More than 1 million senior citizens typically move every year to a new locale to spend their golden years. So what are the most popular retirement destinations? The American City Business Journals, which publishes Business Journal newspapers in many major metros, recently used a six-part formula to rank the most popular places for retirees. The formula included the number of residents aged 65 or older, seniors as a percentage of the population and percentage of seniors who moved to that metro.
Not surprisingly, the top of the rankings is dominated by warm-weather cities, particularly in Florida and Arizona. Number 1 overall is Florida’s Bradenton-Sarasota metropolitan area, where more than 25 percent of the population are seniors and the median age is 48, about 12 years higher than the nation as a whole. Most of the highest-ranked places are smaller metropolitan areas, where large concentrations of seniors account for a higher proportion of the total population.
Among larger metropolitan areas, Tampa-St. Petersburg led the group, followed by Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix and Riverside-San Bernardino, California. In the formula, final scores ranged from +20 down to -10.
Here are the top 10 destinations for seniors:
Rank | Metro area | Closest major metro | Total population | Senior population | Retirement area score |
1 | Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida | Tampa | 688,126 | 184,455 | 19.119 |
2 | Prescott, Arizona | Phoenix | 215,686 | 50,899 | 16.488 |
3 | Lake Havasu City, Arizona | Las Vegas | 194,825 | 43,633 | 16.458 |
4 | Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida | Tampa | 586,908 | 133,367 | 15.906 |
5 | Naples, Florida | Tampa | 318,537 | 85,608 | 15.820 |
6 | Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida | Orlando | 536,357 | 111,653 | 14.976 |
7 | Homosassa Springs, Florida | Tampa | 140,357 | 42,966 | 14.735 |
8 | Ocala, Florida | Orlando | 328,547 | 80,964 | 13.360 |
9 | Punta Gorda, Florida | Tampa | 156,952 | 54,299 | 12.394 |
10 | Port St. Lucie, Florida | Miami | 406,296 | 91,683 | 12.386 |
(Source: American City Business Journals.)
