The cities and towns included in Destination: Retirement 2025 were selected from a list of counties Investopedia ranked according to several factors a retiree might consider, including cost of living, proximity to major airports, and access to quality health care. Travel + Leisure and Investopedia editors collaborated to pinpoint the best places to live within those counties across the U.S., dividing the country into five regions: the Northeast, Southeast, West, Southwest, and Midwest. Additionally, editors considered a range of population densities and states to ensure readers have a variety of options.

There are several considerations when deciding where to live and retire. Here’s how we used the data in our selection process. 

Cost of Living

Cost of living is one of the most important things to consider when deciding where to retire, so it played a vital role in our analysis. To find affordable destinations to retire, we took into account monthly expenses on the county level for each of these groups:

• Median monthly housing expenses (regardless of ownership) and median home value from the U.S Census Bureau American Community Survey. To correct for year-to-year fluctuations and to cover a broader range of counties, we considered five-year estimates from 2023, the most recent data available. 
• Average monthly costs for food, transportation, and taxes were drawn from the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator. The numbers cited are for two adults with no dependents. Budgets were calculated using 2024 dollars.
• All data was last examined in February 2025.

Access to Travel

Retirees often have more time to travel, but getting to the airport can sometimes be the most difficult part of the journey. For our analysis, access to travel was determined by the distance between each county center and the nearest major airport. We considered a “major” airport to be any facility categorized by the Federal Aviation Administration as a large or medium-sized hub, based on 2023 data.

Access to Health Care

Access to quality health care is of utmost importance to older adults. For our list, we weighed factors such as proximity to hospitals and ambulatory health care services (e.g. dentist’s and doctor’s offices, outpatient facilities, etc.) per capita. We examined data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, dividing the number of facilities by the number of residents in each county. Data was gathered from the first quarter of 2024, which was the most current available as of February 2025.

Access to Entertainment

Retirement ideally offers more time to enjoy the finer things in life. To make our picks of the top 50 places to retire in the U.S., we also considered the number of facilities in each county focused on arts, culture, sports, and entertainment. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we evaluated the number of arts, entertainment, and recreation institutions and establishments (including sports venues, museums, etc.) in each county per capita.