My sister and her husband own a farm in Ithaca. Visually, it’s lovely with the finger lakes region and lots of farm country and rolling hills. Depending on where you live, it can take a while to get to shopping, restaurants, etc. Winters are long, snowy, windy and cold - and the grey skies are no joke. I lived in Syracuse with my husband for about 10 years (he’s a native) and the long winter and grey skies of central NY definitely weighed on me. NY taxes are also pretty high. I know many people moving out of NY to southern destinations for the sun and lower taxes, but I don’t hear of many wanting to move into NY, unless it’s job-related.
My niece has medical issues, and my sister takes her to Syracuse for major medical needs (Syracuse has great medical facilities).
The grey skies are my biggest concern about winter. We did a tour at Hamilton, on one of those grey winter days. It ended up just being our family walking around for an hour with the student guide, which was great. He was really open about things, and said that the grey skies broke him freshman year. He was from Texas and said he didn’t mind the cold and loved the snow, but didn’t realize how tough it would be going a few months with rarely seeing the sun. That led into a segue about him praising how good their mental health support was, which he needed that first winter.
Less extreme but same thing with the student I know well at Cornell. He doesn’t mind the cold, and the wind is better than he is used to in winter. Snow is annoying to get his car out sometimes, but no big deal. He really misses the sun though. I think he would live in Ithaca forever if it was always summer. But he feels like the winters are too depressing.
If I can get over that, and the fact that it is an hour from Syracuse which is the bigger city I’m sure we would need occasionally, I LOVE the town of Ithaca. It definitely has a funky hippie vibe, which everyone won’t appreciate but I do. And for bigger cities in the general area, Rochester and Syracuse probably go on the list too. Again, cheap housing, although property and income tax need to be taken into account.
Pacific Northwest is still on my short list. That’s another area where we would need to spend a month in the winter before pulling the trigger I think. Beautiful summers in both upstate NY and Pacific NW, but you pay for it a bit in the winter.
Ugh, it’s all about tradeoffs I guess. Florida is usually great this time of year. Wait, nevermind. Staying off the list!
My only kiddo still at home is D25. The colleges she likes most track pretty well with the places we are interested in relocating to. Her school choice may end up being the tiebreaker, even though that’s just a temporary factor that shouldn’t matter for a long term decision.
It’s still early in the process for her, and this is a disparate list, although for 2 of my other kids their short list didn’t make sense to an outsider either. I guess a bit similar to what I was just talking about with tradeoffs. There are things to love and shortcomings with all of them. But if she made a top 10 list today, Smith is probably #1, and Vassar, U of Puget Sound and U of Rochester make the top 10. I could see Northeastern or another of the 800 Boston area schools getting in there too. Which tracks nicely with my top 3 general areas probably.
The long, grey winters in NY were a bit grim. But having grown up there, I was used to it. It would be harder to handle now that we’ve been spoiled in CO for almost 30 years (where weather can be unpredictable… we joke “we take our 300 days of sunshine whenever the come”)
@dadof4kids - I spent my high school years in Poughkeepsie area, about 5 miles from Vassar. My high school graduation was in the lovely chapel on campus. Taxes of course are pretty high, but better than areas closer to NYC. “Pok” has a totally different vibe than Ithaca… much larger with more services, not much charm. It has Vassar and Marist, but I never considered it a college town.
Take a look at Galena! It’s a very cute town with a lot of historical preservation. I love it there and would consider moving there for retirement if my kids stay in the Chicago area.
We are currently on a road trip here in the west with my parents. My dad wanted to ride the train from Durango to Silverton as he loves steam trains. This was our second visit to Durango. We stayed there in 2021 and skied Purgatory. During our 3 nights in Durango we met several people from Southern California tbat love it tbere.
H and I loved Durango in the winter and we love it in the fall too. Skiing is only 40 minutes away and there is an airport there. It’s a 4 hour drive to a larger airport in Albuquerque. We really want D1 and her fiance to visit Durango because we think they would love it too. They are talking about moving from San Diego to the Denver area, but I think the housing prices are still going to be too high for them there. They could afford to by a house in Durango or just outside. And getting to a ski resort from Denver on the weekends in the winter is a cluster. D1 is a teacher and her fiance is a consultant for KPMG and 100% wfh. They would love the outdoor life in Durango and having skiing closeby. If they were to move there it would not be hard for H and I to do the same at some point.
I went to high school a little bit south of Poughkeepsie, in Wappingers Falls. I’m guessing you went to one of the private schools? Thinking that the Vassar Chapel wouldn’t be able to hold a very large graduation class. I graduated in the Poughkeepsie civic center.
Despite the misleading name the “chapel” at Vassar is a large freestanding church. Very pretty, also had senior photos taken there outside. (I went public high school, but smallish).
I seem to remember there was some kind of cutesy term that Cornell friends used to describe the frozen sleet precipitation torture they sometimes endured … maybe “ithacate”?
We have close friends who retired to Durango last year. It’s beautiful and they are very happy. They have made ties through volunteering, neighborhood activity and meeting lots of local businesspeople with a $$$ remodel. . It’s an attractive enough choice that when they bought this house a few years ago for the eventual move we looked at moving there as well, but as my H has become more disabled we realized that it’s not for us. If we move it will be to Seattle or Portland where our sibs and daughters live, where transit is accessible and medical care is top-tier.
We have some good friends who just moved to Golden, and, boy, it sure looks attractive. She said that they would keep an eye out for another condo in their 55+ community.
Durango is very remote. My brother moved there about 16 years ago (his twins were 1) from Steamboat and he didn’t even make it a year. He did some ski patrol work at Purgatory ski area but mostly worked as an EMT at a mine company. They just didn’t like it and it was 6-8 hours from almost everyone they knew. They moved back to Steamboat and he’s continued to live there ever since.
Golden is pretty. It’s on the edge of Denver, and from there it’s easy to head up into the mountains. Also not too far from Boulder, which is even less affordable for mere mortals. If you ever visit, I’d pop down to meet you
Yes, Durango is remote. My FIL once had a dream of retiring there… but not something his wife supported. With their later year health challenges, it was good they stayed in OH near family and healthcare.
Durango might be a first stage of retirement. Right now it’s just a place that we really enjoy visiting since there is so much we like to do there (skiing, hiking).
We’d like to visit Durango. Believe it or not, after almost 3 decades in CO we have not yet been there. (We spent most vacation time going back East to visit family.) It’s about 7 hours from us, including lots of mountain, non-interstate driving. Now that we’re retired, not sure if we’ll make it a destination or a stop on a future roadtrip to CA.
Looks like we’ve verged off the OP, but we left Lancaster, PA after 12 years for Lewes, DE. I am fulltime remote and DH only has to be in the office 2 days a week, so we are practicing for retirement. We have a LONG way to go until then, but love being 2 miles from the beach in a year round town.
Uggggg… Am really wishing that we had sold our house last spring! Prices dropping and interest rates rising. I’m noticing more houses for lease near me. I think some folks are choosing not to sell and are leasing their houses until the market picks up. We are still hoping to put the house on the market this spring, but we shall see how the real estate market looks then.
We are heading up to Minneapolis next month to see how we feel about winter in the twin cities!
. It’s an attractive enough choice that when they bought this house a few years ago for the eventual move we looked at moving there as well, but as my H has become more disabled we realized that it’s not for us. If we move it will be to Seattle or Portland where our sibs and daughters live, where transit is accessible and medical care is top-tier.
