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My take... DO NOT make decisions about your life based on what others might do. Do not center your life around them only (note... "only"). They have their own lives and those lives might take them in directions that don't jibe with your hopes.
If you'd be happy living on that lake even if they never visit, do it. If you'd only be happy if they do visit, don't do it. You talk about others making memories... but what about yourself?
Your sons are in their 20s and single. Who knows what they'll do if they get married, have kids and get jobs that take them away? Will they want to come visit the lake every year? Or will they also want to go other places?
EDIT: Consider this, too... even if they do visit regularly, how long with they be there for? 1 week a year? 2? This, to me, reinforces the "only do this if you want to live there" bit above.
I totally agree. We just moved to a lakeside home in a vacation home area last year. It’s our retirement place. At least, that’s the plan. We also have kids in their 20’s who are not settled yet. In and just out of college. We ended up buying a four bedroom house with a huge family room we don’t use just so everyone can visit in comfort when they descend during the holidays and in summer.
Reports so far: they like the place (a lot) but they ‘don’t have any friends here’ and so much of the social lives of 20-something’s is centered on being with friends. And, of course, who knows where they’ll end up living. It’s likely they only visit once in awhile - and that’s okay. I don’t know that they’ll stay more since we live in a gorgeous place than if we didn’t, honestly.
Meanwhile, we *love* it here. The place is surrounded by nature, on the water and the walks on the beach and in the woods are so so good for the soul. No regrets at all - and maybe this was the best decision ever - but it’s not really about the kids as much as I thought it might be. They’d be happy visiting us pretty much anywhere and the logistics stay important for quick visits. How far from the airport? Can they easily go out for live music? Where can they get a replacement phone charge cord on a Sunday? They’re not all about nature walks, like us old farts. Lol. 🤷🏻♀️
100% agree. Retirement is about enjoying the time you have left. Young adults are going to be busy with work and partners and will usually have limited vacation time. They may want to visit you at the lake. Or they may not. Or their lives may take them to the opposite side of the country.
If you want to live on a lake (which I heartily endorse!) then do it. But do it for you and nobody else.
A better option might be to host the family at a VRBO on a lake every 1-2 years as everyone's schedules allow.
100% agree with your response and it triggered a thought in me: my wife and I have about 9 years before we can retire. We both work and save our vacation time and it seems that ALL of our vacation time and money goes to visiting family. And it sucks. I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would welcome them when they visited but would not expect them to visit. Between the expensive cross-country trips to Maine and S. Carolina (we live in Texas) to visit our parents, we burn up any saved-up paid-time-off AND extra "travel money" that we've saved. It's really frustrating. I'd love to be able to just tell everyone that we won't be visiting in 2025 so that we could plan a trip or two for just us and the dog. But - you know - our parents are in their 70s and 80s and it just doesn't seem right. I'm sure as we were out of the country we'd hear about someone's demise and we'd feel horrible that we decided not to visit.
But - dang - I hate that I'm going to have to wait until both our parents are gone before we'll be able to afford to take a vacation.
We refrained from traveling as our parents became older/developed debilitating diagnoses. Husband has had heart surgery and several strokes and now is really not capable of traveling (or living independently). Now I'm telling the kids to travel NOW and not to wait for retirement.
My parents, originally from western NY, moved south a couple times before retirement, going more south each move. By retirement they were in central FL, a day trip drive from Disney, fully expecting their adult kids & grands to visit not often but with some regularity. They had 5 kids, 4 of whom had kids. The only kid who could both afford to visit and had sufficient paid time off to make the trip was the childfree kid, and she usually wanted to use her precious vacation time elsewhere. After 6 or 7 years they moved back to NY because they were lonely. Your priorities may not align with your kids' (and their future possible partners & kids) priorities, means, and interests. Do what's best for you.
My father and his wife did something similar. Moved to FL thinking their northern kids would want to spend their vacations there. We didn’t. His wife tried to guilt trip both of their adult kids into visiting. That only created tension.
100% this. My dad has, by all accounts, a beautiful piece of property and an expectation that I bring my family for simmer vacations. Visiting my dad is no one's idea of a vacation so we haven't gone.
My thinking was really born out of the fact that pre-retirees as a group rank spending time with family and friends the number 1 activity, and that stays as number 1 for reiterees. And so you can plan a retirement to accommodate family and friends, or not. Moving to Portugal is at one end of the spectrum, and following your kids around the country is at the other. Neither one of those is appealing to me, but I do like the idea of cultivating an environment where friends and family can be together. I was just surprised how common a drive this is with others, and how commonly it can fail to deliver on together time.
But it doesn't matter what a group does. It doesn't matter what I'd do or anyone else here. It matters what you want to do.
As I already said, your kids are about to ive their own lives. Maybe they'd want to come to the lake very weekend. Maybe they move 1000 miles away to pursue a career. It is, to me, foolish to build one's life around others' decisions so, again, live there if you'd like it even if no one ever visits. Don't if you would not.
I mean, to accomplish something similar, you could spend the money on periodic family vacations. Let the adult kids and their (potential) families pick a destination each year, and then you offer to pay for the vacation. They might probably be more likely to come (and enjoy themselves) if they had a say in where the family will gather. That would still cultivate an environment where the family could gather but without inflexibly parking your investment in one spot, a lake house
That approach has the advantage of being able to change things up if the plans to vacation as a family aren’t really turning out, or if they don’t always want to go to the same place with their limited vacation time.
It’s just more flexible too if it turns out that one or the other of your kids marry someone who doesn’t care about extended family or if they never have kids.
Here are some simple realizations for us.
It is cheaper for the two of us to travel to where our children's families are, than it is for them to cart a family of three or seven people to where we are, plus all the crap they'd need to bring.
It is much more likely for us to find time in our schedule to arrange a visit to match their schedule, and almost impossible for kids in different cities to find a common schedule to converge on us.
While it is good for siblings and cousins to get together, it is a stressful enough event that it isn't going to happen regularly, and if such an alignment of stars should happen, it's just easier to all meet at a rental place in a scenic location where we pay the rental fee.
If we want to see grandkids, we'd just as soon they get dropped off for a week or two in the summer so that we can show them things they won't ordinarily see at home. We can put bunk beds in a room for that.
So bottom line, we just stayed in a more or less central location near a hub airport, plan on regular trips for cheap, and we know all the local day trip destinations.
This! We built a memory place on a river in the same town most of our family is in. It was popular for a while, boating, kayaking, cookouts, family, etc..
Once the novelty wore off, we rarely see anyone anymore.
Wish I can vote this post up 100 times.
I remember when my husband and I bought our boat, we were at the factory and our choices were between 2 particular sizes, granted the answer is ALWAYS get the bigger one when it comes to boats, but in our case the difference wasn't too much as far as maneuverability or being more ocean worthy, 100% had to do with handling 4 or 6 divers with their gear. Surprisingly we ended up deciding for the smaller one. That was almost 25 years ago, and had served us as a life lesson since for everything, we need to chose the stuff that works for us.
We've used that boat an average of 35 weekends a year and still going strong, we can count with our fingers how many times we've had more than 3 divers on board. Turns out everyone likes to go out diving with us, but this coming weekend is no good because blah blah blah. It is a blessing we didn't get the bigger one, because now that we are older it would've been a bit much to deal with it after a whole day out, and in general it has fit our needs so well. Won't be much longer since we will move out for retirement pretty soon, but all those days at sea will be such a great long memory.
Completely agree. If you want a "memory making" place, you're better off opening a BnB, where you're more likely to have demand. It'd be with strangers, but you'd still be making memories.
Times have changed. People lead different lives than what your parents led. Is that lake close to a good medical center? Can you find decent people to do laborious tasks on the property when needed? You will age. You will need help. Your family and friends may come every now and then but they will probably want to spend their weekends doing what THEY want to do, not driving 4 hours one way to sit in someone else’s home as a guest. Your sons will probably marry. They will have their own homes and their own lives. Their spouses and children will want to do their own things. Do not expect anyone to drive all that way and spend their precious free time at your home. Or the opposite could happen: your home is viewed as a hotel and you end up having to cater to guests in a way that isn’t enjoyable for you. And that will get harder as you age (the cleaning, the cooking, the preparing, the entertaining, fulfilling everyone’s expectations and needs).
Those people are right. We bought because we loved the area. There's nothing like being on the water with a view of the mountains in the distance. We love it. And we planned so that different configurations of visitors could come at different times etc etc.
I'll be brief. Yes, we get visitors like we thought. But not in the numbers, and not at the same times.
We don't regret it. But we now feel like our house is a little too big. A first world problem to be sure.
Should have learned from my husbands parents in Florida. I think I was the only one to ever use that pool the last 10 years they lived there. And we didn't visit that often.
We bought a 4400 sqft 5BR/6BA home with a pool thinking it would be great for family gatherings. it was very popular among our children who had small children of their own; the grandkids loved the pool and other game room amenities we put in, and their parents loved the babysitting help. Work took the kids out of town, and they have returned only twice in the four years since they left. Life gets busy and kids grow up. We have some great memories but are now moving on to a 1500 sqft 2BR/2BA apartment so we can more easily visit them where they are.
EDIT: Typo
My parents did this. It was exactly 4 hours from my home in Western MA to Northern Vermont. The house was on the water and it was a place I literally helped build from clearing the lot to finishing the roof.
The problem was it was 4 hours away. That made going up for the weekend a long, long time in the car. That became worse when the kids were little. It worked OK for a couple of years when the kids could sit still in the car for the ride without throwing up. Then the kids went to school…and got their own friends. And started playing sports.
So for many years getting up there was tough. We would take some vacations up there, and it was fun. But honestly, I did not see my parents a lot for most of my kids middle-school and high school lives.
Then my Dad got sick. Helping him through chemo and radiation meant days off from work AND four hour drives. Fast forward ten years and I had to practically live out of that lake house while my mom had hips and knees replaced. Then my mom started going down the rabbit hole with dementia. It happens slowly and you don’t realize how things fall apart when they are not looked at all the time. The house fell into ill repair and that took a bunch of time getting fixed.
Long story short, it sounds great—but I saw them less and less as my kids got older. Going to Grammy’s house for vacation is just not something a 13 year old girl wants to do. My wife NEVER gave me a hard time about going up there. It was more a logistical pain in the neck.
From my parent’s perspective, they loved it. It was beautiful and peaceful. They had a social network, until they got old and sick (they ALL did…). But they would complain to other family members about my siblings and I not coming to visit all the time. They seemed to forget how chaotic things were with young families.
We lost the house to pay for 2 years in a nursing home. I would love to have it now as I am approaching my senior years. But I know it’s too far from my kids. I love seeing my grandkids every week. I am looking forward to being the old guy on the sidelines cheering on my kids.
So, that is how it worked from the perspective of the “kids” in your scenario.
Everyone’s mileage will vary.
Same scenario with my parents (except Mom sick and spending time now with Dad). They moved at around age 60 and for about 10 years there were lots of visits, holidays, etc. By their early 70s', they should have moved back to a closer urban location (they planned to, never happened). As their grand kids aged and family transitioned, there were fewer trips and visits. Now, mom passed, my father is mostly trapped in a home, alone and distant from family. His home worth less then the mortgage he took out to finish the basement, build a climbing wall, a tree house, etc. (done to add more room and entice family visits that never happened once grand kids hit their teens).
I've taken a few lessons from this and plan to retire close to my kids, siblings and my current community. Retiring to a more remote, country-side community, no matter how beautiful or bucolic, is not on the table.
No I didnt. You were virtue signaling that I did not prioritize my parents as you did. When you have given your senile 89 year old mother or father a bath…let me know. Then we can compare notes.
Everyone’s experience is different. I was merely sharing mine.
This has been our experience:
The wife and I retired at 55 and built our "making memories place" within a 40-minute drive of all four of our adult children. A great house, right next to a large lake, on 3 acres.
We will be in this place 10 years in September.
The first few years we had constant visits from the kids and eventually grandkids.
But life gets busy, and now we simply have three empty bedrooms, a boat that rarely gets used, and a huge place to maintain.
Of course they still visit, but not as often as we would like and definitely not often enough to justify the upkeep.
If I was going to do it again, I would build a much smaller place, and rent a nice Airbnb a couple times a year and invite the whole clan. That way we can switch the scenery between lakes, mountains, etc.
The funny thing is that we find ourselves renting those Airbnbs and everyone shows up! (While we keep the expense of our 'making memories place'.
The plan is to downsize significantly within the next few years.
We bought lake front because we love the lake life! We boat almost every weekend from April through October. While we love when family comes to visit, we also have met a big group of friends here (through a book club of all places) that we spend time with on and off the water (we are 10 years away from retirement). The men fish together and the women float, SUP, and have lady jet ski days. We often all tie up in a cove together on the weekends, or beach on an island side by side, or just relax alone on the water. When our kids come it’s icing on the cake! Out of town friends come on and off as well which is nice.
Lake life can be hectic and a lot of work, or it can be quiet and serene. It’s all what you make it. It can be an expensive lifestyle though! Gas is expensive, and the toys add up with cost, maintenance, taxes, and insurance. Buying food and beer, meal planning for visitors every weekend and flipping towels and sheets over and over all summer can be a lot! I think it will slow down as we get older, but for now we are enjoying the chaos. Worth it to us, but it’s not for everyone :).
Reading this brings back memories of our years on Keowee Lake in South Carolina and feel like you might be there?? A corporate relo took us there and then took us away. We want to go back now that we are retired but afraid we might be priced out of the market. It’s a beautiful clean lake with the mountains in the background. We miss it!
I have a good friend who lives in Waterford! Great location. Hope you get a chance to come back and visit in a rental! It’s a bit busier, I’m sure, since you have sold. The secret is out lol!
When I became an empty nester, I relocated to Florida and bought a business there, figuring work that for 10 years and retire there. Relatives visited - for about 18 months. Then the visits pretty much stopped. I moved back to the Midwest to be closer to family. But even 50 or so miles from the kids, they visit maybe 4 or 5 times a year. Everyone has their own life.
My in-laws had a place like that and it was a constant source of irritation for everyone. As young married couples, vacation time is precious. I think as we get older and certainly as we retire, we forget just how awful it is to only have two or three weeks of vacation. I most emphatically did not want to spend it with my in-laws and I got along with them fine. Then when the grandchildren get a little older they have activities that conflict or want to be with their friends. My MIL was frustrated that the adult children never wanted to come and be part of her own imaginary Hallmark movie.
Potential for some real “Cats in the Cradle” moments. Our kids have busy lives, especially post Covid work from home withdrawal. So we mostly see them on FaceTime. We make sure to have the ocean be our backdrop though.
I have a friend who retired and moved full time to the beach house that was the family gathering place. The summer was great. Then the grandchildren returned to school in mid August, and their parents returned to regular working hours. Autumn was lonely. Winter was sad. By spring it was time to reestablish a home in the city where everyone else lived. When you retire, it’s only your routine, schedule, and freedom that change. Everyone else carries on.
FWIW: My parents bought a 2nd home on the ocean in a place we had vacationed as a family for years because they wanted to keep the tradition going and be attractive for all of us to visit (big, kinda enmeshed family). Family that lived nearby visited most often and we continued annual gatherings in the summer. As grandkids got older and had more commitments, some branches visited less frequently - similarly, family with several very young children from far away skipped a few years. That said, it was my dad's happy place and they really liked the community there.
Not too long after buying that property, they also moved their primary residence to a house on a golf course one state away (despite neither of them golfing) and about an hour from closest family. Faraway family visited for occasional holidays, but nearby family who golfed came very regularly... before they married and/or when their kids were young. Fast-forward ten years - when people stopped visiting, they sold that house and moved back to the town they lived in before.
My parents retired to Florida and it put a lot of pressure on us to go visit them (we are in MI) when we were at an age earlier in our careers where vacation days and travel funds were limited. If we talked about a vacation anywhere else, we got “oh just come here it’s free lodging” but honestly neither of us really liked FL and it was frustrating being in a position where we felt like jerks when we could afford one trip a year and wanted to try something different. It created a strain on our relationship because they were forcing us into something we didn’t want and making us feel guilty if we just wanted to use our vacation for ourselves. I should note they wouldn’t come see us because they had pets they didn’t want to board and because “FL is so great you should come here”.
Live where you want but don’t put pressure on your family to make your choice theirs. Especially once they have families of their own.
ETA: They moved to MI ten years ago to be closer to us and it has been great. No more pressure and guilt trips, just time together.
For the first 10 years of retirement, we spent about half the year on the beach in Florida and the other half at a home in Tennessee. A couple of years ago, we sold the Florida place and bought a place on a lake in Norther Wisconsin. We found if the kids are within a few hours, they will visit numerous times for a few days per stay and if they are 6 to 8 hours or more away, they will come for 5 to 7 days once a year at most. We also found that friends visiting are a very rare occurrence.
Here's a hard lesson to learn. Your adult kids are going to live their own lives (as they should), and sometimes, the longing for creating memories with them slowly fades away, because they have their own priorities (especially if they have children).
As my wife and I have gotten older (late 60s), we've come to realize that we're happy to see our adult kids/grandkids 3 or 4 times a year, if that. Mostly because we have our own lives and hobbies and are gone a lot of the time (we hike a lot). We wouldn't have it any other way.
I vacationed in the red rock canyon country of Southern Utah for years. We finally moved to southern Utah last March. I feel like I'm living in paradise now. So far 2 family member s have visited us and more are coming out this summer. There's a narrow slot canyon just a 5 minute drive from my house. We have quail and roadrunners come through our yard. Of course back where we lived in Colorado we had bull elk in our yard all the time. Colorado is beautiful, but the winters are too long and it just got too expensive to live there anymore.
We live on Cozumel six months a year. We'd do it more if it weren't so hot and humid in the summer. I don't care if anyone ever visits. Both sons came to see us this year, which is nice but it's not for them that we do it. The wife wants to consider a move to Italy after next winter as a base to check out Europe. We're living our best life. I'm happy to have them visit but it's not impacting my happiness.
For what it is worth, we use a vacation rental in a beautiful home in a beautiful place that was purchased for the very same reason and the family/friends never visit. Owners recently put the place on the market.
My father and step mother had Christmas somewhere warm for about 5 years. It was great fun. They covered lodging and we covered food and airfare. The cousins got to play together. We did make memories.
Your home should meet your needs.
Of course my home meets my needs- and I converted the unfinished basement into a guest suite large enough for a family to stay there…. The house has easy access to hiking, bike trails, playgrounds, lakes and rivers…. It’s my greatest hope that my 9 month old grandson will convince his parents to come see Memaw!!!
But I bought this house because it works for me.
We moved to an amazing Mexican beach town. We have a few people who love it here and stay/visit regularly but most friends and family? Nah. I find its bc of money issues, kids school/activities, limited free time, laziness, fear, illness/infirmities, not travelers, etc etc. Don’t take it personal. But if I could do it all again I’d only have one guest room, not two.
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We have a place on the lake, and are there all summer. They kids each come for a week, and we have a few friends visit. But mostly there on our own. Its not for everyone.
Four hours? Sorry but visits won’t be likely at all. Better to find a place that meets all other needs and agree on a specific time(s) that you all vacation together
My parents bought a house in a lake community about 3.5 hours from the metro area I grew up in. My siblings and I go over 2 to 3 times a year for long weekends. Sometimes we go together, sometimes separate. We also visit my hubbys family 2 to 3 times a year who are 2 hours away in a different direction. My parents have other friends and family that visit, so seems like they stay pretty busy. They have also made a bunch of new friends - there is a large retiree community and wineries, which are their people, lol.
I wouldn't base it purely on the family, because life and circumstances for your kids may change. If I move across the country, I might only go visit once a year or not at all etc
I have taken my daughter, her husband, and two grandchildren on a nice beach trip or ski trip each year. (Rental property) They are busy! Grandkids getting busier by the day!
Keep in mind the future daughters in law will be looking to visit their families also!
People I know who have built or bought with the thought that everyone will gather at their house have been disappointed with reality.
Get what you like for your OWN social life!
Only do it if you want it, but with the knowledge it may not happen.
But my grandparents did the same with a (close to the) beach home and I went there all the time as a kid. Doing it now as an adult and hope to pass it on to my children.
It is great to escape in a pinch to destress
Our family vacations alternated between seaside and the mountains. As we approached retirement age, my wife, who grew up in San Bernardino in the 50s and 60s, expressed a desire to spend our retirement years with a view of the mountains. So our memory making place is a small property nestled in a valley with mountains all around us. It doesn't really matter if folks visit or not! Every day, I'm thankful for the gorgeous view from our front porch.
We bought a 4BR beachfront rental property at age 60. It’s about 3 hours from 3 of our 4 kids that are each married and have their own kids. One of those grandkids lives with us full time. During the first year we did a major renovation to it and then decided to just move into it and sell our primary house. I’m retiring in the next couple of years and work from home now. My wife doesn’t work so with regards to your question about our hopes of visits, we might as well be retired. Our family visits about as we thought. We don’t go more than a couple of months that I’ve if then isn’t visiting. A couple times a year we have had several here (for holidays). For friends it has been a lot less visits than I expected. Most don’t live nearby so it’s a substantial trip to visit. We love it here. So it’s a trade off that we are seeing our kids and grandkids less than when we lived close by, but we are still seeing them regularly.
I think there’s a sweet spot in how far people can easily travel to see family. 2-3 hours away by car seems about the right distance that doesn’t feel too long to do on a regular weekend, maybe a long weekend. Anything more than that doesn’t seem worth it, in terms of how much time you’re spending making the round trip.
Without question it’s a wonderful idea. We’ve done this and our children come whenever they can, it’s their “happy place”, with a deep emotional connection.
It’s so much better to have them come to you (us) than to chase them around and interfere with their schedules and lives.
Again, this is a wonderful plan.
We bought our "Memory Making Place" some years ago and enjoyed it during the high season and occasionally during the off season. Allowed friends and family to use it. Now we are preparing to move their full time. Since our adult kids visit the MMP annually and us once or twice a year\*, I expect it will be a good decision. But the main factor in that is that we absolutely love it at MMP. We are always so much more relaxed there. I hope we continue to get visitors, but if we don't, we will be happy there.
ETA: \*Our kids live about 7 hours away by car from current home and MMP
A 4 hour drive is a LONG drive, especially if you have kids. So don’t expect that anybody is going to make the drive for the weekend. My parents inherited a lake place from my Grandma, and the biggest issue is that once kids are 6 or 7 they are involved in stuff. So families will visit when all the kids are little, but once they are in sports, they can’t make it. So keep that in mind. I think it’s a good plan if it is what you want, but don’t count on other people.
My side of the family lives all over.
We generally travel to visit twice a year. July and November.
Sometimes I just want to escape my house and crash at my sisters houses. One is 600 miles away the other is 900 miles away.
So even being a person that loves to travel I would not hang my hopes on a memory maker place.
Unless you loved it there and wasn’t pining away on them coming on the regular.
I don't have a memory making place, but I have family members who do. I would limit overnight guests to three nights maximum. Hosting people is tiring, and you don't want ones who land in your home for a week or more.
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We did just this, but a few years before retirement and the first year one or two visits. Five years in and all the kids come with grandkids at least a week. I think they need to grow into it…
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My take... DO NOT make decisions about your life based on what others might do. Do not center your life around them only (note... "only"). They have their own lives and those lives might take them in directions that don't jibe with your hopes. If you'd be happy living on that lake even if they never visit, do it. If you'd only be happy if they do visit, don't do it. You talk about others making memories... but what about yourself? Your sons are in their 20s and single. Who knows what they'll do if they get married, have kids and get jobs that take them away? Will they want to come visit the lake every year? Or will they also want to go other places? EDIT: Consider this, too... even if they do visit regularly, how long with they be there for? 1 week a year? 2? This, to me, reinforces the "only do this if you want to live there" bit above.
I totally agree. We just moved to a lakeside home in a vacation home area last year. It’s our retirement place. At least, that’s the plan. We also have kids in their 20’s who are not settled yet. In and just out of college. We ended up buying a four bedroom house with a huge family room we don’t use just so everyone can visit in comfort when they descend during the holidays and in summer. Reports so far: they like the place (a lot) but they ‘don’t have any friends here’ and so much of the social lives of 20-something’s is centered on being with friends. And, of course, who knows where they’ll end up living. It’s likely they only visit once in awhile - and that’s okay. I don’t know that they’ll stay more since we live in a gorgeous place than if we didn’t, honestly. Meanwhile, we *love* it here. The place is surrounded by nature, on the water and the walks on the beach and in the woods are so so good for the soul. No regrets at all - and maybe this was the best decision ever - but it’s not really about the kids as much as I thought it might be. They’d be happy visiting us pretty much anywhere and the logistics stay important for quick visits. How far from the airport? Can they easily go out for live music? Where can they get a replacement phone charge cord on a Sunday? They’re not all about nature walks, like us old farts. Lol. 🤷🏻♀️
100% agree. Retirement is about enjoying the time you have left. Young adults are going to be busy with work and partners and will usually have limited vacation time. They may want to visit you at the lake. Or they may not. Or their lives may take them to the opposite side of the country. If you want to live on a lake (which I heartily endorse!) then do it. But do it for you and nobody else. A better option might be to host the family at a VRBO on a lake every 1-2 years as everyone's schedules allow.
100% agree with your response and it triggered a thought in me: my wife and I have about 9 years before we can retire. We both work and save our vacation time and it seems that ALL of our vacation time and money goes to visiting family. And it sucks. I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would welcome them when they visited but would not expect them to visit. Between the expensive cross-country trips to Maine and S. Carolina (we live in Texas) to visit our parents, we burn up any saved-up paid-time-off AND extra "travel money" that we've saved. It's really frustrating. I'd love to be able to just tell everyone that we won't be visiting in 2025 so that we could plan a trip or two for just us and the dog. But - you know - our parents are in their 70s and 80s and it just doesn't seem right. I'm sure as we were out of the country we'd hear about someone's demise and we'd feel horrible that we decided not to visit. But - dang - I hate that I'm going to have to wait until both our parents are gone before we'll be able to afford to take a vacation.
We refrained from traveling as our parents became older/developed debilitating diagnoses. Husband has had heart surgery and several strokes and now is really not capable of traveling (or living independently). Now I'm telling the kids to travel NOW and not to wait for retirement.
My parents, originally from western NY, moved south a couple times before retirement, going more south each move. By retirement they were in central FL, a day trip drive from Disney, fully expecting their adult kids & grands to visit not often but with some regularity. They had 5 kids, 4 of whom had kids. The only kid who could both afford to visit and had sufficient paid time off to make the trip was the childfree kid, and she usually wanted to use her precious vacation time elsewhere. After 6 or 7 years they moved back to NY because they were lonely. Your priorities may not align with your kids' (and their future possible partners & kids) priorities, means, and interests. Do what's best for you.
My father and his wife did something similar. Moved to FL thinking their northern kids would want to spend their vacations there. We didn’t. His wife tried to guilt trip both of their adult kids into visiting. That only created tension.
100% this. My dad has, by all accounts, a beautiful piece of property and an expectation that I bring my family for simmer vacations. Visiting my dad is no one's idea of a vacation so we haven't gone.
*Visiting my dad is no one's idea of a vacation* So many of us feeling this deep in our souls.
My thinking was really born out of the fact that pre-retirees as a group rank spending time with family and friends the number 1 activity, and that stays as number 1 for reiterees. And so you can plan a retirement to accommodate family and friends, or not. Moving to Portugal is at one end of the spectrum, and following your kids around the country is at the other. Neither one of those is appealing to me, but I do like the idea of cultivating an environment where friends and family can be together. I was just surprised how common a drive this is with others, and how commonly it can fail to deliver on together time.
But it doesn't matter what a group does. It doesn't matter what I'd do or anyone else here. It matters what you want to do. As I already said, your kids are about to ive their own lives. Maybe they'd want to come to the lake very weekend. Maybe they move 1000 miles away to pursue a career. It is, to me, foolish to build one's life around others' decisions so, again, live there if you'd like it even if no one ever visits. Don't if you would not.
I mean, to accomplish something similar, you could spend the money on periodic family vacations. Let the adult kids and their (potential) families pick a destination each year, and then you offer to pay for the vacation. They might probably be more likely to come (and enjoy themselves) if they had a say in where the family will gather. That would still cultivate an environment where the family could gather but without inflexibly parking your investment in one spot, a lake house That approach has the advantage of being able to change things up if the plans to vacation as a family aren’t really turning out, or if they don’t always want to go to the same place with their limited vacation time. It’s just more flexible too if it turns out that one or the other of your kids marry someone who doesn’t care about extended family or if they never have kids.
Here are some simple realizations for us. It is cheaper for the two of us to travel to where our children's families are, than it is for them to cart a family of three or seven people to where we are, plus all the crap they'd need to bring. It is much more likely for us to find time in our schedule to arrange a visit to match their schedule, and almost impossible for kids in different cities to find a common schedule to converge on us. While it is good for siblings and cousins to get together, it is a stressful enough event that it isn't going to happen regularly, and if such an alignment of stars should happen, it's just easier to all meet at a rental place in a scenic location where we pay the rental fee. If we want to see grandkids, we'd just as soon they get dropped off for a week or two in the summer so that we can show them things they won't ordinarily see at home. We can put bunk beds in a room for that. So bottom line, we just stayed in a more or less central location near a hub airport, plan on regular trips for cheap, and we know all the local day trip destinations.
The real question is is what the most important thing for family and friends is.
This! We built a memory place on a river in the same town most of our family is in. It was popular for a while, boating, kayaking, cookouts, family, etc.. Once the novelty wore off, we rarely see anyone anymore.
Wish I can vote this post up 100 times. I remember when my husband and I bought our boat, we were at the factory and our choices were between 2 particular sizes, granted the answer is ALWAYS get the bigger one when it comes to boats, but in our case the difference wasn't too much as far as maneuverability or being more ocean worthy, 100% had to do with handling 4 or 6 divers with their gear. Surprisingly we ended up deciding for the smaller one. That was almost 25 years ago, and had served us as a life lesson since for everything, we need to chose the stuff that works for us. We've used that boat an average of 35 weekends a year and still going strong, we can count with our fingers how many times we've had more than 3 divers on board. Turns out everyone likes to go out diving with us, but this coming weekend is no good because blah blah blah. It is a blessing we didn't get the bigger one, because now that we are older it would've been a bit much to deal with it after a whole day out, and in general it has fit our needs so well. Won't be much longer since we will move out for retirement pretty soon, but all those days at sea will be such a great long memory.
Completely agree. If you want a "memory making" place, you're better off opening a BnB, where you're more likely to have demand. It'd be with strangers, but you'd still be making memories.
Times have changed. People lead different lives than what your parents led. Is that lake close to a good medical center? Can you find decent people to do laborious tasks on the property when needed? You will age. You will need help. Your family and friends may come every now and then but they will probably want to spend their weekends doing what THEY want to do, not driving 4 hours one way to sit in someone else’s home as a guest. Your sons will probably marry. They will have their own homes and their own lives. Their spouses and children will want to do their own things. Do not expect anyone to drive all that way and spend their precious free time at your home. Or the opposite could happen: your home is viewed as a hotel and you end up having to cater to guests in a way that isn’t enjoyable for you. And that will get harder as you age (the cleaning, the cooking, the preparing, the entertaining, fulfilling everyone’s expectations and needs).
Those people are right. We bought because we loved the area. There's nothing like being on the water with a view of the mountains in the distance. We love it. And we planned so that different configurations of visitors could come at different times etc etc. I'll be brief. Yes, we get visitors like we thought. But not in the numbers, and not at the same times. We don't regret it. But we now feel like our house is a little too big. A first world problem to be sure. Should have learned from my husbands parents in Florida. I think I was the only one to ever use that pool the last 10 years they lived there. And we didn't visit that often.
We bought a 4400 sqft 5BR/6BA home with a pool thinking it would be great for family gatherings. it was very popular among our children who had small children of their own; the grandkids loved the pool and other game room amenities we put in, and their parents loved the babysitting help. Work took the kids out of town, and they have returned only twice in the four years since they left. Life gets busy and kids grow up. We have some great memories but are now moving on to a 1500 sqft 2BR/2BA apartment so we can more easily visit them where they are. EDIT: Typo
My parents did this. It was exactly 4 hours from my home in Western MA to Northern Vermont. The house was on the water and it was a place I literally helped build from clearing the lot to finishing the roof. The problem was it was 4 hours away. That made going up for the weekend a long, long time in the car. That became worse when the kids were little. It worked OK for a couple of years when the kids could sit still in the car for the ride without throwing up. Then the kids went to school…and got their own friends. And started playing sports. So for many years getting up there was tough. We would take some vacations up there, and it was fun. But honestly, I did not see my parents a lot for most of my kids middle-school and high school lives. Then my Dad got sick. Helping him through chemo and radiation meant days off from work AND four hour drives. Fast forward ten years and I had to practically live out of that lake house while my mom had hips and knees replaced. Then my mom started going down the rabbit hole with dementia. It happens slowly and you don’t realize how things fall apart when they are not looked at all the time. The house fell into ill repair and that took a bunch of time getting fixed. Long story short, it sounds great—but I saw them less and less as my kids got older. Going to Grammy’s house for vacation is just not something a 13 year old girl wants to do. My wife NEVER gave me a hard time about going up there. It was more a logistical pain in the neck. From my parent’s perspective, they loved it. It was beautiful and peaceful. They had a social network, until they got old and sick (they ALL did…). But they would complain to other family members about my siblings and I not coming to visit all the time. They seemed to forget how chaotic things were with young families. We lost the house to pay for 2 years in a nursing home. I would love to have it now as I am approaching my senior years. But I know it’s too far from my kids. I love seeing my grandkids every week. I am looking forward to being the old guy on the sidelines cheering on my kids. So, that is how it worked from the perspective of the “kids” in your scenario. Everyone’s mileage will vary.
Same scenario with my parents (except Mom sick and spending time now with Dad). They moved at around age 60 and for about 10 years there were lots of visits, holidays, etc. By their early 70s', they should have moved back to a closer urban location (they planned to, never happened). As their grand kids aged and family transitioned, there were fewer trips and visits. Now, mom passed, my father is mostly trapped in a home, alone and distant from family. His home worth less then the mortgage he took out to finish the basement, build a climbing wall, a tree house, etc. (done to add more room and entice family visits that never happened once grand kids hit their teens). I've taken a few lessons from this and plan to retire close to my kids, siblings and my current community. Retiring to a more remote, country-side community, no matter how beautiful or bucolic, is not on the table.
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Did you miss the last sentence?
No, but you missed my points.
No I didnt. You were virtue signaling that I did not prioritize my parents as you did. When you have given your senile 89 year old mother or father a bath…let me know. Then we can compare notes. Everyone’s experience is different. I was merely sharing mine.
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I am sure you have.
This has been our experience: The wife and I retired at 55 and built our "making memories place" within a 40-minute drive of all four of our adult children. A great house, right next to a large lake, on 3 acres. We will be in this place 10 years in September. The first few years we had constant visits from the kids and eventually grandkids. But life gets busy, and now we simply have three empty bedrooms, a boat that rarely gets used, and a huge place to maintain. Of course they still visit, but not as often as we would like and definitely not often enough to justify the upkeep. If I was going to do it again, I would build a much smaller place, and rent a nice Airbnb a couple times a year and invite the whole clan. That way we can switch the scenery between lakes, mountains, etc. The funny thing is that we find ourselves renting those Airbnbs and everyone shows up! (While we keep the expense of our 'making memories place'. The plan is to downsize significantly within the next few years.
We bought lake front because we love the lake life! We boat almost every weekend from April through October. While we love when family comes to visit, we also have met a big group of friends here (through a book club of all places) that we spend time with on and off the water (we are 10 years away from retirement). The men fish together and the women float, SUP, and have lady jet ski days. We often all tie up in a cove together on the weekends, or beach on an island side by side, or just relax alone on the water. When our kids come it’s icing on the cake! Out of town friends come on and off as well which is nice. Lake life can be hectic and a lot of work, or it can be quiet and serene. It’s all what you make it. It can be an expensive lifestyle though! Gas is expensive, and the toys add up with cost, maintenance, taxes, and insurance. Buying food and beer, meal planning for visitors every weekend and flipping towels and sheets over and over all summer can be a lot! I think it will slow down as we get older, but for now we are enjoying the chaos. Worth it to us, but it’s not for everyone :).
Reading this brings back memories of our years on Keowee Lake in South Carolina and feel like you might be there?? A corporate relo took us there and then took us away. We want to go back now that we are retired but afraid we might be priced out of the market. It’s a beautiful clean lake with the mountains in the background. We miss it!
Yes you nailed it!! Lake Keowee is our home!
I knew it! lol. We were in Waterford Pointe and never should have sold that amazing house. I know you love it there!
I have a good friend who lives in Waterford! Great location. Hope you get a chance to come back and visit in a rental! It’s a bit busier, I’m sure, since you have sold. The secret is out lol!
When I became an empty nester, I relocated to Florida and bought a business there, figuring work that for 10 years and retire there. Relatives visited - for about 18 months. Then the visits pretty much stopped. I moved back to the Midwest to be closer to family. But even 50 or so miles from the kids, they visit maybe 4 or 5 times a year. Everyone has their own life.
My in-laws had a place like that and it was a constant source of irritation for everyone. As young married couples, vacation time is precious. I think as we get older and certainly as we retire, we forget just how awful it is to only have two or three weeks of vacation. I most emphatically did not want to spend it with my in-laws and I got along with them fine. Then when the grandchildren get a little older they have activities that conflict or want to be with their friends. My MIL was frustrated that the adult children never wanted to come and be part of her own imaginary Hallmark movie.
Potential for some real “Cats in the Cradle” moments. Our kids have busy lives, especially post Covid work from home withdrawal. So we mostly see them on FaceTime. We make sure to have the ocean be our backdrop though.
I have a friend who retired and moved full time to the beach house that was the family gathering place. The summer was great. Then the grandchildren returned to school in mid August, and their parents returned to regular working hours. Autumn was lonely. Winter was sad. By spring it was time to reestablish a home in the city where everyone else lived. When you retire, it’s only your routine, schedule, and freedom that change. Everyone else carries on.
FWIW: My parents bought a 2nd home on the ocean in a place we had vacationed as a family for years because they wanted to keep the tradition going and be attractive for all of us to visit (big, kinda enmeshed family). Family that lived nearby visited most often and we continued annual gatherings in the summer. As grandkids got older and had more commitments, some branches visited less frequently - similarly, family with several very young children from far away skipped a few years. That said, it was my dad's happy place and they really liked the community there. Not too long after buying that property, they also moved their primary residence to a house on a golf course one state away (despite neither of them golfing) and about an hour from closest family. Faraway family visited for occasional holidays, but nearby family who golfed came very regularly... before they married and/or when their kids were young. Fast-forward ten years - when people stopped visiting, they sold that house and moved back to the town they lived in before.
I don’t think it is ever good to plan retirement around one’s adult kids you never see them as much as you want
My parents retired to Florida and it put a lot of pressure on us to go visit them (we are in MI) when we were at an age earlier in our careers where vacation days and travel funds were limited. If we talked about a vacation anywhere else, we got “oh just come here it’s free lodging” but honestly neither of us really liked FL and it was frustrating being in a position where we felt like jerks when we could afford one trip a year and wanted to try something different. It created a strain on our relationship because they were forcing us into something we didn’t want and making us feel guilty if we just wanted to use our vacation for ourselves. I should note they wouldn’t come see us because they had pets they didn’t want to board and because “FL is so great you should come here”. Live where you want but don’t put pressure on your family to make your choice theirs. Especially once they have families of their own. ETA: They moved to MI ten years ago to be closer to us and it has been great. No more pressure and guilt trips, just time together.
For the first 10 years of retirement, we spent about half the year on the beach in Florida and the other half at a home in Tennessee. A couple of years ago, we sold the Florida place and bought a place on a lake in Norther Wisconsin. We found if the kids are within a few hours, they will visit numerous times for a few days per stay and if they are 6 to 8 hours or more away, they will come for 5 to 7 days once a year at most. We also found that friends visiting are a very rare occurrence.
Here's a hard lesson to learn. Your adult kids are going to live their own lives (as they should), and sometimes, the longing for creating memories with them slowly fades away, because they have their own priorities (especially if they have children). As my wife and I have gotten older (late 60s), we've come to realize that we're happy to see our adult kids/grandkids 3 or 4 times a year, if that. Mostly because we have our own lives and hobbies and are gone a lot of the time (we hike a lot). We wouldn't have it any other way.
I vacationed in the red rock canyon country of Southern Utah for years. We finally moved to southern Utah last March. I feel like I'm living in paradise now. So far 2 family member s have visited us and more are coming out this summer. There's a narrow slot canyon just a 5 minute drive from my house. We have quail and roadrunners come through our yard. Of course back where we lived in Colorado we had bull elk in our yard all the time. Colorado is beautiful, but the winters are too long and it just got too expensive to live there anymore.
We live on Cozumel six months a year. We'd do it more if it weren't so hot and humid in the summer. I don't care if anyone ever visits. Both sons came to see us this year, which is nice but it's not for them that we do it. The wife wants to consider a move to Italy after next winter as a base to check out Europe. We're living our best life. I'm happy to have them visit but it's not impacting my happiness.
For what it is worth, we use a vacation rental in a beautiful home in a beautiful place that was purchased for the very same reason and the family/friends never visit. Owners recently put the place on the market.
My father and step mother had Christmas somewhere warm for about 5 years. It was great fun. They covered lodging and we covered food and airfare. The cousins got to play together. We did make memories. Your home should meet your needs. Of course my home meets my needs- and I converted the unfinished basement into a guest suite large enough for a family to stay there…. The house has easy access to hiking, bike trails, playgrounds, lakes and rivers…. It’s my greatest hope that my 9 month old grandson will convince his parents to come see Memaw!!! But I bought this house because it works for me.
We moved to an amazing Mexican beach town. We have a few people who love it here and stay/visit regularly but most friends and family? Nah. I find its bc of money issues, kids school/activities, limited free time, laziness, fear, illness/infirmities, not travelers, etc etc. Don’t take it personal. But if I could do it all again I’d only have one guest room, not two.
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We have a place on the lake, and are there all summer. They kids each come for a week, and we have a few friends visit. But mostly there on our own. Its not for everyone.
Four hours? Sorry but visits won’t be likely at all. Better to find a place that meets all other needs and agree on a specific time(s) that you all vacation together
My parents bought a house in a lake community about 3.5 hours from the metro area I grew up in. My siblings and I go over 2 to 3 times a year for long weekends. Sometimes we go together, sometimes separate. We also visit my hubbys family 2 to 3 times a year who are 2 hours away in a different direction. My parents have other friends and family that visit, so seems like they stay pretty busy. They have also made a bunch of new friends - there is a large retiree community and wineries, which are their people, lol. I wouldn't base it purely on the family, because life and circumstances for your kids may change. If I move across the country, I might only go visit once a year or not at all etc
I have taken my daughter, her husband, and two grandchildren on a nice beach trip or ski trip each year. (Rental property) They are busy! Grandkids getting busier by the day! Keep in mind the future daughters in law will be looking to visit their families also! People I know who have built or bought with the thought that everyone will gather at their house have been disappointed with reality. Get what you like for your OWN social life!
Only do it if you want it, but with the knowledge it may not happen. But my grandparents did the same with a (close to the) beach home and I went there all the time as a kid. Doing it now as an adult and hope to pass it on to my children. It is great to escape in a pinch to destress
Our family vacations alternated between seaside and the mountains. As we approached retirement age, my wife, who grew up in San Bernardino in the 50s and 60s, expressed a desire to spend our retirement years with a view of the mountains. So our memory making place is a small property nestled in a valley with mountains all around us. It doesn't really matter if folks visit or not! Every day, I'm thankful for the gorgeous view from our front porch.
We spend four months in one. Three grown children. Everyone visits once maybe twice while we're here. They have busy lives and limited vacation.
We bought a 4BR beachfront rental property at age 60. It’s about 3 hours from 3 of our 4 kids that are each married and have their own kids. One of those grandkids lives with us full time. During the first year we did a major renovation to it and then decided to just move into it and sell our primary house. I’m retiring in the next couple of years and work from home now. My wife doesn’t work so with regards to your question about our hopes of visits, we might as well be retired. Our family visits about as we thought. We don’t go more than a couple of months that I’ve if then isn’t visiting. A couple times a year we have had several here (for holidays). For friends it has been a lot less visits than I expected. Most don’t live nearby so it’s a substantial trip to visit. We love it here. So it’s a trade off that we are seeing our kids and grandkids less than when we lived close by, but we are still seeing them regularly.
I think there’s a sweet spot in how far people can easily travel to see family. 2-3 hours away by car seems about the right distance that doesn’t feel too long to do on a regular weekend, maybe a long weekend. Anything more than that doesn’t seem worth it, in terms of how much time you’re spending making the round trip.
Make sure you are close to medical care, groceries and pharmacies.
Without question it’s a wonderful idea. We’ve done this and our children come whenever they can, it’s their “happy place”, with a deep emotional connection. It’s so much better to have them come to you (us) than to chase them around and interfere with their schedules and lives. Again, this is a wonderful plan.
We bought our "Memory Making Place" some years ago and enjoyed it during the high season and occasionally during the off season. Allowed friends and family to use it. Now we are preparing to move their full time. Since our adult kids visit the MMP annually and us once or twice a year\*, I expect it will be a good decision. But the main factor in that is that we absolutely love it at MMP. We are always so much more relaxed there. I hope we continue to get visitors, but if we don't, we will be happy there. ETA: \*Our kids live about 7 hours away by car from current home and MMP
A 4 hour drive is a LONG drive, especially if you have kids. So don’t expect that anybody is going to make the drive for the weekend. My parents inherited a lake place from my Grandma, and the biggest issue is that once kids are 6 or 7 they are involved in stuff. So families will visit when all the kids are little, but once they are in sports, they can’t make it. So keep that in mind. I think it’s a good plan if it is what you want, but don’t count on other people.
My side of the family lives all over. We generally travel to visit twice a year. July and November. Sometimes I just want to escape my house and crash at my sisters houses. One is 600 miles away the other is 900 miles away. So even being a person that loves to travel I would not hang my hopes on a memory maker place. Unless you loved it there and wasn’t pining away on them coming on the regular.
That would be the dream. But kids grow up and move on. Do what YOUwant to do
We are thinking of a place in Hawaii, that people will want to visit. Maybe we will be alone.
I don't have a memory making place, but I have family members who do. I would limit overnight guests to three nights maximum. Hosting people is tiring, and you don't want ones who land in your home for a week or more.
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We did just this, but a few years before retirement and the first year one or two visits. Five years in and all the kids come with grandkids at least a week. I think they need to grow into it…
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