How to Find the Best Places to Retire in the Northeast Near the Water

If you’re looking for the best places to retire in the Northeast, you are in good company. What I think that you will find is a significant 65+ population already aging in place and ready to make new friends.

While the southeastern states have the largest overall 65+ population, 6 Northeastern states ranked in the top third of states with the greatest percentage of 65+ residents in 2018:

RANK	STATE	TOTAL RESIDENT POPULATION (THOUSANDS)	POPULATION AGE 65+ (THOUSANDS)	POPULATION AGE 65+ (PERCENT)
1	Maine	1,338	276	20.6
4	Vermont	626	121	19.4
8	Pennsylvania	12,807	2,336	18.2
9	New Hampshire	1,356	246	18.1
14	Connecticut	3,573	615	17.2
14	Rhode Island	1,057	182	17.2
24	Massachusetts	6,902	1,139	16.5
26	New York	19,542	3,214	16.4
30	New Jersey	8,909	1,439	16.1

Source: Population Reference Bureau

As I’ve mentioned before, we are considering moving someplace east that is close enough to water and warm enough to justify a boat. We both grew up in the Northeast, however, so we have not completely ruled out a partial return. If you’re interested in being on or near the water, too, this article will help you:

compare the Northeastern states in terms of their ranking for “best places to retire,” senior health care, housing, and quality of life;
identify the “best” Northeastern destinations near the water (ocean, lake, or pond);
narrow down the destinations according to your personal preferences; and
consult helpful resources for further destination-specific research.

A. Compare the Northeastern States

In our Discovering the Best Places to Retire with a Megalist article, I found that the states with the most potential to serve retirees well on the health care, housing, and/or quality of life fronts were Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, and Iowa. Because 3 out of the 9 states on that list are in the Northeast, it makes sense to consider how they ranked against each other and the other Northeastern states:

Megalist of Best Places to Retire in the Northeastern States Compared to Their Rankings for Senior Health Care, Housing, and Quality of Life

Votes	Megalist for Northeastern States	Votes	Ranked Cities for Senior Health Care	Votes	Ranked States for Senior Housing	Votes	Ranked States for Quality of Life
10	Pennsylvania	12	Boston, MA	5	Pennsylvania	6	New York
7	Massachusetts	12	New York, NY	1	Rhode Island	5	Massachusetts
6	New Hampshire	5	Philadelphia, PA	1	Maine	4	Maine
5	New York	4	Hartford, CT	0	Massachusetts	3	Connecticut
3	Maine	3	New Haven, CT	0	Connecticut	3	New Hampshire
3	New Jersey	3	Pittsburgh, PA	0	New Hampshire	3	Pennsylvania
3	Vermont	1	Manhasset, NY	0	New Jersey	3	Vermont
2	Rhode Island	1	Buffalo, NY	0	New York	2	Rhode Island
2	Connecticut	1	Rochester, NY	0	Vermont	1	New Jersey
		1	Allentown, PA
		1	Providence, RI
		1	Burlington, VT
		0	cities in New Hampshire
		0	cities in New Jersey
		0	cities in Maine

For a discussion of the methodology used to identify these rankings, see Discovering the Best Places to Retire with a Megalist and corresponding spreadsheets.

As you can see from the table, the states topping the rankings appear to be Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York with Rhode Island and Connecticut showing real potential. That said, there is also an argument to be made that the senior health care votes for New Hampshire and New Jersey would be higher for residents within reach of the Boston and New York metro areas.

If those results were disappointing, fear not! Maybe you aren’t obsessed with being geographically close to the best health care options in the country, maybe your housing budget is more flexible than most, or maybe the “quality of life” metrics don’t really apply to your lifestyle. If so, continue reading to see how you can factor personal considerations into your research.

B. Identify the “Best” Northeastern Destinations Near the Water

Whether any particular state will be a good fit for you will depend on where you will be living and what you will be doing in that state. Let’s face it, good health care options and affordable housing probably aren’t really what floats your boat. It’s natural to want the basic essentials to be automatically included in the package.

Personally, I am in search of a suburban or rural area that is close to the water (ocean or lake) with mild winters. The downtown would be small enough that you could stroll from the ice cream parlor to the independent book store but large enough to support year-round restaurants and a well-stocked international section in the grocery store. If you have a suggestion for us, please share it in the comments below.

In order to identify particular destinations of interest in a state, it can be helpful to pick geographical features that are the most important to you, like the presence/absence of oceans, lakes, mountains, forests, wetlands, deserts, farmland, urban centers, etc. For our purposes, I compiled recommendations from 24 lists identifying the 99 “best” lakes, beach towns, seaside towns, and coastal living destinations in the Northeast. As the pie chart shows, New York at the state level had the greatest number of recommended ocean/lake destinations followed by Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island (tied), Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

Number of Recommended Ocean/Lake Destinations in Each Northeastern State

(hover over pie slices for numbers)

The results are a little different when you look at the individual Northeastern destinations receiving the most votes:

NORTHEASTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	# OF BEST LISTS
Laconia, Meredith, Wolfeboro	Lake Winnipesaukee	8
Ogunquit, ME	Atlantic Ocean	5
Cape May, NJ	Atlantic Ocean	5
Burlington, VT	Lake Champlain	5
Chatham, MA	Atlantic Ocean	4
Newport, RI	Atlantic Ocean	4
Lake George, NY	Lake George	4
Portland, ME	Atlantic Ocean	3
Concord, MA	Walden Pond	3
Provincetown, MA	Atlantic Ocean	3
Asbury Park, NJ	Atlantic Ocean	3
Plattsburgh, NY	Lake Champlain	3
Narragansett, RI	Atlantic Ocean	3
Westmore, VT	Lake Willoughby	3

Do these rankings mean that you should look for housing close to any of these destinations? Not necessarily. This list only identifies the highest-ranking ocean/lake/pond destinations in the Northeast without regard to other considerations.

C. Narrow Down The Destinations According to Your Personal Preferences

Next, we need to narrow down the destinations according to your personal preferences. For example, before I let Howie go crazy on Zillow to find the town with the best mint chocolate chip ice cream and properties in our price range, I did another pass through the data to identify all of the 99 destinations that were within a 60+/- minute drive to “ranked” senior health care (at least 1 vote from the 9 “best” lists) and an international airport.

As I’ve learned, access to good health care becomes more important as we age, which is also when we are least likely to drive over an hour to see the best doctor. Proximity to an international airport is far less crucial, but it might help make our travel dreams come true and make it easier for folks to visit us. If you have other “must-haves,” feel free to use our basic spreadsheet identifying the “best” Northeast destinations near the water and replace the health care/airport columns with your own research.

Of the 99 destinations, the 52 destinations identified on the map by the sailboat icon satisfy all 3 criteria, but only 11 of those destinations received more than 1 vote with Rhode Island dominating the list:

NORTHEASTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	WITHIN 60+/- MINUTES TO RANKED SENIOR HEALTH CARE?	WITHIN 60+/- MINUTES TO INT’L AIRPORT?	# OF BEST LISTS
Burlington, VT	Lake Champlain	Yes	Burlington International Airport	5
Newport, RI	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	T. F. Green International Airport	4
Concord, MA	Walden Pond	Yes	Boston Logan International Airport; T. F. Green International Airport	3
Narragansett, RI	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	T. F. Green International Airport	3
Watch Hill, Westerly, RI	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	T. F. Green International Airport	2
Charlestown, RI	Watchaug Pond	Yes	T. F. Green International Airport	2
Long Beach, NY	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport	2
Great Neck, NY	Long Island Sound	Yes	John F. Kennedy International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport	2
Portsmouth, NH	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Portland International Jetport, Portsmouth International Airport at Pease, Boston Logan International Airport	2
New Castle, NH	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Portland International Jetport, Portsmouth International Airport at Pease, Boston Logan International Airport	2
Niantic, CT	Long Island Sound	Yes	Bradley International Airport; T. F. Green International Airport	2

Interestingly, the airport criterion did very little to narrow down the list because only 1 destination (Hampton Bays, NY) met the health care but not the international airport criteria and only received 1 vote from the “best” lists.

D. Consult Helpful Resources for Destination-Specific Research

At this point, you are now ready to do some destination-specific research before planning to look at available housing options. Consult the resources listed on the HOME-DREAM and HOME-DECIDE pages to compare locations in terms of their population, average home price, affordability, transportation, employment, crime, and climate, including:

Use AARP’s Livability Index to compare up to 3 different locations based on housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity factors. The tool also lets you adjust the importance of each factor based on your preference. Note that an average community will receive a score of 50, while above-average communities score higher and below-average communities score lower.

Sperling’s Best Places website is a treasure-trove of updated statistics on population, cost of living, average rent, crime rate, tax rates, religion, local economy, climate, and weather. Use their Compare Cities tool to help identify the best place for your needs and rule out the duds.

Use TopRetirement.com’s searchable database to narrow down locations by country, state, cost of living, culture, environment, average temperatures, tax burden, and overall rating. Note that the “environment” section allows you to search by 27 different criteria including boating communities, coastal, island, lake, etc.

Use UMass Boston’s Elder Index to compare how much you can expect to pay for your basic needs in terms of housing, health care, transportation, food, and miscellaneous essentials for up to four counties.

Numbers, however, can only tell us part of the story. Try taking a virtual tour of the area to narrow down your list. Go to Google Maps and drag and drop the little yellow pegman in front of any site to give you the Street View. Try slowly dragging the little yellow pegman over the site, and you might see that you have the option of putting him down on the blue Street View lines or the blue Photo Sphere balls as in the example below:

Take a virtual stroll on the beach and drive through the downtown area to see if it appeals to you.

If you find other helpful tools in your research, please let us know in the comments!

H+A Takeaways

In our Discovering the Best Places to Retire with a Megalist, I found that Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York were the Northeastern states with the most potential to serve retirees well on the health care, housing, and/or quality of life fronts. Other Northeastern states that fared well in those rankings were Rhode Island and Connecticut.
In order to identify specific destinations of interest in a state, it can be helpful to pick geographical features that are the most important to you, like the presence/absence of oceans, lakes, mountains, forests, wetlands, deserts, farmland, urban centers, etc.
We’ve found that the top 11 Northeastern destinations near the water with easy access to ranked senior health care and an international airport are Burlington, VT; Newport, RI; Concord, MA; Narragansett, RI; Watch Hill, Westerly, RI; Charlestown, RI; Long Beach, NY; Great Neck, NY; Portsmouth, NH; New Castle, NH; and Niantic, CT.
If you want to explore other options in the Northeast, you can use our spreadsheets and the resources listed on the HOME-DREAM and HOME-DECIDE pages to compare the pros and cons of various destinations within a region. H+A newsletter subscribers can access the 5 spreadsheets referenced in this article on our CACHE page, so please subscribe at the bottom of this page if you’re interested.