10 Best Places to Retire in Michigan

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Great Lakes lovers, buckle up because we are counting down 10 best places to retire in Michigan. If you are planning to fish and rest by the lake when your retirement days come, this is where you should be looking the place to do so.

The first word of advice is: think outside Detroit. Although this city is the most populous in the state, it is well past its glory days, and there is a long way to recovery ahead of it. We know that you’ll then miss out on the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings, and the Detroit Pistons, but you want your retirement to be peaceful. Now let’s immediately give you some great reasons to retire in Michigan.

Best Places to Retire in Michigan

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The state of Michigan is bounded by four of the five Great Lakes, and you can add Lake Saint Clair to its roster. If recreational boating is your thing, then you don’t need to look further. According to some calculations, “a person in the state is never more than six miles (9.7 km) from a natural water source or more than 85 miles (137 km) from a Great Lakes shoreline.” If this doesn’t sound awesome, we don’t know what does. One slightly bad thing is that the weather is quite unpredictable.

To determine the best places to retire in Michigan, first, we tracked 20 places with a population bigger than 5,000 in Michigan, or in other words – most livable destinations, according to Area Vibes. Next, we examined each place for the cost of living, the number of physicians per capita (100,000), crime rates and residents aged 65 years and over. We found the data for these factors on Sperling’s Best Places and U.S. Census and then we created separate rankings for each place according to every criterion. After that, we were easily able to create our ultimate ranking of ideal places for retirees in Minnesota.

While you are at it, check out our list of 10 cheapest countries to live like a king as well.

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