When Gary Graves began considering the best place to enjoy his retirement, it was an easy choice: He headed back to the town where he went to college.
Born in New Jersey and reared in Ohio, Graves, now 65, had lived for years in Naperville, Illinois, a distant suburb southwest of Chicago, pursuing his long career as a corporate executive, turnaround expert, advisor and entrepreneur. But as he started scaling back his work hours and had more free time, he decided he wanted a retirement spot more attuned to his passions, which include golf and the arts—and boosting college sports.
So in 2021 Graves and his wife, Heather, who still works full-time as a nonprofit fundraiser, moved 260-miles east to Ann Arbor, the home of the University of Michigan and a growing retirement mecca.
He knew Ann Arbor well, having graduated from Michigan in the 1980s with a degree in chemical engineering. Plus, two of his grown sons live in the area, along with three grandchildren and another on the way. Gary lauds the “phenomenal” medical community and the intellectual milieu.
“I love this town,” he declares. “We didn’t consider other places.” Downsizing? Nope. They ended up buying a bigger house, a four-bedroom, six-bath spread on a pond off a golf course in Saline, near the Ann Arbor city limits.
Around Ann Arbor, a city of 116,000, 30 miles west of Detroit, culture has a broad definition that includes sports, notably the big-time athletic program at Michigan. Gary bleeds Michigan’s colors, maize and blue. “I’m just five miles from Michigan Stadium,” he says.
Ann Arbor is one of 25 places on the Forbes list of 25 Best Places to Enjoy Your Retirement In 2025. The roster identifies terrific spots to follow a half-dozen retirement passions: arts/culture, fine dining, lifelong learning, outdoor activities on water, outdoor activities on land, and a special category just for golf. Besides arts/culture, golf and fine dining, Ann Arbor is, not surprisingly, great for lifelong learning. The current catalogue for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the university is more than 100 pages long, with classes on everything from nuclear physics to “Vienna from the Habsburgs to Hitler.”
College towns tend to punch above their population weight when it comes to arts/culture, learning opportunities and even fine dining, which explains why about a third of our 25 picks could be considered college towns.
Most of the four million or so Americans retiring each year don’t move or move very far, unless they’re looking to be near family, cut costs—or pursue a dream. (The main Forbes list of Best Places To Retire in 2025 stresses affordability, while our Best Places to Retire Abroad list is for both dreamers and penny pinchers.) But particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic and increasing work-from-home flexibility, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers contemplating retirement are seeing a move as a chance to indulge in long-held passions, now that they’ve got more time. We evaluated places for six areas of interest: arts/culture, fine dining, lifelong learning, outdoor activities on water; outdoor activities on land, and in its own special category, golf. The full list can be found here [insert link]. Our choices are listed alphabetically, with the particular passions noted for each place.
Here’s how this list was put together. We looked at nearly 1,000 places around the country (including some suggested by Forbes readers), amassing a ton of data we put through our evaluative metrics. We eliminated places with populations below 10,000 on the theory there would be an inadequate supply of housing if everyone rushed in. Focusing on specific passions and top places for them, we reviewed scores of published evaluations by experts and enthusiasts.
We also took into account other quality-of-retirement-life issues. Among them: medical availability, air quality, serious crime rates (axing places more than several times the national average). We noted how walkable and bikeable a place is. Then we applied our editorial judgment.
Ann Arbor is hardly cheap, with a median home price of $516,000, 24% above the national median of $423,000. But on quality-of-life issues, the area really shines. Washtenaw County, where Ann Arbor is located, has more than twice as many primary care doctors per capita as the national average. Serious crime is below the national average. Air quality is good. The city is very bikeable and walkable. FEMA gives Washtenaw County a good rating on its National Risk Index evaluation for vulnerability to natural hazard and climate change dangers. (We cut places in the highest risk category.)
While not the basis for choices, we do take note of state taxes, because they vary widely, and like other living costs can be a major factor for some retirees’ decisions. Four places on the list have no general state income tax: Austin and Dallas in Texas, Sarasota, Florida, and Walla Walla, Washington (although Washington State now levies a 7% “excise tax” on certain high-end asset sales). Three of our picks, all in Oregon, have no sales tax: Ashland, Bend and Eugene. No place on this year’s list taxes Social Security earnings at the state level. But some do tax portions of other retirement or pension income while levying duties on estates and inheritances. There is more detail in our individual write-ups. On the tax front, Ann Arbor does all right. Michigan has a flat-rate state income tax of 4.25% no matter how high the income, which exempts Social Security and some pension income. There’s also no state estate or inheritance tax.
Our underlying data comes from sources that you can check yourself (and consult to evaluate any potential retirement location). Median home prices come primarily from the National Association of Realtors and zillow.com. Cost of living information is drawn from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and bestplaces.net. Serious crime stats are collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, neighborhoodscout.com, and, on occasion, official local tabulations. The data on primary care doctors come from countyhealthrankings.org. Air quality metrics are collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Assessments of walkability (the ability to stroll easily to basic retail businesses and mass transit for everyday needs) and bikeability (same idea using pedaling) come from walkscore.com and the League of American Bicyclists. The Federal Emergency Management Agency maintains the National Risk Index for natural hazard dangers; we use the county-wide dataset.
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