Looking forward to retirement but where. . .
 

My husband and I are planning to retire next year and move to North Carolina where we have a vacation home. This would become our permanent residence. But I have to confess to you that I have always had this fantasy of living in Europe (at least part of the year), and my husband has similar interests and is supportive of my dreams and desires. In the last 25 years, we have navigated throughout Europe, making some 10+ trips by car, train, ferry, bus and/or cruise ship.

We are interested in smaller towns where the pace is a little slower but within an hour of a city by train. We are considering various places in Italy, Switzerland, Spain and France but are open to other suggestions. We would like to find a small apartment in a place with a view of mountains or a lake. Some places that come to mind are Locarno on Lake Maggiore or towns on the lake near Zurich, Lucerne, or Geneva, in Normandy, in the Bernese Oberland, in Tuscany or on the French or Italian Riviera, or along the southern coast of Spain.

Taking into account some of our preferences, where would you suggest we look? And if it were you, where would you choose to go if you had an opportunity to live there?

Just as we decided years ago NOT to have a second "summer home" in the US, we would not choose to have a "second home" in Europe. There are just too many places to pin down just one. Since retiring, we spend 2 to 5 months in Europe each summer, but confine our stays to one week to one month in each place. You can rent a lot of wonderful places for less than you will "invest" in buying a permanent home in one particular place.

Your suggestions in your second paragraph are wonderful. Why pick just one? Spend a month in each of several. The next year pick a few different ones.

Hi JoannMJ - there was a hilarious series on a couple of years ago called "A PLACE IN ...." and it was about various Brits looking to buy their own little piece of Europe - the Spain, Italy and Greece series particularly come to mind. See if you can get a copy - it may give you second thoughts.

I'd start by researching the requirements of each country for non-citizen retirements. Some countries will be easier to retire to than others.

Even if you can meet the residence requirements for your chosen country I think NeoPatrick is right - by the time you have bought a place, which won't be that cheap to meet all your requirements, and paid all the local taxes and the maintenance and other charges on it you could begin to think of it as a millstone rather than a joy. Even if you let it out when you are not there, for income, will you be happy doing that? Why not save your money and use it to visit a different country/area every year, rent a place and enjoy living there with non of the hassles of ownership.