I finally decided to retire at 70.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

39. I live in Santa Fe.

Moved here nearly ten years ago after a divorce. Moving here was an excellent decision for me. I'm currently 69, stopped working about four years ago and have a lovely life.

Santa Fe has a reputation, especially among those who live in Albuquerque, of being too expensive for anyone to live in. Not true. Not true at all. I moved here from Overland Park, KS, which is considered by those who live in nearby Kansas City, MO, to be too expensive for anyone to live in. Sigh. The rent on my first apartment here was exactly what I'd have spent in OP for a comparable place. I have since bought a small townhouse. About 900 square feet, two bedrooms, two baths, three skylights.

If you're selling a home you'll be making out like a bandit. And if you've been renting all along, even in Santa Fe you'll be giddy at the comparatively low rents.

This is a gorgeous state. I still haven't explored it properly.

If it is possible for you to spend at least a couple of weeks in more than one part of this state, do so. Otherwise, do a bunch of research on line and figure out what's best.

I think you will need to keep firmly in mind how relatively unpopulated this state is, and how far you can be from anything. If you wind up in Albuquerque you'll be in a big city with all the amenities of a big city. Santa Fe is about a 45 minute drive north. It's pretty small, population maybe 75,000, and even though it's the state capitol, it's still a small city. Limited restaurants. Big box stores are half the size, maybe even smaller, than their counterparts in ABQ. But because this is such a small city our night skies are AMAZING! Really. I love it here.

Taos is beautiful. Driving north from the Plaza is one of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. If east coast developers ever saw that landscape it would be completely filled with condominiums in a hearbeat. But Taos is very much off the beaten track. Its population is under 6,000. So to do any serious shopping you must go to Santa Fe or Albuquerque, although at this point in your life you're not doing that much shopping, I know. However, depending on what you are like, you might feel isolated there.

The other thing to keep firmly in mind is that if you live in Albuquerque or north, you'll be at higher altitude. ABQ is about 5,000 feet and Santa Fe comes in at 7,000 feet, and Taos the same or a bit more. Personally, I love living at altitude. Every time I visit family in the Kansas City area for the first day or two the air feels thick and heavy. The thing is, some people, especially us older folks, can have a hard time adjusting to altitude. But if your health is good, if you don't smoke, don't have other kinds of breathing/lung problems, you'll do just fine.

The culture here is very distinct. Very Hispanic. Native American presence is strong. I happen to like that, even though there are drawbacks. Here in Santa Fe it seems as though a lot of people are related to each other, and sometimes us outsiders get left outside. There's also a remarkable amount of corruption, which never fails to astonish me. Several years ago the Sheriff of Santa Fe County was caught selling county equipment on ebay. In another scandal a man falsified his credentials to get hired as school superintendent in a school in northern NM, and the main person doing the hiring was his uncle. Drunk driving is a huge problem. I have never before lived in a state where drunk drivers regularly get on the interstate going in the wrong direction and kill people. Oh, and it's not at all uncommon to see someone arrested on his 7th or 12th DWI. Or someone who served time for a drunk driving accident that killed someone, to kill another person in a new drunk driving accident.

Do NOT take that as a caution to stay away. Because this is a wonderful state in very many ways. As I said above, I moved here after a divorce. I'd already been here several times taking summer programs at St. John's College. I also grew up partially in Tucson, so I was familiar with the desert Southwest. Also, some of the older parts of this city are a lot like Tucson was in 1962 when I first moved there.

This city, Santa Fe, has museums, many art galleries, adequate restaurants, a decent number of brew pubs, and a reasonably lively cultural scene. We have the Opera. We have a bunch of small live theaters.

Did I mention the glorious night skies?