The Teeming Millions have consistently given amazing advice on travel; it’s time to query on something a little more long-term.
The Mister and I are narrowing down retirement spots. We have an area picked out, now we need to focus on the specifics. Taking into account our needs/wants, please spam me with your recommendations!
New England, preferably Vermont or Maine but will consider New York or western Massachusetts. I feel like the closer I get to the Canadian border the happier I’ll be.
Progressive, preferably solid blue or heavy purple leaning blue.
Rural to light suburban- no big cities.
Not near water.
Willing to purchase land and build or purchase already-built.
Minimum of 3 acres, but the more the merrier.
Good healthcare. Mister is a retired veteran with the attendant issues; a VA is not required but easy access to good doctors is.
Access to arts/culture. Bonus if there’s a little pub where we can take our (currently imaginary) dog in the evenings for a drink and conversation.
We have 401Ks, military retirement/disability, (eventually) Social Security, and will likely sell our current home for at least twice what we’ll pay for our ‘forever’ home, so we have a decent financial cushion. We’d like to live frugally but comfortably.
We took a trip to Kennebunk/Kennebunkport pre-pandemic to look at a few pieces of land. It definitely felt homey to us, but then Mister got a FEMA certification that made him hyperaware of things like floodplains and now he wants to be more inland.
Since VT, ME, and western MA don’t have any big cities, that criteria isn’t hard to meet.
Access to arts culture with a major city is going to be somewhat limited. You might consider the VT side of the Upper Valley near Hanover NH. Other places with significant culture will be Burlington VT, Portland ME, or Portsmouth NH. What’s your definition of access to arts/culture?
We currently live an hour south of DC (when the traffic gods are smiling), and we are content making that drive on the regular to expand our cultural horizons.
The vicinity of Burlington Vermont seems to check most of the boxes. It’s the biggest city in Vermont. Though its population is only 45,000, it feels bigger since it’s a commercial center for the surrounding area and a college town (the University of Vermont main campus is there). It has the best hospital in the state, the University of Vermont Medical Center. It’s about a 45 minute drive to the Canadian border and less than two hours from Montreal. Pretty much the whole state, both “urban” areas (such as they are) and rural areas are blue. Only one county, Essex County in the extreme northeast, voted for Trump in 2020. The other 13 counties all went for Biden. Burlington being on Lake Champlain is not a major flood risk as far as I’m aware. Be careful of any property near the Winooski River, which empties into the lake north of Burlington and often floods (it’s flooding right now in fact). There is plenty of high ground in towns nearby.
Maine is funny. It’s considered to be a blue state, but most of the blue voters are crammed into a small area in the densely populated coastal counties, especially York (where Kennebunk is) and Cumberland (where Portland is). If you’re more than 15 or 20 miles from the coast, you’re in pretty solid red territory. There are some blue towns scattered through the interior as you can see on this map but not many (the white areas on that map are uninhabited or scarcely inhabited). You might consider Bangor and a few nearby towns like Hampden, Brewer, Veazie, Orono (college town, U of Maine), and Old Town. They each went for Biden, but the surrounding Penobscot County is otherwise almost entirely red. Bangor isn’t a huge city but it’s like Burlington in that it feels bigger than its population (32,000) would suggest. It has an airport and a pretty good hospital (Eastern Maine Medical Center). As for water, Bangor is about 20 miles from Penobscot Bay and 40 from the Gulf of Maine. Once every several decades there are massive floods in downtown Bangor itself as tides and winds funnel water up the bay and into the Penobscot River and Kenduskeag Stream. However there is plenty of high ground elsewhere in the city and in surrounding towns. The downside of Bangor is that it’s pretty isolated, about 2 hours from Portland and 3.5 from Boston.
It appears that you’re not interested in living in New Hampshire, but you may want to consider parts of Vermont and Maine that are near the border. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center between Lebanon NH and Hanover NH may be the best hospital in Northern New England. It’s only a ten-minute drive from Norwich, Vermont. On the other side of NH, there are halfway decent hospitals in Dover NH and Portsmouth NH that are only a few miles from Maine.
We’re sort of permanently on house watch for something small in the Rumford/Bethel/Norway/Paris area in Maine, which is interior (but only a couple of hours from some of our favorite harbor towns). It’s a charming little area, and it does have a critical access hospital, and for a long while housing was relatively cheap because they were binge-building chalets in the area (there’s some skiing nearby, which we’re not really interested in)…but we likely missed our chance, so we’re more looking out of habit now. Still, lovely area.
Vermont currently has a Republican governor, Phil Scott, but he’s a liberal-to-moderate Republican. Yes, such creatures still exist in parts of New England.
Maine’s current governor is a Democrat. The previous governor was Republican Paul LePage, who in no way could be considered a liberal or a moderate. There are enough conservative voters in Maine, and a tendency for independent candidates to split the liberal-to-moderate vote, that conservatives like that can occasionally win statewide office.
You might consider Bennington Vermont and North Adams and Williamstown Massachusetts. They’re all close enough (35-45 minute drive each) that using the airport and medical facilities in Albany NY (population about 100,000) is feasible. Not that I’m a big fan of Albany, but it has the facilities you need.
My folks have a place in Brattleboro VT. Sounds like that might fit your criteria. But… Where do you live now? Rural New England in the winter is not for the faint (frail) of heart. I grew up in Deer Isle and Camden ME and although things have improved, there’s fuck-all going on in the winter and too much in the summer. Burlington, Hanover NH and Brattleboro have a more-or-less year round scene, and decent health care–way better than decent for the first 2, and Brattleboro is only 1.5 hours from Boston and 45 minutes from Hartford, CT. VT taxes are not for the faint of heart either.
Coming from DC you will need to adjust to winters. Things slow down and at times stop. I assume you have some experience with winters up north, they are not to be trifled with.
People haven’t talked about western MA, but there is a thriving arts community in the Berkshires and near Amherst. Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow, Mass MOCA, etc. Not many bigger towns but lots of nice places to live and a relatively easy commute to Boston if you need higher civilization.
The only VA Medical Center in Vermont is the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction [I see 3 smaller VA clinics in Vermont].
It is right across the border from New Hampshire. In 1991, the Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center, along with most departments of Dartmouth Medical School, moved from Hanover to a new campus just south of the Lebanon-Hanover town line. So heath care is going to be very good.
Together with Hanover, New Hampshire, and White River Junction, Vermont, Lebanon is at the center of a Micropolitan Statistical Area, encompassing nearly 30 towns along the upper Connecticut River valley.
the area is going to be weaker in arts and culture than larger areas but note that it has an opera:
Lotsa water around the coast. These days much of New England real estate is very expensive, but it shouldn’t be quite as bad if you go inland far enough.
We thought briefly about Maine, but the weather/short growing season was problematic. Never concerned ourselves with the politics of other residents - if you’re not in the majority you can amuse yourself bitching about it.
Lots of great suggestions and detailed info so far, thank you!
I grew up outside of Boston, went to undergrad at Hampshire College in Amherst, and spent a good bit of time in the Freeport area of Maine so I’m well versed in New England winters. Mister is less so, but willing to learn. When I was in the Pioneer Valley it was awfully expensive- has it settled down in the ensuing years?
More importantly, should I rethink my aversion to New Hampshire?
You could do alright in western RI or eastern CT if you want some open land to build on. Not being close to water will lower the cost. You’ll be the same distance from everything else but a little further from the westward growth in MA. Little pubs are a specialty here in RI, although you might have to drive halfway across the state to get to one and that can take up to 10 minutes sometimes. We have some of those arts and culture things in Providence, and a VA along with a fair number of veterans in the area. For any serious health matters you want to go to Boston where the good doctors all go to get paid a lot more.
You should keep in mind that from RI, CT, VT, and western MA you can easily travel north and south but driving to Boston or back 9n weekdays will take forever
No. Housing is exorbitant, the centers of exorbitancy being Amherst and Northampton. Farther out you go from there, the more reasonable. But unless you are coming from an even hotter real estate market (like California), you will be rather appalled.
If you’re in the South, the temperatures are mild. None of the cities are particularly huge. Their politics lean liberal in that zone as well (as best I know):
