We've lived in tons of places. Utah,California,Colorado,Idaho,Mexico, Arizona and Maryland. When it was time to really think about what we wanted in a retirement community, we had to make some decisions. Ours were based on cost of living and climate to start with so we considered becoming expats to Belise, Costa Rica,Panama,Honduras or Mexico. Those options soon changed after visiting a few places south of the border last year. Mexico is crime-ridden with druglords. Costa Rica beaches were too remote and there were crocs that entered the ocean from sweet water rivers. And the locals were always charging foreigners too much. Crime was also on the rise against tourists and foreigners, prices were high and the condos were TINY for $150k-$200k. Beach communities had no to few amenities. Belize, although beautiful, is pricy in Canadian/American communities but you do get full ownership of your property. Another big drawback is the distance and cost to get to some of these places. So, we crossed living abroad off our list. It's great for some people, just not for us.

Then we had to choose a State and City. We noticed that every time we talked about retirement we always came back to one place...Arizona. So I flew out from Maryland to look at some homes. I went from east to west looking in Gilbert, Chandler, Peoria, Buckeye, Goodyear, Litchfield Park and Surprise. Then my agent suggested Sun City. Allthough the options it offered seemed terrific with golf, tons of resort-like pools, state of the art exercise equipment, pool tables, bowling, theater, minature golf, tennis and pickle ball, lawn bowling and more I couldn't get past the idea of living in a "Retirement Community". Then she added all of the clubs with all of the necessary tools and equipment like wood-working, lapidary, jewelry making, crafts, clay, porcelain, book clubs and on and on until I decided to take a look.
Guess where we decided to retire?