Is The Villages The Best Place to Retire?

The question on everybody’s mind seems to be whether or not The Villages is the best place to retire. Well, this answer depends on who you ask.

Many publications such as Where to Retire, Ideal Destinations and Money Magazine publish lists each year of what they call “The Best Places to Retire” (or some variation thereof). What confuses many people, especially those considering The Villages, is that America’s most popular retirement community is rarely, if ever, mentioned in any of these publications.

How can that be you may wonder? What could be so wrong with one of the most well-known retirement communities going today that it doesn’t make the cut for these lists?

The answer is simple. Most of these publications only list communities who advertise with them. The developer of The Villages for whatever reason chooses not to advertise in these magazines. Instead, the ad budget for The Villages is spent on numerous national TV spots and ads in other mainstream publications.

So by doing this, the developer is betting on the odds that even if you subscribe to one of these magazines and don’t see anything about The Villages, you’ll find out about it some other way. And if you’re here, reading this, he was right!

And next time you’re looking through one of those “best places to retire” lists, keep in mind that the information has the potential to be biased, and take the recommendations with a grain of salt. Part of the fun in finding the best retirement community for you is in doing some leg-work finding out as much as you can about the community and the local area. Don’t just rely on the recommendations of a magazine.