austin I misjudged the job market, and was clueless at the time regarding Property Taxes vs. COL (yeah, I know, I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but I get by). The Grateful Dead- Ripple - YouTube :-) Be Well... Have Fun!

Thanks for posting this thread. I'm not at retirement, but I am looking at possibly moving to a more economically friendly place. I've been in Austin, TX for just over 6 years and have been unable to reach most of my primary goals, mostly due to the toughness of the job market here (especially if you are "older"), and the high cost of living. (Property taxes are high here. Most of my friends my age say they will work till they die so they can keep their house.) If you have a lot of "spreadin' around money" however, Austin is a great place to retire for swimming, as Gull mentioned. The SNAFU is that there are no USMS pool meets here, mostly OW events (that may or may not be USMS sanctioned). If you offered me $500K I might swim in Ladybird Lake, but anything less and I'd have to think about it a long time. Lake Travis is OK, most of the year. There is a lot of competition for lane space here, but if you like swimming with a program, then there are nearly limitless choices. So if you got lots of cash, and like swimming in coached sessions, Austin is a fantastic place to retire, especially if you like Music and Art festivals. Politically Austin is pretty liberal, but this is Texas... and then there is the heat... and water shortage.... Yep... dang ol' tell you what man.... Don't know if this will help you, but this is the process I'm currently using to see about relocating. First I narrowed down the State because I have some health issues and want to have the option to possibly partake of a unique treatment ('nuff said on that). The short list was OR, NM, HI, CA. Since cost of living (COL), water availability, population density, and general economic stability are top issues, that left OR. I've been judging the COL using Property Taxes, and (as mentioned early in this thread) the COL Index. I then went to the USMS Places to Swim page and started looking up what pools were listed. My reasoning is that if it is listed there, it must be a pretty decent pool. Some LMSC webs have great lists of their groups and pools. Once I identified cities through the above process, I started looking up info on them. Wikipedia is a good resource for that. There are a number of web sites that allow you to compare cities, and list loads of demographic info, etc... try: www.google.com/search I've moved a lot. I'm convinced now that I'm part Gypsy. A few times I've just "bottled up and went". All I can say for sure is that you cannot know for sure if you will like a place till you live there. As for Austin I misjudged the job market, and was clueless at the time regarding Property Taxes vs. COL (yeah, I know, I'm not always the sharpest tool in the shed, but I get by). The Grateful Dead- Ripple - YouTube :-) Be Well... Have Fun!