East Coast Retirement Location That Isn't Florida

It looks like I'll be taking an early retirement by the end of the year.  There is some pressure to move back to the east coast for family reasons.  Anything will be closer to family  compared to my current location, near Seattle.  Right now, my family is in Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania.  So somewhere in that vicinity is calling. 

Since my budget will be limited, I'm looking for for what everyone else wants really - low cost of living, low crime, good weather, access to healthcare, etc.  But here's the GRM twist.  I am also looking for a place with a good craigslist for used cars, a place to do car stuff like rallycross and the occasional track day.  Not a huge fan of autocross .  Being able to do off-road stuff would be cool too.  Camping and fishing is a huge plus.  But I hate bugs!  So that's going to be really tough.  I've been spoiled by that living out here in the PNW.

Let's start out with crossing Florida off the list, please.  We all know it has just about all of the above, but I'm just not interested in moving there for a variety of reasons.  Oh and it needs to be gun friendly too, so no NY, CT, MA, NJ, MD and RI.

I'd love to hear your suggestions!  My plan is to sell off a few of my extra cars and get a small travel trailer and spend the next year or so figuring out where to live.

I LOVE the charleston SC area.  2 hours from Carolina Motorsports Park.  2 hours from Roebling road.  4 hours from Atlanta tracks.  3.5 hours from Charlotte.

Mosquitos suck during parts of the year, but nothing running a little portable fan doesn't help with.

Pretty good car culture.  

Houses are a bit expensive.  Gas is cheap.  Cost of living doesn't seem to be too out of line.

I wouldn't live IN Charleston.   I live in summerville.  I believe Toyman lives in Goose creek.  There are some nice neighborhoods around that aren't crazy expensive.

You just described North GA

Groats said:

Oh and it needs to be gun friendly too, so no NY, CT, MA, NJ, MD and RI.

 

For what it is worth, NJ is not that gun unfriendly. I know a lot of people here with guns and one with a literal arsenal. 

SV reX said:

You just described North GA

East coast of what again?

edit: if the ask means "eastern US" then I agree 100%. Entertaining moving further north in GA myself. But so are many others apparently. Great spot but filling up fast and no longer cheap. 

I lived in Summerville SC for five years and liked it alright but that place is really in hyper suburb mode. And Charleston is a tourist economy first and it just didn't ever feel like home (to this corn fed mid-westerner). But there are terrific people and shiny happy people everywhere - so enjoy the experience. 

Appreciate your ideas!  Thanks!  Mom would be thrilled if I settled in North Georgia so maybe it looks like we'll start there first.  Was also kicking around the idea of Charleston.  Heard good things about it there through work.  I guess the first step is to get the retirement filed and then maybe pick up a trailer and head east.

Was also thinking about Eastern TN, but that seems to be pretty popular lately.  Although for good reason, I'm sure.

I guess you can get used to the bugs, but it's been nice not having to deal with them for the whole year where I'm at.

SC or GA might be the move. The wife and I often wonder what it'll be like there. I don't blame you on Florida. Eastern TN and SW VA is very beautiful but I've had bad experiences there. 

I can't speak intelligently about bugs because I spend my summers in eastern Ontario where the woods are literally audible with mosquitoes and I don't care.  Their bite is usually unfelt by me.  The only time they bother me is when they're thick enough that I can't breathe without inhaling some (which happens a lot in June up there in lake territory).

I will say that my current home in Harrisburg, PA is surrounded by some amazing healthcare.  Penn State Hershey Med, UPMC, easy access to Johns Hopkins 2 hours away.  It's gun-friendly, but for my tastes it has about as much excitement as a burlap bag full of sawdust.  I've lived in New Orleans, Austin, L.A., and overseas, so my perspective is a bit jaded, but it's not like Taylor Swift books any tour dates here.  At least you're within 3 hours of some great venues where Tswift might book some tour dates.  My house is 7 miles from downtown in a suburban area.  I bought my wee little house for $87k in 2017.  Housing prices have gone bonkers, but Harrisburg is still pretty cheap.

I'm kinda weirded out by much of the mid-south.  The people are amazing, but the way it has become developed makes me a bit confused.  The entire sprawl of Georgia's SC's and NC's cities is like one huge suburbia.  I can't really put my finger on it, but you can drive for an hour on a four lane boulevard and it's a never-ending strip of retail plazas, traffic lights, Whole Foods, and you will have passed through 20 different municipalities delineated by random delineations.  It's weird.  I'm sure I would get used to it if I lived there.

The thing that really drew me in was your comment about RV travel to figure out where.  ALL THE YESS.  That's exactly what my (now ex) wife and I did.  We packed some clothes, a TV, and a coffee maker in a 26' travel trailer and sold everything else we owned.  We spent 6 years and did 49 states.

My parents and some family members retired to the Wilmington, NC area and love it. A little more isolated from the NC city amoeba as Curtis describes above. But you do have that hurricane threat every now and then...

You don't want Pennsylvania. Gun friendly, but property taxes are really high. The roads suck. Our gas tax is one of the highest in the nation. They dump salt on the roads if it even hints at snowing. We have annual car inspections and emissions requirements. The political climate is a battle between the uber-religious and the Philly liberals. And, too many people moving here from NY/NJ and bringing their attitudes with them.

Groats said:

a good craigslist for used cars

Atlanta metro, say no more! Yes, I'm including North GA. As Curtis mentioned, the suburban sprawl is real.

The car scene has something for everyone. You could spend every weekend of the year at a different car show if you wanted to, and our weather usually allows it. We don't have much rallycross, but there are tons of forest roads and off-road trails in the North GA mountains. Autocross scene is very strong, with big well-run SCCA events at Atlanta Motor Speedway just south of town, and Atlanta Motorsports Park hosting their own flavor of it (no cone shagging!). Caffeine and Octane has also started their own autocross at Lanier Raceway, across the street from Road Atlanta. And plenty of track days run by several different organizations between AMP and Road Atlanta. 

I'm just outside the city in the northern suburbs and I plan to stay. I can drive north 50 minutes and hit a track day at AMP, or my usual N. GA mountain road loop. There are two massive lakes nearby for boating and fishing. Georgia has an unusually high number of counties, which means they are very small, and can have very different costs of living. If you value schools and infrastructure and are willing to pay the taxes for it, there are counties for that, usually closer to the city. If you value minimalist govt and taxes, just go a few miles further away to another county. It is definitely getting more costly, even far north in the mountains, but that seems to be a universal trend lately. We got bugs though... but anywhere worth living east of the Rockies will too. 

Note that North GA is NOT homogeneous. Too close to ATL will be urban, and full traffic. Rt 400 corridor has has had explosive growth, and the problems related to it. Athens?  College town suburbia. Too far into the mountains, and you will be extremely isolated and find a lot of undereducated backwoods thinking- you may hear banjos  (Yes, the really DID film "Deliverance" here). 
 

You're gonna have to be careful about finding just the right spot. 
 

But climate, proximity to nature, proximity  to race tracks, great Marketplace finds, no bugs... Yep. That's North GA. 

Travis is right... let me revise my bug comment. 
 

Bugs. Too far south for bad problems with flys or mosquitoes, too far north for bad termites or gnats. But roaches??  You could saddle them and ride them in the rodeo. 

I just want to say, Charleston SC is horrible. It's a terrible place to live. People are rude. Constant gun battles. Crime is rampant. Brutal police force. Traffic is in continual gridlock. 

You don't want to come here. It's a terrible place to live in a backward ass state. 

I like north Georgia too but if you want rallycross, you will have to drive a long way.  Huntsville, AL is the best site and the closest but is 3+ hours away.

My understanding is that Delaware has most/all of the same financial retirement benefits as Florida (and no sales tax!) but without the good weather and not quite as many insane rednecks. There's nothing to do in state but it's close to nj and pa which have a few decent tracks and at least one active rallycross program last I heard.

Toyman! said:

I just want to say, Charleston SC is horrible. It's a terrible place to live. People are rude. Constant gun battles. Crime is rampant. Brutal police force. Traffic is in continual gridlock. 

You don't want to come here. It's a terrible place to live in a backward ass state. 

My sister says the same thing. IoP resident. 

SV reX said:

Travis is right... let me revise my bug comment. 
 

Bugs. Too far south for bad problems with flys or mosquitoes, too far north for bad termites or gnats. But roaches??  You could saddle them and ride them in the rodeo. 

My wifes target area Jim Thorpe, PA Mine is somewhere between Pigeon Forge, TN and Charleston, SC, but north GA is now on that list. 

dps214 said:

My understanding is that Delaware has most/all of the same financial retirement benefits as Florida (and no sales tax!) but without the good weather and not quite as many insane rednecks. There's nothing to do in state but it's close to nj and pa which have a few decent tracks and at least one active rallycross program last I heard.

Philly is a little over an hour away. DC is about 2 hours, NYC is about 3 to 4.  Everything is close to Delaware. You are within a day trip of skiing in winter and surfing in summer. You can even see gang violence in Wilmington.

In reply to QuasiMofo (John Brown) :

I've kept up with some friends (husband/wife) through Facebook who intentionally moved to Charleston.  Now, their favorite thing to do is complain about how Charleston is "full" and saying not to move there.  The irony is not lost on me. 

In reply to Scotty Con Queso :

7 families a day move to the greater Charleston area. Traffic really is terrible. The people that move here are frequently rude.

I grew up in Mt. Pleasant when there were 12k people living there and spent 40 years living there. It was a fantastic place to live. At last count, there are over 90k people crammed into it and the transplants have actually ruined the town. Most of the reasons that people moved there no longer exist. 

I moved to Goose Creek when there were 30k people there. That has almost doubled in 10 years. It is headed down the same path as Mt Pleasant. 

The city really is terrible if you remember what it was like 30-40 years ago. Terrible enough that I won't retire here. I don't like people that much.

In reply to Toyman! :

Trust me I understand.  I've visited that area and I don't think it's for me.  I was making light of the fact that someone who moved to that area was complaining that too many people are moving there.

Back to the OP's question.  I am in agreement with the hive about GA.  If I didn't have smaller kids or need to commute to a major metro area, I'd be looking into GA.  

Toyman speaks the truth.  However, myself and my family are contributing to the issue.

I lived in goose creek basically right out of college for about 5 years.  I loved it.  It was "out of town" but still accessible to go to Charleston. 

When my wife and I had the ability to move from depressionville (Pittsburgh area suburb), we chose the Charleston area of SC.  That's where we went on vacations anyway.

Since 2006 when I last lived in this area, there is NO break in the city.  Summerville, goose creek, etc...  all just merge together now.

The good thing is that there are more green areas and parks and whatnot than most other cities I have been in.  

In other words, it's great from an "outsiders" perspective, but not nearly as good as it was 20 years ago.  It will continue to grow and crowd as time moves on and doesn't appear to be easing up one bit.  They are building houses EVERYWHERE.  

The unfortunate side effect is that houses are expensive and traffic can suck balls.  There is not a lot of room to widen streets in a lot of places and now that everything is getting built up, there isn't room for bypasses.

So...  yea, I love it here.  Please don't move here.  Lolz.

mad_machine said:

dps214 said:

My understanding is that Delaware has most/all of the same financial retirement benefits as Florida (and no sales tax!) but without the good weather and not quite as many insane rednecks. There's nothing to do in state but it's close to nj and pa which have a few decent tracks and at least one active rallycross program last I heard.

Philly is a little over an hour away. DC is about 2 hours, NYC is about 3 to 4.  Everything is close to Delaware. You are within a day trip of skiing in winter and surfing in summer. You can even see gang violence in Wilmington.

Yup, that's all about right.

If you live downstate you can add an hour to the Philly trip but deduct an hour from the DC and beach trips.

From northern Delaware you are 90 minutes to NJMP.  7 hours to VIR.  30 minutes to Cecil County Dragway.  A number of different dirt ovals within 2 hours.

I spent some time in Elijah, Ga and really enjoyed it.  My friend retired from NY to near Charlotte, NC and loves every aspect of it.