Where to retire?
68Looking for a beach and a view
Rule One- Gotta have a beach.
Rule one- has to have a beach. My wife and I love to walk the beach. I love to metal detect. We love to watch the dolphins. I also enjoy fishing and crabbing, even clamming if available. Can't do most of those things around these parts.
Based on these criteria, my wife and I have started searching coast to coast for our ultimate destination.
First we started listing possibilities. Our list (at this time) looks like this.
- Commerce, Texas- Not going to retire here but it gives us a weather reference for comparisons.
- Vero Beach, Florida- had a wonderful vacation there.
- St. Augustine, Florida- haven't been there but love history.
- Venice Beach, Florida- Lots of shells and sharks teeth to collect also.
- Sanibel Island, Florida- Shelling capital of US.
- Hilton Head, South Carolina- Don't know a thing about it, but sounds interesting.
- Virginia Beach, Virginia- I lived in Virginia when I was young and loved it.
- Hampton, Virginia- This is where I lived when I was young.
- Cannon Beach, Oregon- Beautiful area- very different from East
- Newport, Oregon- Love the Dungeness crabs and the aquarium
- Port Angeles, Washington- My son's suggestion. Beautiful country
- Olympia, Washington- Same as previous
- Gold Beach, Oregon- Have to love the name.
I'm open to more suggestions. Sorry, Myrtle Beach didn't make the cut.
Rule two- want to do it as many days as possible so the weather has to cooperate-----alot.
OK. My work makes me kind of anal retentive. My wife and I decided to use a spreadsheet to track the temperature of all these locations and classify the temperatures.
- 60 degrees to 80 degrees was ideal. This was blue ribbon weather.
- 50 to 59 and 80 to 90- Good but not great. Red ribbon for these.
- 33-49 and 90-95- Kinda Yucky. Yellow ribbon weather.
- Below 33 and above 95- Not what we're looking for!
Keeping in mind that we haven't gone through the hot part of the year in some areas and haven't reached the best time in others. We'll continue to do what we're doing for a while. Kind of a hobby in itself.
We started 12/6/08 and since that time have tracked the places listed above. Some have been tracked longer that others. Weather results so far?
The east coast contenders have definately had a better year. Of course they are all south and the west coast is all north.
- Virginia Beach, Virginia- 77% Blue; 100% Blue/Red
- Vero Beach, Florida- 66% Blue; 100% Blue/Red
- St. Augustine, Florida- 63% Blue; 100% Blue/Red
- Hilton Head, South Carolina- 58% Blue; 100% Blue/Red
- Commerce, Texas- 59% Blue; 87% Blue/Red
- Venice Beach, Florida- 40% Blue; 100% Blue/Red
- Sanibel Island, Florida- 24% Blue; 98% Blue/Red
- Gold Beach, Oregon- 2% Blue; 82% Blue/Red
- Hampton, Virginia- 35% Blue; 65% Blue/Red
- Newport, Oregon- 0% Blue; 75% Blue/Red
- Cannon Beach, Oregon- 4% Blue; 63% Blue/Red
- Olympia, Washington- 16% Blue; 69% Blue/Red
- Port Angeles, Washington- 0% Blue; 24% Blue/Red
Now, entering the summer, the best places will get too hot and the west will get confortable, but who will win!!!
Retirement
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Rule three- Good restaurants (another hobby)
What can I say. We love to try new restaurants. Right now we live in a town with very few but we get out and experiment on our vacations. We have found absolutely wonderful seafood in some places. Examples- Norma's at Seaside in Oregon. Clam chowder is great. Pan fried razor clams are even greater. (I shouldn't be doing this at dinner time.) Other finds include. Moe's which can be found in several locations, including some listed cities. Again, outstanding Clam Chowder and great steamed clams. Red, Hot and Blue in NC had good barbeque but, sorry, cannot top Lockhart, Texas Shorties.
For us, seafood is kind of a must. We went to a couple of places in Myrtle Beach that were huge buffets. They had lots of choices but it was expensive and the food was average.
We found a little breakfast restaurant called the Indigo Room in Vero Beach that was excellent and the last day we found Mr. Manatees. It was great for the grand kids and the food was very good. Bobby's restaurant has very good food and outstanding service. It had a nice variety of foods.
In the Tampa area we found a Cajun restaurant on the "bayou" called appropriately, Cajun Cafe on the Bayou in Pinellas Park by Clearwater. We ate outside where there were clouds of catfish in the water looking for handouts and several very entertaining Gheckos scurrying around your feet. (You can sit indoors if you prefer).
More to come later.
Enjoy your Treasured Pasts.
Stuart
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Camping Dan
Since posting, the pacific northwest is making a great case for themselves!
Stuart
Gold Beach Oregon is just 30 miles north of me...I can give you all the info you need for it...the country is beautiful, but the wind blows all the time. Expect 30mph winds throughout the summer and rain throughout the winter. Absolutely beautiful location with the Rogue river spilling into the ocean in the middle of town. The river bar is extremely treacherous for crossing to go fishing in the ocean, I commercial fished out of Gold Beach for a couple years with my own boat. The mountains surrounding the area are absolutely gorgeous year round, lots of rain keeps the forest green in this area. There is some great fishing and gold panning/crevassing to be done here, but as the summer progresses it gets very hot up river.
Seaside and Olympia both have the downfall of a lot of rain in the winter also, so be prepared to stay indoors or get soaked a lot of days through the winter in these parts. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have more questions about the area Stuart, as you can see I try to give a very objective perspective.
Matthew
Great Hub!!!! Enjoyed the pics, Cannon Beach, Astoria. I grew up mostly in Seaside, graduated there and lived in Astoria, my Dad was a fisherman and logger. We were lucky kids when we were growing up to have had such wonderful seafood served at home. Everything from dungense crab, shrimp, tuna, salmon, and the list goes on. But still, of all the seafood the one that stood, out was the razor clams. My mom would dredge them in Krustz pancake mix, get the oil in the pan real hot and it took less than a few minutes and when they were golden brown out they would come and on to are plates. My Aunt and Uncle had a clam operation in Seaside for a few years, and even opened up a little clam shack on Broadway and served them on a stick. I still visit the area often, have alot of family in the area will most likely retire there.
Thanks NamVetRich
I'll keep this for the recipe!!! It's a great area. Since writing this we have honed in on the Newport, Waldport, Yachats area. Watching the housing so we can buy when ours sells in Texas. Anyone in the market???
Camping Dan 2 years ago
There are so many wonderful places out there it is going to be hard to decide where to retire to. But then I still have a lot of time to work on that.