Third vote for Oklahoma. I live in the northeast corner of the State and near a beautiful lake. Housing is just about any price you want to pay ranging from lake front gated communities to very modest. I was a military wife so I have lived in a lot of different places and this is my favorite. Our weather is a bit unsettling since we have a lot of tornado warnings in Oklahoma, but an excellent early warning system. The northeast part of the State is very wet especially in the spring. We are less than five months into the year and have received over 20 inches. The frost free season is said to be early April to about Halloween, but there are many nice days before and after those dates that allow you to grow the hardy crops, or more, if you add a little protection. I normally have salad greens until mid December if I remember to throw a cover on them on really cold nights. I stop gardening in December, and begin transplants inside in late February. I just use a light set-up and don't have a greenhouse (yet). I live about 45 minutes from Joplin MO, and a lot of my shopping is done there. I live near a small resort town but we have a WM Supercenter and Lowes, fast food places, and numerous small businesses. As I am typing, the window is open and at midnight it is 73 degrees. From the garden we have had radishes, green onions, sugar snap peas, various lettuces and salad greens, a few stawberries from a new bed, and in future years should have asparagus and several berries. Almost all of my summer crops are in the ground, except those that will follow the broccoli and onion harvests. The broccoli is just beginning to head and the onions are just bulbing. I have not had to water in-ground plants at all except for new plantings in raised beds, and that has only been a couple of times. Summers are hot and I will probably water a few times in the hottest part of summer. I have been trying to get 'tracydr' above to consider the NE corner, but so far she seems to be favoring the horse country and the college towns. LOL I can't say much more about that tho, since my youngest son graduated from there and my husband did his Masters there. Tracy, I understand what your husband is doing as I have a son just completing a PHD in Texas. I wondered if he would ever make it through high school, so who knew? LOL

I forgot to mention that we currently live in Dallas, TX. We are in a great area about a mile from a gorgeous city lake that is surrounded by art deco architecture and turn-of-the-century mansions. We got our 1600 square foot brick, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car attached garage home on a city lot for well under $100K, although it's worth much more now. There is a lot of crime here, but we have not been personally affected ever. We keep 2 big dogs out back, lock the doors, lights on out front at night, car doors locked and keep an eye on things around our street. Maybe we've just gotten lucky. Our problem with Dallas is that it's a city in transition, and areas like that are not always the friendliest places to live. There are a lot of very old original owners on our street, and they are nervous about rising property taxes and utilities and the new families that keep moving in as the old folks begin to move into assisted living or die. When you combine nervousness with way too much free time there is the potential for a not so nice little old lady to become a real pain in your butt. We have 2 on this street that have made things so uncomfortable for quite a few people over very petty things. They have done things like trying to organize block parties and only invite the white people. There is a lesbian couple on our street, and they're just horrible to them. We love the mix, but I'm afraid the tensions won't improve until the bored little old ladies are dead and gone. A little elbow room would do us well.... Also, the schools here stink. Texas public schools are the worst in the nation, they regularly ignore federal laws and the agency designated to enforce the law when complaints are filed is corrupt and useless. We have found a way around the schools, but eventually we will leave Dallas. The city is not doing anything to protect the middle class from rising property taxes as the mcmansion tear-down crowd slowly takes over this part of the city, so even after we own our home in a few more years, we will be paying a huge amount each month in taxes each month.

I know this comment is very much after the fact but I would just like to offer Seattle and the greater Puget Sound area as a wonderful place to retire. I have lived here my entire life and while I have traveled extensively across the country, there is nowhere else I would consider living. First, the area is extremely scenic.......make that drop-dead gorgeous!! Anywhere you might choose to settle will provide views to mountains and natural areas and you are never more than a few miles away from water.........lots of water!! The Sound, many lakes and rivers and streams. Because of the geography (nothing here is really flat), view properties are plentiful. Any outdoor activity you are interested in - skiing and other winter sports, hiking, camping, hunting, boating, etc. - can be easily addressed without any extensive car travel. Second is the weather. Most who have never lived here have huge misconceptions about the weather. IMO, it is excellent. Never too hot, never too cold and contrary to common opinion, it does NOT rain here constantly!! In fact, total average annual rainfall in Seattle is much lower than many other places in the US. Summers are sunny and very dry........winters damp and cool and snow infrequent. Seldom a need for any A/C and no summer humidity. There are 4 distinct seasons and each offers its own attractions. And no strange weather issues that generate ferocious storms.......no hurricanes, no tornadoes and while we do exist on a major fault line, earthquakes are extremely rare. Seattle is a vibrant, active and very cosmopolitan city. Lots of cultural activities, a major sports center and a foodie paradise. Yes, it is expense to live in town but there are scores of smaller communities within easy access of the city that are far less expensive. I live across the Sound, just a quick ferry ride away from downtown Seattle but a world away in terms of a rural feel and reduced cost of living. Puget Sounders for the most part are extremely well educated, entrepreneurial, friendly, and polite and many have a very artistic bent with many smaller communities known for their support of the arts. In short, living in the Puget Sound/greater Seattle area will provide all the advantages of a big city (colleges, employment, superb medical care, museums, theatres, restaurants and shopping) combined with a very strong community feel of the smaller, more rural and very scenically located surrounding towns. What's not to like ??

State politics is a BIG issue as far as retirement goes. Weather or not you may have Medicare, medicaid, or ANY kind of breaks or help etc. largely depends on whether or not your state government is progressive democrat or reich wing nutters out to destroy anything that could remotely help retirees and those on lower income. I did live in California most of my life, however had to come to NC to help my mother for the past 18 years. She recently passed away age 95 so we are leaving this reich wing hell hole asap. I lived in Oregon for 6 months and loved it. Most areas in California that I would like to live is FAR to expensive for us. Our old house in Newport Beach that my family bought in 1975 for $25,000 last sold for $1.7 MILLION. We could not possibly find anything there even remotely in our price range, even for rent. We just went on a 27 day cross country trip, camping along the way. Went back to my old stomping grounds and saw our old house. Would move back to Southern California in a heartbeat if we won the lottery. However we have to exist on our retirement which is only about $4,200 a month, plus fortunately cost of living raises per year. So we spent 5 days in Bend Oregon on this trip to get a feel of it, for my wife to see it and to look at homes we can afford. She absolutely fell in love with Bend and why wouldn't she bend is like Shangri-La compared to Raleigh NC. We found several homes just south of Bend ON the Deschutes River with a dock, about a 1/2 acre of land usually, 2+ car garage, plus large workshop plus HUGE RV parking garage the size of a blimp hanger and all for under $200,000. I just now was actually looking on Zillow at a couple places in Florence Oregon right on the coast for the same price range and right on the water. Oregon is literally like being on a different planet compared to NC. Nice weather,(if you are east of the Cascades) very few bugs, low humidity, gorgeous country side, blue as blue can be politically so you know the state legislature isn't sitting there doing nothing but trying to come up with ways to screw you 24/7 like virtually every single red state is. Unless you are very well off with LOTS of money in the bank and a big retirement of at least $100K+ per year then you are a damn fool to live in a red state and or vote for Tpublicans. Sadly politics rules virtually everything we do, especially if you are lower income making less than $150K a year. That is just a fact we must live with and a fact you had better acknowledge and accept when looking for a place to retire. There are no Republicans left only Tpublicans and 100% of them are stark raving insane and have no more care for the bottom 98% than they do an ant on the sidewalk. I only hope my wife and I can sell our house asap before this positively insane batch of nuts that are now in 100% totalitarian control of the NC legislature drag down the state even further.