Proximity to airport helps retired boomers get over separation anxieties

     We baby boomers are an odd bunch.  Almost half of us -– 46% actually –- say one of our top reasons to choose a specific retirement location is to be near our children.  Fair enough, but a larger number of us say that climate and recreation activities are important, 60% and 61% respectively.  (The top decision driver on where to retire is cost of living, at 81%.)  The source of this data was a recent annual survey by the Del Webb organization as reported in Monday’s Wall Street Journal.

        My conversations with residents and real estate professionals

in the more than 150 golf communities I have visited generally confirm the Del Webb data.  Retirees who love golf of course also love their children (and grandchildren), and they have found a way to indulge both passions by locating to a golf community within an hour of a major airport.

        From Virginia to Florida, private communities are within an easy drive of flights to virtually everywhere, many of them nonstop and the rest no more than one stop.  Even if your child has decided to follow her dream to be an actress by joining a Sioux Falls, SD, theater troupe, you can be there for the standing ovation in about five hours if you live, for example, at Governor’s Club in Chapel Hill, the Peninsula Club on Lake Norman in North Carolina or the Dominion Club in Haymarket, VA.  All these fine communities are within 35 minutes of a major international airport.  We could add dozens of other good choices to the list.  (If you want some specific suggestions about communities near airports, contact me.)

        If you can spare an extra hour or two for your flight, smaller regional airports are a good option as well; parking and access to your gate is generally a lot easier at smaller airports, which saves time.  Leaving from Myrtle Beach, you can be in Sioux Falls, for example, in about six hours.  The under-rated Wachesaw Plantation, with its fine Tom Fazio layout, is less than a half hour from Myrtle Beach International.  From Savannah’s airport, the flight to Sioux Falls is well under six hours, and the golf-rich Landings community on Skidaway Island, with its six excellent courses, is just 45 minutes from that convenient regional airport.  Hendersonville, NC’s Champion Hills, another Fazio course community, is a mere half hour from the small Asheville airport, yet a flight on Delta from Asheville would have you in Sioux Falls in under five hours, with one stop.

        Dozens of excellent golf communities are within minutes of southern golf communities, well positioned to help you get over your separation anxiety and get on with your life.

Haymarket, VA's Dominion Valley is within 45 minutes of Dulles airport.