We live in Houston, have looked at Marble Falls (Lake Marble Falls) and Lake Travis (Lago Vista and many more areas). Lake front homes on Lake Marble Falls are $500,000 and up, on Travis for nice water it's at least $800,000, mostly you are talking over a million. For $400,000, you get a dump house with water that is dry anytime the lake is down, which currently is about 35 feet low. It is a beautiful lake. MFalls is MUCH smaller (maybe 2 miles long). The Hill Country, which is where these lakes are, is fantastic. Anything off the water would seem cheap to someone from NJ, but Austin is more expensive than much of the rest of the state. In many places in Texas you can get a very nice home with 3500+ sqft for $300,000. Some places, it's substantially less than that.

Southern Florida is very expensive and will only get worse. Then it seems that a lot of politicians are getting arrested. Taxes , insurance and cost of living are high and getting higher every year.

I've just had an ex-customer of about 55 years of age retire to Costa Rica. Recently divorced and with no kids, its easy for him to do so. It's certainly cheaper to live in Costa Rica and the weather is mild all year long- he retired to the more mountainous interior of Costa Rica rather than either the Pacific or Carribean.

I'm too young to even consider retirement yet but did the findyourspot survey just for fun. My top 3 were Baton Rouge, Honolulu and El Paso, three places in which I'd be highly unlikely to live for various reasons. But, it was still fun to see what the computer came up with!

(To be fair, #4 and #5 were SF and Santa Barbara--those places would be great but are expensive!!)

What happens with your health insurance when you move to Mexico? I understand Medicare coverage is no longer available.
We have an excellent health care plan and could not give that up.

I'm glad Hot Springs was mentioned - there are several towns in Arkansas that are great retirement spots - Bella Vista, Fayetteville, Eureka Springs, Beaver Lake area, Holiday Island (north of Eureka).

I'm trying for a 6-month & 6-month deal. Mexico by winter, Vermont by summer. Hawaii in winter, Seattle in summer. Something like that.