Deciding where to retire? Nashville, TN continues to be a top destination for older adults. Read on for reasons Music City could be your ideal retirement location.
Why Is Nashville a Good Place to Retire?
Choosing where you retire is a significant process. You’ve worked hard to enjoy this season, where will you spend it? With its vibrant culture, mild climate, and small-town tone amidst the assets of a large city, the Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin area offers everything you’re looking for in retirement.
The Top Reasons to Consider Nashville for Your Retirement
From the climate to the food, we take a deep dive into why Nashville is and continues to be one of the most popular retirement locations.
1. Climate
Nashville experiences a mild climate all year long. With an average annual temperature of 70°, you get the ease of warm temperatures without losing the delight of seasonal changes. The average low temperature in Nashville is 49°, meaning in the winter you get to pull out your sweaters, but you can most likely forego your snow tires.
2. Food
Who doesn’t enjoy a great meal? With Nashville rapidly growing as a culinary hub, the area draws in the best and brightest in the food industry, opening restaurants and training local chefs. Every year the Music City Food and Wine Festival fills a weekend in September with demonstrations by food and drink purveyors from around the world. Experience an adventure in taste and finish it off with a musical celebration.
3. Music
Long known as Music City and the Country Music Capital of the World, Nashville continues to enjoy the perks of housing the Country Music Hall of Fame, and maintaining a rich music history. Even if you’re not partial to Country Music, you can enjoy such landmarks as the Ryman Auditorium, The Grand Ole Opry, and the Honky Tonk Highway, showcasing how a small town grew up on big music dreams.
4. Outdoors
You can easily keep busy and active exploring the Great Outdoors of the Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin area. Tennessee’s largest municipal park “The Warner Parks” is just nine miles from downtown Nashville. With hiking trails, equestrian trails, two golf courses, a dog park, and an 11-mile road ideal for cyclists, this vast greenspace has something for everyone.
Percy Priest, 15 minutes from downtown Nashville, is the largest lake in the area. You can enjoy fishing, boating, or swimming and then unwind at one of the 4 marinas with floating dock restaurants and snack bars.
5. Colleges
Older adults thrive in college towns, and not for nostalgia. Colleges offer abundant continuing education resources, as well as seminars, events, and volunteer opportunities for the greater community. Nashville is home to Belmont University, Vanderbilt University, and Tennessee State University. Each of these campuses provides in-person and virtual programs and activities centered on a range of topics and disciplines.
6. Museums
Nashville has quite a few fantastic museums for residents to visit regularly and bring along guests. The Patsy Cline Museum is one of the many music-related sites, along with the Johnny Cash Museum, The George Jones, and the National Museum of African American Music.
Interested in history but not music? Explore The Andrew Jackson Hermitage, one of the largest and most visited Presidential homes. The Parthenon takes you into Classical Greek history and The Upper Room Chapel displays nativities from around the world.
Curious about science? Get a pass to the Adventure Science Center with 175 hands-on, interactive exhibits and perfect for a day with a family of all ages.
7. Retirement Communities
The Nashville, Franklin, Brentwood area is home to Blakeford, a one of a kind Senior Living Community with many options to fit your lifestyle. From Independent Living to Assisted Living and Aging-in-Place, Blakeford offers the right experience for your needs and season. Nestled minutes from downtown Nashville, this residential community is the best retirement community that takes full advantage of its hometown, engaging all that the Nashville area provides.
8. Airports
Nashville International Airport flies direct to over 50 major cities, and three international locations. With access to this level of air travel, living in Nashville means the world is at your fingertips, and friends and family can visit easily and at low-costs. Nothing feels better than making a move for retirement that reinvents your home as a destination location. And, living in Nashville, you’ll feel the freedom of being able to travel quickly, and at the last-minute, to anywhere in the country.
9. Medical Care
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is ranked a top hospital in Tennessee and one of the top 20 medical facilities in the country, along with Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and Johns Hopkins University. To receive these rankings Vanderbilt had to prove its excellence across a number of specialties.
When you choose to retire in Nashville, you can receive the best medical care, at one of the most renowned research facilities. People travel to Nashville every day for treatment, but residents access this level of care in their own backyard.
10. Welcome
The final question you must ask when choosing a city for retired life, a season for which you planned and saved, is not about facilities or food, but about community.
Anne Patchett, novelist, independent bookstore champion, and Nashville’s unofficial writer-in-residence, describes her uniquely welcoming hometown in “The National,”
“…The interesting part is that a lot of people who came with big dreams – met or unmet – decided to stay in Nashville to have a life. They got in the habit of walking the trails in Percy Warner Park in the morning or doing the loop around Radnor Lake…They made note of the fact that the people were friendly, unusually friendly, even though most of the people they met weren’t even from here. It’s as if everyone got the same memo: If you want to pass for a local, you have to be nice. If the door that leads directly to the Grand Ole Opry didn’t swing open, the doors to people’s houses did, and so they stayed.”
The Nashville, Brentwood, and Franklin area gives you the benefits of a large metropolis, with the welcome and connection of a small mountain town. Residents of Nashville love their home and the individual stories that brought them there. Nashville’s celebrated hospitality reveals an eagerness to expand the group of people sharing life in this town.
Make Retirement in Nashville Your Best Move Yet
Moving for retirement is no small thing, but if you choose Nashville, it can be your best move yet. Come for the climate, the culture, and the medical care. Stay for the beautiful outdoors and the welcoming community. Create a new home in Nashville, TN, and live your best life, retired.
If you’d like to speak with one of our Senior Living Experts or schedule an appointment, please contact us today.