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

If you’re looking for the best places to retire in the Southeast near the water, you’re not alone. According to Smart Asset’s annual studies, retirees are moving, in the following order, to the Southeastern states of Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Delaware perhaps attracted by the lovely weather (albeit on the days without tornados and hurricanes), the ocean, and many glorious lakes.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are also considering moving someplace east that is close enough to water and warm enough to justify a boat. Before Howie spends any more time cruising Zillow, however, I have mapped out a strategy to zero in on the best places for us. If you’re interested in doing similar research, this article walks you through how to:

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

A. Compare the Southeastern States

Last month in Discovering the Best Places to Retire with a Megalist, 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. The only state in the Southeast that made the list, however, was North Carolina.

If you’re curious, the following table shows how the other Southeastern states compare to North Carolina and each other in terms of their ranking for “best places to retire,” senior health care, housing, and quality of life:

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

Votes	Megalist for Southeastern States	Votes	Ranked Cities for Senior Health Care	Votes	Ranked States for Senior Housing	Votes	Ranked States for Quality of Life
34	Florida	8	Baltimore, MD	11	Florida	2	Maryland
7	North Carolina	3	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	6	Tennessee	2	Florida
7	Virginia	2	Charleston, SC	5	Arkansas	2	District of Columbia
5	Tennessee	1	Tampa, FL	4	North Carolina	1	West Virginia
4	South Carolina	1	Gainesville, FL	4	West Virginia	1	Virginia
4	Maryland	1	Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN	4	Kentucky	1	Kentucky
4	Delaware	1	Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR	4	Louisiana	1	Georgia
3	Georgia	1	District of Columbia	4	Mississippi	0	Tennessee
3	Mississippi	1	Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC	3	Alabama	0	South Carolina
2	Alabama	1	Lexington, KY	3	Georgia	0	North Carolina
2	Arkansas	1	New Orleans, LA	2	South Carolina	0	Louisiana
2	District of Columbia	1	Jackson, MS	1	Delaware	0	Delaware
2	Kentucky	1	Fredericksburg, VA	1	Virginia	0	Arkansas
1	Louisiana	1	Richmond, VA	0	Maryland	0	Alabama
1	West Virginia	0	cities in Alabama	0	District of Columbia	0	Mississippi
		0	cities in West Virginia
		0	cities in Delaware

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 Florida, Maryland, and Tennessee in addition to North Carolina. 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” Southeastern 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 22 lists identifying the 137 “best” lakes, beach towns, seaside towns, and coastal living destinations in the Southeast. As the pie chart shows, Florida at the state level had the greatest number of recommended ocean/lake destinations followed by North Carolina; South Carolina; Virginia; Georgia; Maryland and Louisiana (tied); Alabama, Mississippi, and West Virginia (tied); Arkansas, Delaware, and Tennessee (tied); and Kentucky.

Number of Recommended Ocean/Lake Destinations in Each Southeastern State

(hover over pie slices for numbers)

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

SOUTHEASTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	# OF BEST LISTS
Gulf Shores, AL	Gulf of Mexico	5
Greensboro, GA	Lake Oconee	5
Auburn, AL	Lake Martin	4
Rehoboth, DE	Atlantic Ocean	4
Key West, FL	Gulf of Mexico/Atlantic Ocean	4
Gainesville, GA	Lake Lanier	4
Ocean City and Assateague, MD	Atlantic Ocean	4
Amelia Island, FL (inc. Fernandina Beach)	Atlantic Ocean	3
Jacksonville, FL	St. John’s River near Atlantic Ocean	3
Sarasota, FL	Sarasota Bay and Gulf of Mexico	3
Stuart, FL	Atlantic Ocean	3
Venice, FL	Gulf of Mexico	3
Vero Beach, FL	Atlantic Ocean	3
Tybee Island, GA	Atlantic Ocean	3
North Carolina	Lake Lure	3
Cornelius and Davidson, NC	Lake Norman	3
North Carolina	Lake Santeetlah	3
Wrightsville Beach, NC	Atlantic Ocean	3
Folly Beach, SC	Atlantic Ocean	3
Hilton Head, SC	Atlantic Ocean	3
Seneca, SC	Lake Keowee	3
Chincoteague, VA	Chincoteague Bay and Atlantic Ocean	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 destinations in the Southeast 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 137 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” Southeast destinations near the water and replace the health care/airport columns with your own research.

Of the 137 destinations, the 30 destinations identified on the map by the sailboat icon satisfy all 3 criteria, but only 9 of those destinations received more than 1 vote with South Carolina and Florida dominating the list:

SOUTHEASTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	WITHIN 60+/- MINUTES TO RANKED SENIOR HEALTH CARE?	WITHIN 60+/- MINUTES TO INT’L AIRPORT?	# OF BEST LISTS
Greensboro, GA	Lake Oconee	Yes	Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport	5
Jacksonville, FL	St. John’s River near Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Jacksonville International Airport	3
Sarasota, FL	Sarasota Bay and Gulf of Mexico	Yes	Sarasota-Bradenton Int’l Airport, St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport, Tampa International Airport, or Southwest Florida International Airport	3
Venice, FL	Gulf of Mexico	Yes	Sarasota-Bradenton Int’l Airport, Tampa International Airport, St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport, or Southwest Florida International Airport	3
Folly Beach, SC	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Charleston International Airport	3
Louisiana	Lake Pontchartrain	Yes	New Orleans International Airport or Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport	2
South Carolina	Trophy Lake	Yes	Charleston International Airport	2
Charleston, SC	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Charleston International Airport	2
Isle of Palms, SC	Atlantic Ocean	Yes	Charleston International Airport	2

Interestingly, the airport criterion did very little to narrow down the list because only 3 destinations met the health care but not the international airport criteria: Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, AR; Augusta, GA; and Lake Murray, SC.

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.

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

H+A Takeaways

Last month in Discovering the Best Places to Retire with a Megalist, I found that the only state in the Southeast with the most potential to serve retirees well on the health care, housing, and/or quality of life fronts was North Carolina. Other Southeastern states that fared well in those rankings were Florida, Maryland, and Tennessee.

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 9 Southeastern destinations near the water with easy access to ranked senior health care and an international airport are Greensboro, GA; Jacksonville, FL; Sarasota, FL; Venice, FL; Folly Beach, SC; Lake Pontchartrain, LA; Trophy Lake, SC; Charleston, SC; and Isle of Palms, SC.

If you want to explore other options in the Southeast, 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 subscribe at the bottom of this page if you’re interested.