**** BOOK GIVEAWAY****

Next Decade Publishing has graciously provided a copy of Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada to be given away to one of our readers! Please leave a comment to be entered to win.

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Retirement can be a life-changing experience - a chance to truly LIVE where and how you want. Making a decision about WHERE to retire can be fraught with challenges. There are so many factors that can influence your decisions as to where to live! This week, we are happy to talk with Warren R. Bland, a professor at Cal State and author of Retire in Style, 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA & Canada. This book is truly a gem, filled with excellent recommendations and excellent criteria to use when deciding where to retire.

Retire in Style provides readers with the information they need to make intelligent choices among 60 outstanding upscale communities widely distributed across 11 regions, 23 states and 5 Canadian provinces. Careful consideration was given to the 12 criteria covered for each place (landscape, climate, quality of life, cost of living, transportation, retail services, health care, community services, cultural activities, recreational activities, work/volunteer activities, and crime). Each place discussion includes 5-6 pages of text, plus a beautifully crafted illustration page featuring a climatic table, a 12-variable rating table, and a map of the city and its surroundings.

We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Warren about his book, tips for retiring, and more. Here's what he had to say...

WE: Please tell us about your book, Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places
Across the USA and Canada...

WB: Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada describes some of the best places in North America for upscale, yet affordable, retirement.  The 60 places chosen for the book were ranked on
the basis of 12 criteria ranging from landscape and climate to the availability of transportation, retail and health care services.

Retire in Style is not just a catchy title -- it is the central concept of the book.  It does not connote a cloistered existence in a gated retirement or resort community.  The retirement places described are real towns and cities that are special and highly livable.  They are the kinds of places where you can enjoy an active or a relaxed retirement in a safe, clean, friendly and uncrowded community rich in services and amenities.  In brief, they offer a stimulating lifestyle and a high quality of life.  Whether you are considering relocating within the United States or within Canada or contemplating a seasonal or permanent move across the USA-Canada border, Retire in Style will help you select the place that is best for you.

WE: What led you to write this book?

WB: I am a geographer specializing in the regional geography of the United States and Canada.  Naturally, I am interested in travel and the varying character of towns and cities.  In the late 1980s, while browsing in bookstores, I blundered upon several of the earliest books purporting to describe the best places to retire.  Because of my geographical interests and because I knew that perhaps 10-15 years "down the road" my wife Sarah and I would be retiring, I found these books irresistible.  They soon became a staple of my bedtime reading.

Over the next 10 years or so I read many retirement places books.  Perhaps because of my academic training, I came to read them critically and I found lots of flaws.  A most basic flaw is organizational.

Retirement places books may be organized topically or place-by-place.  Retirement Places Rated is organized topically, that is, criterion by criterion, and points are assigned to each place.  At the end of the book, the points are totaled and the winners declared.  The problem with this topical approach is that you never get a sense of what the place is like, you just end up with a lot of numbers and rankings. 

In one edition of this most popular retirement book, Fort Myers, Florida claimed the top ranking yet you had no idea of the character of the city.  I prefer the place-by-place approach used by the majority of retirement places books.  Unfortunately, most of these books suffered from content problems.  They tended to be too thin in content and/or full of substantive errors, and/or too dependent on the often false impressions of enthusiastic new residents interviewed in the course of background research.

Being a college professor, I didn't know when to keep my mouth shut.  I told wife, my college dean, and some of my best friends how bad these books were.  Predictably, my wife Sarah, my college dean Ralph, and my friend Becky challenged me to do better, to write a superior retirement places book.  With their strong encouragement, I decided to try.   The result was Retire in Style: 50 Affordable Places Across America, Next Decade, Inc., 2001.  The success of this book led by publisher, Barbara Kimmel, to suggest a second book.  After several more years of work, we published Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada in 2005.

WE: Moving is hard work - both physically and in adjusting to a new place. Do you have tips for people re: adjusting to their new locale and culture?

WB: In general, people in small towns and cities tend to have more time for and are less fearful of casual interaction with strangers than in large cities.  It may take a little time to get used to the friendly hellos and volunteered information from strangers you meet on the street or on the bus in your new city but you will soon accept them as the norm.  Or, at least that was our experience in Portland.

The quality of public services and how they are financed may well be different in your city.  In Los Angeles, for example, trash collection, at least for those living in single-family homes, requires little from the household beyond separation of garbage, recyclables and garden waste and the service is paid for on your county tax bill.  In Portland, the collection is done by private companies, requires more effort at separating types of recyclables, and charges are billed to the homeowner and vary with how much garbage you put out.  Worse still, yard debris is picked up only every second week!  Obviously,
the Portland way of trash collection takes some getting used to.

One difference between Oregon and California took no getting used to at all.  California has a rather steep sales tax while Oregon has no sales tax at all.  Shoppers, at least those who relocated from out-of-state, feel like they are getting a discount on everything.  Of course, if you are moving from Oregon to California, the sales tax experience is somewhat different.

To sum up--no two places are exactly alike.  Each community has its own unique combination of amenities, pleasures and annoyances.  The key to your happiness is tolerance and flexibility.  If you have these attributes, you will do fine in your new locale.

Relocating and adjusting to conditions in your new place are indeed hard work.  Although you can, if you are willing to spend the money, leave much of the physical move to the movers, you still have to fit your treasured belongings into your new home.  And you may well find that adjusting to the culture or way of life of your new community requires some effort too.

The latter point, especially is worth further consideration.   While it is true that most people do not relocate without considering the pros and cons of doing so, some aspects of the culture of your new locale may not become obvious until you have spent a few weeks there.  Our own move from Los Angeles to Portland, OR provides several examples.  In Los Angeles, nearly everyone drives everywhere and they do so as fast as possible.  In contrast, in Portland many people walk, bike, or use public transit, and those who drive tend to travel much more slowly than in LA.  So, people used to the fast pace of Los Angeles life may initially find the slower pace of Portland life initially disconcerting and/or frustrating.  But you soon adjust and get over it, or you get lots of tickets for speeding or running stop signs.

WE: Occasionally, if we're lucky, we feel a great sense of HOME in a certain place. It could be the geography of the locale, or the community, or being by something that you love (oceans, mountains, forests, etc.). How should this weigh in, when thinking about your 12 criteria for picking outstanding places to retire?

WB: At the beginning of Retire in Style, I admit that "There is much to be said for staying put.  You already know the community where you live and you probably feel connected to it. . . it is comfortable to be in your old neighborhood."  I then go on to list "several compelling reasons to consider relocating."  Among the more important of these are the chance of "settling into a different community that is safe, friendly, and rich in opportunities for shopping, recreation and culture . . ."  Perhaps most importantly in these difficult economic times, "many retirement places offer lower costs of living, especially for housing, than do most major metropolitan areas.  The ability to recoup and profitably invest some of your home equity by relocating to comparable but less expensive housing in a more affordable area increases your disposable income.  For many retirees, such additional income could mean the difference between living modestly and retiring in style."

That said, the fact remains that the great majority of retirees will remain so strongly attached to the place where they spent their working lives and call home that they will not be seduced by the attractions of (for example) a lovely landscape, a mild climate, a higher quality of life, a lower cost of living, superior transportation, excellent retail, health care and community services, low crime rates, and outstanding opportunities for culture, education, and recreation, among other amenities typically available in top-rated locales.  They will stay where they are, and that is probably for the best both for them and for those who do relocate.

WE: Where is the best place to retire?

WB: There is obviously no simple answer to this question. Indeed, there is no single best place in which to retire because individuals vary in their wants and needs.  Only you can determine what you want, need, and can afford. And only you can choose among the unique and special communities described in my book.

Each town and city has a unique character and ambiance, which I have tried to capture in the place descriptions.  However, to fully appreciate the nuances that differentiate an irresistable place from a merely likeable one, you must visit in person. This book can help you narrow your choices to a few outstanding locales worthy of additional consideration.  Ideally, you should visit the selected places for extended periods in summer and winter in order to get to know the places, people, and their way of life. With a little luck, you will discover that special place where you can retire in style and lead a happy and fulfilling life during your golden years.

WE: Thanks so much, Warren! Your book is a fantastic resource - we highly recommend it!

For more information, please see:

http://www.nextdecade.com/retireBook60.shtml

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

Next Decade Publishing has graciously provided a copy of Retire in Style: 60 Outstanding Places Across the USA and Canada, to be awarded to one randomly chosen commenter on this
article.  To comment, you must be a member of Wandering Educators
(free), and reside in the U.S.. The contest will run from July 7th,
2009, until 11:59pm, July 14th, 2009. Any comments left on the article
within that time are eligible for the drawing.