Source: Doug Terhune President of Carolina Plantations
With 15,000 Baby Boomers retiring every day, there must be a lot of Allied and Mayflower moving trucks backing up to homes in Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo, DC, central NJ and Long Island! The magical question is “Where are these moving trucks headed?”
By simple process of elimination, most new retirees are probably not headed to Canada, Maine or Vermont. So, if they majority are headed south, then chances are probably 50/50 that the Carolina’s are being considered, as North and South have a variety of climates, topography, commercial and retirement areas to offer.
If you break down the options, Yankees believe that the Carolinas are probably best known for cities such as Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham (aka the Research Triangle), Greensboro and Charleston. However, these are not necessarily the top retirement destinations, as many people are anxious to leave behind traffic, congestion, city life, higher taxes and rush hour.
Lifestyle is a complex virtual concept as you cannot touch it nor see it very easily. There are many facets to what makes up a lifestyle as golf and a nice long walk on the beach are very small components. When you live north of the Mason Dixon line, most people, not all, can be at 50-100 restaurants within a 30 minute drive. Excellent medical care is also close by as are hair salons, grocery stores, museums, culture, sporting venues, movie theaters, shopping and so much more. These daily conveniences are what a attracts people to certain geographic centers as well determines for others that they wish to live more remotely away from life’s hustle and bustle.
For simplicity, (The) www.TheRetirementHandbook.com has broken down the Carolinas into 6 GeoCenters: NC Coast, SC Coast, NC Triad, SC Piedmont, SC Upstate and NC Mountains. This is a lot of land as NC has a total of 53,821 square miles along with South Caralina’s 31,189 for a whopping 85,010 square miles. That compares to Florida’s 69,795 and New Jersey’s 8,772. Ironically, last year NC replaced NJ as the 10th most populated state in America.
While nothing replaces getting in a car and driving around exploring new areas, here is a chart that might get you started on which of the six GeoCenters might be right for you.