9 Things You Must Know About Retiring to Arizona

The Grand Canyon State offers so much more than that gorgeous hole in the ground. Check out whether you'd like to spend your golden years in this southwestern state.

Cactus in the hills above Phoenix Arizona
(Image credit: Getty Images )

Whatever age you are, retirement planning is vital. And that includes deciding where you're going to spend your retirement, either full time, or as a snowbird.

Some of you have already been exploring, taking advantage of doing remote work the last 16 or so months and traveling while working. That's an advisable way to check out possible retirement locales — including Arizona.

Much like Florida, Arizona’s population swells in the winter months — a study by Arizona State University reported a boost of nearly 300,000 retirees who temporarily settled in Arizona for the winter. In Lake Havasu City, for instance, the year-round population of 57,000 nearly doubled to 100,000.

Many other retirees have settled in Arizona year-round. The nation’s first active adult retirement community sprouted in Youngtown, Ariz., in 1954, and today 13% of the state’s 7.3 million residents are 65 and older.

Is Arizona calling to you, too, as you plot your retirement? Here are nine things you should know before deciding to retire in Arizona.

Bob Niedt
Contributor

Bob was Senior Editor at Kiplinger.com for seven years and is now a contributor to the website. He has more than 40 years of experience in online, print and visual journalism. Bob has worked as an award-winning writer and editor in the Washington, D.C., market as well as at news organizations in New York, Michigan and California. Bob joined Kiplinger in 2016, bringing a wealth of expertise covering retail, entertainment, and money-saving trends and topics. He was one of the first journalists at a daily news organization to aggressively cover retail as a specialty and has been lauded in the retail industry for his expertise. Bob has also been an adjunct and associate professor of print, online and visual journalism at Syracuse University and Ithaca College. He has a master’s degree from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a bachelor’s degree in communications and theater from Hope College.