I now have two plans for retirement. Both are expensive, and I’m not saying I’ll be able to afford them. I’m saying both look equally attractive, that’s all.
One plan is to retire to Naples, Florida. I’m going to feel chic all the time, so that’s good.
The other plan is to retire to Rawdon, Quebec. I will feel the opposite of chic but it’s very woodsy and almost as cold as I need it to be.
So the choice is between beautiful nature and beautiful shopping opportunities.
This is really great! I still have no idea how any of this works in the US.
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“choice is between beautiful nature and beautiful shopping”
Have thought of reverse snowbirding?
Spend the winters in Quebec and the summers (slow season) in Naples….
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Have you been to Minnesota? Rochester or outer suburbs of Minneapolis, I think, have both.
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Be VERY careful about how you decide where to retire! You’ll be stuck there for DECADES, so you want to be sure that you consider ALL the factors to will lead you to the right location.
For the past 24 years, I’ve been retired in the Southern Arizona desert outskirts of the Phoenix Metro area, and it’s been as close to HEAVEN ON EARTH as I’ll ever get — a climate that’s always hot and very dry, almost no rain or flying insects, no natural weather disasters; consistent conservative state governments who keep my property and state income taxes low, and don’t try to ruin my quiet neighborhood by changing zoning laws that would impose low-cost multiple-occupancy housing on my block, etc., etc.
I would have blown my retirement choice and ended up in HELL but for a happenstance of fate when I was on active duty in the Air Force. When I joined the USAF in the late Seventies, I was living in Southern California, which has the same hot, dry climate as Arizona, and also had — at the time under Governor Ronald Reagan — the same conservative values. So I’d always planned to return to Southern California when I retired, UNTIL by pure luck late in my career I was given a single assignment in Tucson, AZ, and discovered that Arizona had the same climate and political advantages as 1970’s California.
So I changed my retirement plans and everyday I thank the inscrutable hand of fate, since in the years since then, California has turned into a ultra-liberal, taxed-to-the-teeth, crime-ridden, hyper-woke, super-progressive nightmare, about as close to HELL ABOVE THE GRASS as you can get
So choose very carefully, Clarissa! The wrong choice will be almost impossible to undo!
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I was surprised by your Rawdon choice, but then I read the great post about your father, and it makes complete sense now.
I also like the Lanaudière region. I go to a country house north of Rawdon at least once every month, in Ste Beatrix, and I am thinking about buying the place. It is very peaceful while being close enough to Montréal.
I also love Saint-Donat and Saint-Zénon. What a paradise! I totally get why you want to buy in the area. It has a hypnotic effect on me.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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