Story first appeared in USA TODAY.
Aging Baby Boomers who dreamed of retiring in the sun near Florida beaches or Arizona deserts have hit a speed bump: the bad economy.
One woman stayed within Jacksonville, Fla., when she moved into Sweetwater, an active-adult community. Moving is at a historic low due to the recession and faltering housing market, demographers say.
The number of Americans ages 55 to 64 who moved to Sun Belt states since the economy began to tank has declined dramatically, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Census data released Tuesday.
The slowdown is part of a continued drop in the mobility of all Americans. Only 11.6% — 35 million — changed residence from 2010 to 2011, the lowest rate since the Census Bureau began collecting the statistics in 1948. In the mid-1980s, more than 20% were moving each year.
Two primary reasons for historic lows in all types of moves — within the same county, to other counties and other states.
The oldest of 77 million Boomers who had fueled a rush to "active adult" communities throughout the Sun Belt are staying put because they can't sell their homes or can't afford to retire.
The dismal job market also has kept young people, typically the most mobile of all age groups, in place.
The Census data also show:
•Colorado stands alone among Western states in continuing to attract retirees and young professionals. Largely because of relatively low unemployment rates, the Denver metro area ranked first in net migration of young adults from 2008 to 2010, up from No. 12 in the mid-2000s, says Cindy DeGroen of the state's demography office.
•Most people move for housing reasons rather than family or jobs. For the first time, the Census has identified those related to foreclosures or evictions: 1.2% in 2011.
•For the first time since the turn of the last century, more than half of California residents are natives. Of the non-natives, more are born abroad than in other states.
•Despite the displacement of thousands of residents after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana continues to be the state with the highest percentage of people born there — 79% in 2010.
States that are attracting fewer out-of-staters are seeing their native population creep up since 2000. Native-born Arizonans increased 3 percentage points to 38% of the population.
Nationally, the percentage of people living in the state of their birth dropped from 60% in 2000 to 58.8% in 2010.
•Net migration to a group of counties across the country that are primarily retirement magnets fell 70% last year.
In response to the slowdown of Boomers moving, one company has designed an online calculator that allows prospective buyers to tally real estate taxes, monthly payments, utilities and other costs for each of the company's developments.
It is also expanding development outside the Sun Belt, recognizing that some retirees don't want to move far from children, grandchildren and friends.
The Carolinas have emerged as the preferred retirement destination, according to Del Webb's most recent Baby Boomer survey, a finding backed by Census data. North Carolina continues to gain a net of about 9,000 retirement-age residents every year from other states; South Carolina, about 6,000.
At the peak of the good times, Nevada was gaining more than 4,000 people ages 55-64 every year. Since the housing market collapsed, it has been gaining about a fifth as many.
Showing posts with label Retirees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retirees. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
RETIREMENT LOCATIONS THAT DON’T BREAK THE BANK
Story first appeared in USA Today.
Not many Baby Boomers have taken the time to think about where they want to retire.
Many are willing to just stay put as they grow older. And while some want to be close to family members, others are forced to stay where they are because their current home values have declined so much, reducing their equity.
AARP The Magazine decided to help Boomers do some shopping. It has come up with a list of the most affordable and desirable places to retire. The magazine has previously produced issues on the best college towns, the healthiest cities and other lists to help people figure out where to retire. But this is the first time it's focused on affordability.
Gabrielle Redford, editorial projects manager for AARP The Magazine said given the economy, they were interested in finding places that were less expensive to live. The issue will be released on July 24. It'll be online (www.aarp.org/bestplaces) today.
The destinations that AARP selected are not just dirt cheap. The selections were based on a number of criteria, such as property and sales tax rates, recreation, and health care, among others.
Although cities in the coldest parts of the country tend to be among the least expensive to live in, the study made sure to include a variety of climates. They put in some livability criteria into the mix, and they also decided to exclude cities that have high rates of unemployment and home foreclosures.
The top five destinations:
Portland, Maine
Median housing price: $202,800.
What a steal: A dozen raw oysters at J's Oyster, overlooking the bay; $11.50.
Best night on the town: Shakespeare in Deering Oaks Park: free.
Tulsa, Okla.
Median housing price: $125,600.
Best way to spend $10: Admission to the Philbrook Museum of Art, an Italian Renaissance villa built in the 1920s and converted to a museum, is just $7.50.
Gainesville, Ga.
Median housing price: $141,800.
Best way to spend $10: Grab a drink and a small plate at Recess Southern Gastro Pub on the square, then check out events downtown, including free concerts.
Wenatchee, Wash.
Median housing price: $192,000.
What a steal: All those dams provide enough power to give the region some of the nation's cheapest utility bills. Residents pay about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
Winchester, Va.
Median housing price: $151,500.
Best night on the town: Shenandoah University has an exceptional music conservatory, with 100-plus professionals on staff. Evening performance: $27.
Runners up:
Cheyenne,Wyo.
Columbus,Ind.
Harrisburg,Pa.
Ithaca, N.Y.
Midland, Texas
Not many Baby Boomers have taken the time to think about where they want to retire.
Many are willing to just stay put as they grow older. And while some want to be close to family members, others are forced to stay where they are because their current home values have declined so much, reducing their equity.
AARP The Magazine decided to help Boomers do some shopping. It has come up with a list of the most affordable and desirable places to retire. The magazine has previously produced issues on the best college towns, the healthiest cities and other lists to help people figure out where to retire. But this is the first time it's focused on affordability.
Gabrielle Redford, editorial projects manager for AARP The Magazine said given the economy, they were interested in finding places that were less expensive to live. The issue will be released on July 24. It'll be online (www.aarp.org/bestplaces) today.
The destinations that AARP selected are not just dirt cheap. The selections were based on a number of criteria, such as property and sales tax rates, recreation, and health care, among others.
Although cities in the coldest parts of the country tend to be among the least expensive to live in, the study made sure to include a variety of climates. They put in some livability criteria into the mix, and they also decided to exclude cities that have high rates of unemployment and home foreclosures.
The top five destinations:
Portland, Maine
Median housing price: $202,800.
What a steal: A dozen raw oysters at J's Oyster, overlooking the bay; $11.50.
Best night on the town: Shakespeare in Deering Oaks Park: free.
Tulsa, Okla.
Median housing price: $125,600.
Best way to spend $10: Admission to the Philbrook Museum of Art, an Italian Renaissance villa built in the 1920s and converted to a museum, is just $7.50.
Gainesville, Ga.
Median housing price: $141,800.
Best way to spend $10: Grab a drink and a small plate at Recess Southern Gastro Pub on the square, then check out events downtown, including free concerts.
Wenatchee, Wash.
Median housing price: $192,000.
What a steal: All those dams provide enough power to give the region some of the nation's cheapest utility bills. Residents pay about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.
Winchester, Va.
Median housing price: $151,500.
Best night on the town: Shenandoah University has an exceptional music conservatory, with 100-plus professionals on staff. Evening performance: $27.
Runners up:
Cheyenne,Wyo.
Columbus,Ind.
Harrisburg,Pa.
Ithaca, N.Y.
Midland, Texas
INCREASE YOUR RETIREMENT INCOME
Story first appeared in on WSJ.com.
Generating the most income in the safest fashion from a nest egg is the holy grail of retirement income planning. You obviously want your dollars to stretch as far as possible without taking on much risk.
The proper mix of stocks and bonds and cash is the mix that allows you and your parents to sleep at night. That may sound trite, but it is the only true gauge that works. Mom and Dad can look at all the charts and all the probabilities, but if at the end of the day the mix of assets has them paranoid that a market correction will wipe them out or leave them unable to afford their cost of living, then it is clearly the wrong mix. Thus, telling you what an appropriate mix might be for your parent is largely impossible. But there are a couple of generalities and rules of thumb around which you should begin helping your parent structure a nest egg.
Do not put all the money into CDs, savings accounts and bonds. Inflation will decimate those assets over time and that will not help a parent maintain financial security later in life.
Depending on a parent's age, put between 20% and 60% of the nest egg into high-quality, dividend-paying U.S. and global stocks to provide the necessary growth as well as income. Where your parent should be on that spectrum between 20% and 60% largely depends on age.
And remember: While we're focusing on managing the finances of elderly parents, many of the issues apply to your own retirement planning as well.
U.S. Stocks
Too many retirees tend to shy away from stocks for fear of losing their principal. Better to be ultrasafe than devastated by a dramatic downturn in the financial markets. However, given the potential length of time a retiree will spend in retirement these days, a nest egg really demands some exposure to stocks in order to survive for as long as a retiree does.
This is not an argument for investing in high-growth Internet stocks or biotechnology companies with unproven medications. No retiree needs exposure to the market's riskiest stocks.
However, it is an argument for owning stable, blue-chip companies, particularly those that pay dividends. These are big, brand-name firms that have a long history of growing their business year after year and that in many cases have an equally long history of spinning out a healthy stream of dividends -- companies like Pfizer, McDonald's, Wal-Mart Stores, Johnson & Johnson, Exxon Mobil and Coca-Cola. Mind you, those aren't recommendations of stocks you should go buy for your parent's portfolio. Rather, they're examples of the kinds of companies that make for relatively stable, dividend-earning investments.
Indeed, the best advice for the bulk of retirees is to own blue-chip stocks through a mutual fund, where the portfolio manager's aim isn't to shoot out the lights in the quest for capital appreciation but, rather, to own investments that along with modest growth prospects pay out a stream of dividends or other forms of income.
Foreign Stocks
A retirement portfolio should have a small exposure to overseas stock markets, particularly for retirees early into their retirement. While foreign stocks are often considered riskier assets than U.S. stocks, when you narrow your focus to developed markets like Japan, Australia and Western Europe, those shares are, statistically speaking, no more risky than what you find in America.
But they offer retirees some advantages. First, they typically pay meatier dividends (as a percentage of the stock's price). And they offer exposure to the growth happening in other economies, which can offset weakness in the U.S. economy. And potentially more important, putting some money to work in foreign markets exposes a portfolio to other currencies -- especially important when the U.S. dollar is weakening against other currencies.
Bonds
Even more than with stocks, you'll largely want your parent's bond portfolio in a mutual fund; bonds can be much more challenging to research individually because there are just so many of them. In general, stick to a broad-based, intermediate-term bond index fund (intermediate-term because bonds of between five and 10 years in maturity tend to deliver decent rates with only moderate risk).
You also should give some consideration to municipal bonds sold by the various counties, cities and agencies within your parent's home state. Most of these are tax-free at all levels, meaning parents owe no income taxes at a city, state or federal level on the interest income received.
One caveat you should understand about bonds and bond funds is that, generally speaking, owning individual bonds tailored to a parent's specific situation is preferable to owning a bond mutual fund.
But building a portfolio of individual bonds typically requires at least $100,000 in cash to adequately diversify across at least 20 different bonds in various sectors of the economy. Such a sum implies a much larger overall portfolio when you consider that your parent still needs exposure to stocks and cash. As such, individual bonds are out of the question for most retirees.
Certificates of Deposit
A CD ladder is essentially a series of certificates of deposit, each maturing at a different point in time. CDs are standard fare for retirees, and with good reason. The cash is in a rock-solid institution and will never accrue losses.
You don't need a specific amount of money to ladder CDs. You could, for instance, put $100 in three CDs, maturing respectively in one, three and five years. In practical terms, however, laddered CDs tend to make the most sense when a parent has several thousand dollars to spread out. That's where you'll see the biggest impact in terms of income.
With a $50,000 lump sum of cash, a parent has the option to put all of it in a one-year CD so that the money is available fairly readily, or the cash can go into five $10,000 CDs laddered across one-, two-, three-, four- and five-year periods, with some of the cash fairly readily available, and some of the cash locked up for a number of years.
Generating the most income in the safest fashion from a nest egg is the holy grail of retirement income planning. You obviously want your dollars to stretch as far as possible without taking on much risk.
The proper mix of stocks and bonds and cash is the mix that allows you and your parents to sleep at night. That may sound trite, but it is the only true gauge that works. Mom and Dad can look at all the charts and all the probabilities, but if at the end of the day the mix of assets has them paranoid that a market correction will wipe them out or leave them unable to afford their cost of living, then it is clearly the wrong mix. Thus, telling you what an appropriate mix might be for your parent is largely impossible. But there are a couple of generalities and rules of thumb around which you should begin helping your parent structure a nest egg.
Do not put all the money into CDs, savings accounts and bonds. Inflation will decimate those assets over time and that will not help a parent maintain financial security later in life.
Depending on a parent's age, put between 20% and 60% of the nest egg into high-quality, dividend-paying U.S. and global stocks to provide the necessary growth as well as income. Where your parent should be on that spectrum between 20% and 60% largely depends on age.
And remember: While we're focusing on managing the finances of elderly parents, many of the issues apply to your own retirement planning as well.
U.S. Stocks
Too many retirees tend to shy away from stocks for fear of losing their principal. Better to be ultrasafe than devastated by a dramatic downturn in the financial markets. However, given the potential length of time a retiree will spend in retirement these days, a nest egg really demands some exposure to stocks in order to survive for as long as a retiree does.
This is not an argument for investing in high-growth Internet stocks or biotechnology companies with unproven medications. No retiree needs exposure to the market's riskiest stocks.
However, it is an argument for owning stable, blue-chip companies, particularly those that pay dividends. These are big, brand-name firms that have a long history of growing their business year after year and that in many cases have an equally long history of spinning out a healthy stream of dividends -- companies like Pfizer, McDonald's, Wal-Mart Stores, Johnson & Johnson, Exxon Mobil and Coca-Cola. Mind you, those aren't recommendations of stocks you should go buy for your parent's portfolio. Rather, they're examples of the kinds of companies that make for relatively stable, dividend-earning investments.
Indeed, the best advice for the bulk of retirees is to own blue-chip stocks through a mutual fund, where the portfolio manager's aim isn't to shoot out the lights in the quest for capital appreciation but, rather, to own investments that along with modest growth prospects pay out a stream of dividends or other forms of income.
Foreign Stocks
A retirement portfolio should have a small exposure to overseas stock markets, particularly for retirees early into their retirement. While foreign stocks are often considered riskier assets than U.S. stocks, when you narrow your focus to developed markets like Japan, Australia and Western Europe, those shares are, statistically speaking, no more risky than what you find in America.
But they offer retirees some advantages. First, they typically pay meatier dividends (as a percentage of the stock's price). And they offer exposure to the growth happening in other economies, which can offset weakness in the U.S. economy. And potentially more important, putting some money to work in foreign markets exposes a portfolio to other currencies -- especially important when the U.S. dollar is weakening against other currencies.
Bonds
Even more than with stocks, you'll largely want your parent's bond portfolio in a mutual fund; bonds can be much more challenging to research individually because there are just so many of them. In general, stick to a broad-based, intermediate-term bond index fund (intermediate-term because bonds of between five and 10 years in maturity tend to deliver decent rates with only moderate risk).
You also should give some consideration to municipal bonds sold by the various counties, cities and agencies within your parent's home state. Most of these are tax-free at all levels, meaning parents owe no income taxes at a city, state or federal level on the interest income received.
One caveat you should understand about bonds and bond funds is that, generally speaking, owning individual bonds tailored to a parent's specific situation is preferable to owning a bond mutual fund.
But building a portfolio of individual bonds typically requires at least $100,000 in cash to adequately diversify across at least 20 different bonds in various sectors of the economy. Such a sum implies a much larger overall portfolio when you consider that your parent still needs exposure to stocks and cash. As such, individual bonds are out of the question for most retirees.
Certificates of Deposit
A CD ladder is essentially a series of certificates of deposit, each maturing at a different point in time. CDs are standard fare for retirees, and with good reason. The cash is in a rock-solid institution and will never accrue losses.
You don't need a specific amount of money to ladder CDs. You could, for instance, put $100 in three CDs, maturing respectively in one, three and five years. In practical terms, however, laddered CDs tend to make the most sense when a parent has several thousand dollars to spread out. That's where you'll see the biggest impact in terms of income.
With a $50,000 lump sum of cash, a parent has the option to put all of it in a one-year CD so that the money is available fairly readily, or the cash can go into five $10,000 CDs laddered across one-, two-, three-, four- and five-year periods, with some of the cash fairly readily available, and some of the cash locked up for a number of years.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Retirees Trade Work for Rent at Cash-Poor Parks
NY Times
ROMA, Tex. — A cold wind whipped down the Texas plains on the night last month that Sharon Smith, 68, and her husband, Bill, 73, arrived here to be work-campers.
In the dark, they had trouble setting up their camper. But Ms. Smith, a former teacher’s aide from Sioux Falls, S.D., said she looked up at the starry sky, shook off a few of the burrs she had picked up lying on the ground working on their truck, and told herself it would get better.
It did.
The life of a work-camper, volunteering in places like Falcon State Park in deep South Texas in return for free rent, is not without its bumps. But as Ms. Smith also quickly discovered, the rewards can be deep as well — like making cinnamon rolls as part of her job at the camp recreation center, where she and Mr. Smith are working as hosts through the end of March.
“We’re here for three reasons,” she said, as she spread sugar on the dough. “No. 1, we like to travel. No. 2, we like people. And No. 3, we’re on a budget.”
An itinerant, footloose army of available and willing retirees in their 60s and 70s is marching through the American outback, looking to stretch retirement dollars by volunteering to work in parks, campgrounds and wildlife sanctuaries, usually in exchange for camping space.
Park and wildlife agencies say that retired volunteers have in turn become all the more crucial as budget cuts and new demands have made it harder to keep parks open.
Work-campers come together in one place — leading nature walks or staffing visitor centers, typically working 20 hours to 30 hours a week — then take off to their next assignments. As they move about, they keep in touch with one another through cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and Facebook postings, creating virtual communities filled with the people they meet.
Camp life, especially in this bird-watching hotspot, revolves around the great outdoors: picking up trash, guiding visitors and, with luck, perhaps spotting the rare roadside hawk that has been reported in the Rio Grande Valley. Night brings a round of socializing: wine around the picnic tables out by the bird feeders, an open-mike sing-along at the recreation center, an evening walk through the South Texas scrubland.
Estimates of the number of work-campers nationally vary, but a spokesman for Kampgrounds of America Inc., a private company that franchises camps, said that 80,000 or so might be a good guess, based on KOA’s percentage of the camping market and the number of its work-campers.
“It attracts a certain kind of person,” said Wendy R. Forster, 70, a retired biologist who lives alone in her motor home and has been leading bird-watchers’ walks here since January. “There’s a lot of companionship and security.”
Recession has cut a fierce crosswind through the subculture, recreation experts and campers say. Some parks in California that once needed volunteers have closed, for example, as the state’s budget crisis has intensified. Many campers are also trying to stay longer in one place to cut travel expenses.
But other recreation managers say they have become more dependent than ever on a national network of volunteers, partly because of spending cuts and partly because remaining staff members have to prioritize what they can do.
“Basic trail maintenance, for example — picking up trash,” said Nancy C. Brown, who coordinates volunteers for the South Texas Refuge Complex, which includes three large wildlife areas. “It’s important for wildlife purposes, but when you’re faced with a choice of dealing with oil and gas permits or maintaining a trail, the trail is the first thing to go.”
In the last decade, Ms. Brown said, the number of campsites set aside for volunteers in the complex, including those at Falcon State Park, has risen twentyfold, to 65 from 3.
In some places, the retired volunteers are about the only staff members left.
“We did a state park in Arizona this year that had laid off so many people, we basically ran it,” said Carolyn Miller, 71, a former small-business owner from Colorado who has work-camped from Alaska to Maine with her husband, Warren, 73.
For many work-campers, the appeal of a nontraditional retirement was also linked to a life-changing event — the death of a spouse, a divorce, money trouble, a midlife reassessment of priorities. For whatever reasons, they said, staying put became an unappealing or unavailable option.
And for some, there is romance to be found. Sandra Noll, 65, a retired nurse who has been leading canoe trips for bird-watchers on the Rio Grande since early January, met her partner, Erv Nichols, 66, three years ago.
Mr. Nichols, a retired photographer from Big Bear Lake, Calif., had set out to downsize his life. With Social Security as his only income, and two previous marriages that ended in divorce, he was so sure of a solo life, he said, that he ripped out the front passenger seat of the little motor home that a friend had given him as a gift.
Ms. Noll, who was reassessing her own life after a divorce and a move back West, where she grew up, found Mr. Nichols’s zeal in tossing aside his possessions appealing. “You wanted to simplify your life,” she said, glancing across the table at him in their little trailer. “That drew you to me.”
Ms. Forster, the retired biologist, became a volunteer partly out of grief. When her husband died of cancer 17 years ago, in his 50s, she immediately set off, she said, continuing the motor-home life they had imagined together, but now on her own. She has led bird-watching trips all over the country and has already made plans to come back here next year.
“We’re nomadic,” she said. “But a lot of us are coming back next year, so that will be a reunion.”
Other campers are moving down the road. Ms. Noll and Mr. Nichols, for example, are headed next to Nebraska, to work as guides along the sandhill cranes’ migration route. Starting in June, the Smiths, from Sioux Falls, will work on an island in Puget Sound. Ellen Lawson, 66, of Evansville, Wyo., will head for a dulcimer festival in Mississippi. She said she was already dreading the goodbyes when she and her husband, Ron, 67, leave here in March.
“I cried when I left home to come here,” Ms. Lawson said while raking leaves at Falcon State Park’s Butterfly Garden, “and I’ll cry when I leave.”
In the dark, they had trouble setting up their camper. But Ms. Smith, a former teacher’s aide from Sioux Falls, S.D., said she looked up at the starry sky, shook off a few of the burrs she had picked up lying on the ground working on their truck, and told herself it would get better.
It did.
The life of a work-camper, volunteering in places like Falcon State Park in deep South Texas in return for free rent, is not without its bumps. But as Ms. Smith also quickly discovered, the rewards can be deep as well — like making cinnamon rolls as part of her job at the camp recreation center, where she and Mr. Smith are working as hosts through the end of March.
“We’re here for three reasons,” she said, as she spread sugar on the dough. “No. 1, we like to travel. No. 2, we like people. And No. 3, we’re on a budget.”
An itinerant, footloose army of available and willing retirees in their 60s and 70s is marching through the American outback, looking to stretch retirement dollars by volunteering to work in parks, campgrounds and wildlife sanctuaries, usually in exchange for camping space.
Park and wildlife agencies say that retired volunteers have in turn become all the more crucial as budget cuts and new demands have made it harder to keep parks open.
Work-campers come together in one place — leading nature walks or staffing visitor centers, typically working 20 hours to 30 hours a week — then take off to their next assignments. As they move about, they keep in touch with one another through cellphone numbers, e-mail addresses and Facebook postings, creating virtual communities filled with the people they meet.
Camp life, especially in this bird-watching hotspot, revolves around the great outdoors: picking up trash, guiding visitors and, with luck, perhaps spotting the rare roadside hawk that has been reported in the Rio Grande Valley. Night brings a round of socializing: wine around the picnic tables out by the bird feeders, an open-mike sing-along at the recreation center, an evening walk through the South Texas scrubland.
Estimates of the number of work-campers nationally vary, but a spokesman for Kampgrounds of America Inc., a private company that franchises camps, said that 80,000 or so might be a good guess, based on KOA’s percentage of the camping market and the number of its work-campers.
“It attracts a certain kind of person,” said Wendy R. Forster, 70, a retired biologist who lives alone in her motor home and has been leading bird-watchers’ walks here since January. “There’s a lot of companionship and security.”
Recession has cut a fierce crosswind through the subculture, recreation experts and campers say. Some parks in California that once needed volunteers have closed, for example, as the state’s budget crisis has intensified. Many campers are also trying to stay longer in one place to cut travel expenses.
But other recreation managers say they have become more dependent than ever on a national network of volunteers, partly because of spending cuts and partly because remaining staff members have to prioritize what they can do.
“Basic trail maintenance, for example — picking up trash,” said Nancy C. Brown, who coordinates volunteers for the South Texas Refuge Complex, which includes three large wildlife areas. “It’s important for wildlife purposes, but when you’re faced with a choice of dealing with oil and gas permits or maintaining a trail, the trail is the first thing to go.”
In the last decade, Ms. Brown said, the number of campsites set aside for volunteers in the complex, including those at Falcon State Park, has risen twentyfold, to 65 from 3.
In some places, the retired volunteers are about the only staff members left.
“We did a state park in Arizona this year that had laid off so many people, we basically ran it,” said Carolyn Miller, 71, a former small-business owner from Colorado who has work-camped from Alaska to Maine with her husband, Warren, 73.
For many work-campers, the appeal of a nontraditional retirement was also linked to a life-changing event — the death of a spouse, a divorce, money trouble, a midlife reassessment of priorities. For whatever reasons, they said, staying put became an unappealing or unavailable option.
And for some, there is romance to be found. Sandra Noll, 65, a retired nurse who has been leading canoe trips for bird-watchers on the Rio Grande since early January, met her partner, Erv Nichols, 66, three years ago.
Mr. Nichols, a retired photographer from Big Bear Lake, Calif., had set out to downsize his life. With Social Security as his only income, and two previous marriages that ended in divorce, he was so sure of a solo life, he said, that he ripped out the front passenger seat of the little motor home that a friend had given him as a gift.
Ms. Noll, who was reassessing her own life after a divorce and a move back West, where she grew up, found Mr. Nichols’s zeal in tossing aside his possessions appealing. “You wanted to simplify your life,” she said, glancing across the table at him in their little trailer. “That drew you to me.”
Ms. Forster, the retired biologist, became a volunteer partly out of grief. When her husband died of cancer 17 years ago, in his 50s, she immediately set off, she said, continuing the motor-home life they had imagined together, but now on her own. She has led bird-watching trips all over the country and has already made plans to come back here next year.
“We’re nomadic,” she said. “But a lot of us are coming back next year, so that will be a reunion.”
Other campers are moving down the road. Ms. Noll and Mr. Nichols, for example, are headed next to Nebraska, to work as guides along the sandhill cranes’ migration route. Starting in June, the Smiths, from Sioux Falls, will work on an island in Puget Sound. Ellen Lawson, 66, of Evansville, Wyo., will head for a dulcimer festival in Mississippi. She said she was already dreading the goodbyes when she and her husband, Ron, 67, leave here in March.
“I cried when I left home to come here,” Ms. Lawson said while raking leaves at Falcon State Park’s Butterfly Garden, “and I’ll cry when I leave.”
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