ActiveRetirementPlaces.com is a website designed to help those thinking about an active retirement choose a place that meets their needs and desires. It has grown out of the search by us, Karen and David Patterson, for our own Active Retirement Place.

Born in the 1940s, we’re on the leading edge of the post-war (World War II) baby-boom generation. Boomers, as in everything else they have done, will change the way the world looks at retirement. It will be more active, last longer, and be more changeable. Boomers will bring more interests, income, education, and energy to what used to be referred to as the “golden years”.

We’re looking for a place to retire that offers a mix of outdoor recreation, the arts, entertainment, and intellectual stimulation. It’s our goal to keep our minds and bodies as active in retirement as they are today. We like to bicycle and hike; go to lectures, plays, musical performances, museums, and galleries; and hit coffeehouses and funky bars for everything from blues to bluegrass.

We don’t want the only people we meet to be our age, our color, our religion, our background…or our anything for that matter. We like learning new things, meeting new people, and having new experiences.

Today we live outside of Akron, Ohio, 40 miles from downtown Cleveland. Over the past 30 some years, Dave has earned his living in one way or another principally as a writer and designer. He has been PR director for both a museum and a charitable foundation; edited and published magazines; owned his own businesses and worked for giant corporations; run both an umbrella organization for a group of museums and the world’s largest motorcycling website.

Karen is a third-generation schoolteacher. She has worked summers as a park ranger, led tour groups to England and Ireland, and owned a travel company. For the past two decades, she has taught at a private school in a national park where she spends her days surrounded by 14 year olds. If that doesn’t make you ready for retirement, nothing will.

We’re on a quest to find our Active Retirement Place. You may be entering upon a similar quest. If so, we’d like you to join us on the hunt and along the way share your ideas and experiences of what constitutes an ideal active retirement lifestyle and location. In the coming months we’ll be posting on this website information about the places and options we explore. We invite you to do the same.

We want this website to be an electronic community center for all who search for an Active Retirement Place. To do that, it needs to be more than a journal of Karen’s and Dave’s quest. Those on similar searches need to use it to share what they have learned and experienced.

Right now you can do that by emailing us at info@activeretirementplaces.com. Send us your ideas and experiences. Tell us what you have learned and include photos if you can. We’ll endeavor to post and organize the content you provide. In the future, we’ll be setting up surveys, producing email newsletters, and looking for more ways to share what each of us learns on our searches.

Please join us in the search for Active Retirement Places, and good luck on your quest.

The best is yet to come.