"We're looking at stuff they aren't really considering -- but maybe they should be."
Fair enough. But it's one thing to pore over data points about a city or a state, and another to spend your days and nights there.
The key question: What's it like to actually retire in some of these places?
After all, Florida is popular for a reason. Most people's visions of retirement, if financial-services brochures are to be believed, involve a golf course or a beach chair, and invariably, sunshine or mild weather.
Wecoming Blizzard
Indeed, living in the country's midsection or the mountainous west requires a steelier temperament when it comes to climate. There are no gentle breezes here, wafting off the Caribbean Sea.
"The day I moved into the house I had chosen, there was a blizzard here," O'Grady remembers of her South Dakota initiation. "During the next week, there were two more."
There can be cultural issues, too, for those coming from larger metropolitan areas.
Bettina Gebhard, 65, retired to St. George, Utah last summer after a career in Los Angeles as a registered nurse.
Gebhard loves the proximity to her kids who had moved there, the stunning high-desert landscape, the outdoor sports, and a relatively modest cost of living.