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

Today, we continue our “best places to retire near the water” regional series with a look at the Southwest, which consists of only 4 states: Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Did you know that Arizona was home to the first active adult retirement community in 1954 and continues to attract retirees? From 2014 to 2018, the net migration rate of people aged 60+ that moved from another state to Arizona increased by 79% compared to 33% for Texas or 20% for Florida.

Where are they all going? Well, during that same period of time, the following 10 Arizona cities, 7 Texas cities, and 3 Oklahoma cities made it (at least once) on the list of the top 25 U.S. cities for people aged 60+ moving from another state:

Top Southwestern Cities for People Aged 60+ Moving From Another State

(Net Migration)

CITIES	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Mesa, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ
Phoenix, AZ
Tucson, AZ
Chandler, AZ
Gilbert, AZ
Peoria, AZ
Surprise, AZ
Glendale, AZ
Tempe, AZ
San Antonio, TX
Frisco, TX
Austin, TX
Corpus Christi, TX
Irving, TX
Killeen, TX
McKinney, TX
Tulsa, OK
Broken Bow, OK
Lawton, OK

Sources: Smart Asset’s “Where Are Retirees Moving?” Series for 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018

While the Southwestern states combined have the smallest overall age 65+ population compared to the other U.S. regions, Arizona and New Mexico still ranked among the top states with the greatest percentage of age 65+ residents in 2018:

RANK	STATE	TOTAL RESIDENT POPULATION (THOUSANDS)	POPULATION AGE 65+ (THOUSANDS)	POPULATION AGE 65+ (PERCENT)
12	Arizona	7172	1258	17.5
12	New Mexico	2095	366	17.5
36	Oklahoma	3943	620	15.7
48	Texas	28,702	3602	12.6

Source: Population Reference Bureau

All of which suggests that if you’re interested in retiring to the Southwest, you are likely to find desirable cities/states with plenty of people your age to befriend.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are considering moving someplace that is close enough to water and warm enough to justify a boat. Because we have been living in Texas for the past 18 years, it makes sense to consider whether the Southwest might be a viable option for people, like us, who want to live near the water.

If you’re interested in being on or near the water, too, this article will help you:

compare the Southwestern states in terms of their ranking for “best places to retire,” senior health care, housing, and quality of life;
identify the “best” Southwestern 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 Southwestern 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 1 of those 9 states on that list is in the Southwest, it makes sense to consider how the other Southwestern states ranked against each other and Texas:

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

Votes	Megalist for Southwestern States	Votes	Ranked Cities for Senior Health Care	Votes	Ranked States for Senior Housing	Votes	Ranked States for Quality of Life
8	Texas	4	Houston, TX	11	Texas	1	Texas
5	Arizona	3	Phoenix, AZ	7	Oklahoma	0	Oklahoma
1	New Mexico	2	Dallas, TX	2	Arizona	0	New Mexico
0	Oklahoma	1	Edmond, OK	0	New Mexico	0	Arizona
		1	Oklahoma City, OK
		1	Tulsa, OK
		1	Austin-Round Rock, TX
		0	New Mexico

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 Texas and Arizona with Oklahoma showing some potential in terms of senior health care and housing.

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” Southwestern 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 28 lists identifying the 19 “best” lakes, beach towns, seaside towns, and coastal living destinations in the Southwest. As the pie chart shows, Texas at the state level had the greatest number of recommended ocean/lake destinations followed by Oklahoma, Arizona, and then New Mexico.

Number of Recommended Ocean/Lake Destinations in Each Southwestern State

(hover over pie slices for numbers)

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

SOUTHWESTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	# OF BEST LISTS
Lake Powell, AZ	Lake Powell	8
Lake Havasu City, AZ	Lake Havasu	5
Oklahoma, Texas	Lake Texoma	3
Caddo Lake, TX	Caddo Lake	3
Heron Lake, NM	Heron Lake	2
Port Aransas, TX	Gulf of Mexico	2
Galveston, TX	Gulf of Mexico	2

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 Southwest 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 19 destinations that were within a 60+/- minute drive to “ranked” senior health care (at least 1 vote from the 9 “best” lists). 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. I’ve noticed that most locations within a 60+/- minute drive to good health care are also usually within reach of an international airport. According to the experts, we are more likely to find more direct international and domestic flights at major airports, which makes international travel less expensive than flying out of smaller airports. If you think that you will be a budget-conscious traveler after you retire, take a look at Scott’s Cheap Flights’ list of the best and worst U.S. airports for cheap international flights and sign up for their deal alerts.

If you have other “must-haves,” feel free to use our basic spreadsheet identifying the “best” Southwest destinations near the water and replace the health care column with your own research.

Of the 19 destinations, the 6 Texas destinations identified on the map by the sailboat icon are all recommended ocean/lake destinations near “ranked” senior health care, but only 1 of those destinations received more than 1 vote (Galveston, TX):

SOUTHWESTERN DESTINATION	BODY OF WATER	WITHIN 60+/- MINUTES TO RANKED SENIOR HEALTH CARE?	# OF BEST LISTS
Galveston, TX	Gulf of Mexico	Yes	2
Austin, TX	Lady Bird Lake	Yes	1
Lake Granbury, TX	Lake Granbury	Yes	1
Georgetown, TX	Lake Georgetown	Yes	1
Lakeway, TX	Lake Travis	Yes	1
La Porte, TX	Galveston Bay	Yes	1

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 Texas was the only Southwestern state with the most potential to serve retirees well on the health care, housing, and/or quality of life fronts.
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 6 Southwestern destinations near the water with easy access to ranked senior health care are Galveston, TX; Austin, TX; Lake Granbury, TX; Georgetown, TX; Lakeway, TX; and La Porte, TX.
If you want to explore other options in the Southwest, 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.