Boomers: Do you want to retire in your present location?

[DFW]

28. Difficult question to answer.

I am now mostly in a picturesque spot in the German Rheinland, less than 2 hours drive from Holland and Belgium, an hour's flight from the nearby (15 min. by car) Düsseldorf airport to Paris, Zürich, Prague, Warsaw, Copenhagen, London, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, etc. Less than 2 hours' flight to Barcelona, Budapest, Rome, Stockholm, Oslo, Zagreb, etc.

On the other hand, I miss out on much of what I like in the USA--the interesting people to be found in DC, NYC and Boston, New England in the summer, Hawaii in the winter, the Bay Area almost any time, even back in Dallas in the early spring or late fall when the temperature is tolerable.

We have one of our children 2 hours down the road in Frankfurt and the other in Manhattan. They have their own lives now, and both places have airports in any case.

Besides, I'm only 62, so I don't contemplate retiring any time in the next 15 years or so. At the end of the day, we'll probably end up doing the same thing we do now--jump around all over the place--until we can't any more. It runs in the family. My great grandmother invited me over for afternoon tea the first time I was in London at age 16. She was 88, and "happened to be in town at the same time." My dad never retired. Cancer retired him. He was a Washington journalist for over 50 years, and his last (and farewell) column appeared 8 days before he died.

For now, we're in an old medieval village outside Düsseldorf, near the Rhein River with a 1000 year old castle in our back yard. We have friends from the States who often come here to stay in our house when we're on Cape Cod, and think of it as their favorite vacation. Go figure.