Arizona
In reply to the discussion: I'm considering moving to Arizona for retirement. [View all]Bradshaw3
(7,517 posts)The last place I lived being Prescott. It's a pretty little town with a quaint downtown but extremely conservative with plenty of trumpers and also lots of flat out racists and neo-Nazis. Also the home base of Gosar, even though he lives in Flagstaff. I hate saying these things because I still have friends there. It is a beautiful area with moderate weather but between the extreme politics and the fact it has become the go-to place for Cali refugees, as housing prices have soared, making it hard for others to stay. A lot of people who move there find there is little to do and few good restaurants.
Phoenix is nice for six months and unbearable for six months with multiple months where the temps surpass 110. Anywhere in the Valley is about the same, even an hour away. Up around Sedona, which is expensive, you have Cottonwood, which is also growing rapidly and unremarkable but more suited to middle class people; Jerome is a former mining town which is now an artist/tourist town on the side of a mountain. Flagstaff is beautiful and cool but expensive and cold for five, six months. Payson I also lived in. If you like fishing and pine forests it is great but the most exciting thing there is bingo night and dodging the elderly fishermen tooling around in their golf carts on city streets.