Best Place to Retire - Austin Texas
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Austin, Texas, is a place you should consider as one of the top cities for retirement.
In Austin, you'll find all the amenities of a large city and all the charm of a small town. This is a city where the sun shines about 300 days per year and the winters are pleasant. Admittedly, with high humidity and high daytime temperatures, some people may find the summers uncomfortable. Rainfall also occurs in just about every month of the year with May averaging around 5 inches.
Austin's fastest growing segment is the 65 plus age group which is just another testament to it's suitability as a retirement option.
One of the biggest reasons I favor Austin is real estate prices. You can still get into a nice home for under $200,000 and if you care to look into the mobile home lifestyle, $50,000 to $75,000 will buy a nice 3 bedroom mobile home in a nice park.
There is a variety of transportation services, for seniors, that cost anywhere from free to about twenty cents per mile. You can use these for medical appointments, hair salon and pharmacy runs and a whole plethora of other things. The city's bus service, Capitol Metro, offers free fares to seniors 65 and over.
Austin is also noted for it's bike safe efforts. There are wide bike lanes and bike paths throughout the city. If you're a golfer, there are several championship golf courses.
You'll never lack for a selection of activities designed specifically for seniors with the three senior activity centers and seventeen recreation centers. The senior activity centers don't have membership fees. They offer lots of events and activities, including health related events, tours, trips, and recreational activities.
Classes are offered through the city's recreation center. They also offer art and fitness, yoga, table games and support groups. Live music abounds in Austin which is noted as the Live Music Capital of the World. There are over 120 venues for live music presentations of every kind, including an opera company and a symphony orchestra.
There is a rich history in Austin which dates back prior to the late 1700's when the first settler's visited. Art museums are also prevalent in Austin. There are five major hospitals and six specialty hospitals in the city, which afford ample medical access for everyone.
Austin is a college town, with a student population of over 50,000, so if that were a concern to you, you'd need to enter it into the equation along with all the positive things the city offers. As an overall choice for a retirement city, Austin rates highly, year after year, on just about every list.
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