[rhart]

Originally Posted by JerryLBell

We stopped through two years ago on the recommendation of friends who had former neighbors who'd moved to The Villages. Since we were in the early stages of looking, we stayed at a hotel. There is a hotel very close to one of the town centers (Lake Sumter) that is very nice but even with a discount arranged as potential buyers, we thought the prices were a little high. While there, we took the bus tour of The Villages that starts at the sales office at Lake Sumter. I highly recommend this as it was fun and surprisingly informative. And it's too easy to get lost in the 36+ square miles of The Villages.

We stopped through last year to look a little more thoroughly and stayed a few days. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which provided a pretty nice room for much more reasonable rates. It's also located right next to the Spanish Springs town center. It was kind of a long drive to the southern parts of The Villages, but not too bad. We found The Villages just as nice as we had the first time and didn't get lost nearly so much. We also toured a couple of other retirement communities in the area.

This spring we buckled down, did a lot of research into the many, many retirement communities in Florida. We narrowed it down to north central Florida and narrowed it down further to about 8 communities we wanted to see in person. We kind of hoped to find a smaller alternative (The Villages can be a bit overwhelming) and perhaps a little cheaper (nobody claims The Villages is cheap). We came down and visited all of them, including another stop at The Villages (where we managed to get around without ever getting lost, first!). If we had never seen The Villages, we would probably have really liked most of the other communities. However, the sheer scale and diversity of activities of The Villages just blew them all away. We "kind of" liked a couple others, but they just fell short.

We also fell in love with a house we'd seen while at The Villages (and we had taken time to look at several). We really planned on coming back in the fall and staying for a week, using the lifestyle plan. However, on the drive back home to North Carolina, we decided we didn't want to lose the house we'd fallen for and ended up contacting the realtor and starting the ball rolling on buying it. We're now owners in absentia of a home we hope to retire to in a couple of years. We hope to be frogs (here until we croak) soon!

I would suggest you research the various retirement communities, then come to the area and tour several. Most of the larger communities have a lifestyle option lasting from a couple of nights to a week, so if you boil it down to a couple of finalists, you can try them out on perhaps a subsequent visit. You may find The Villages to be too much of a good thing (and there are those who do) or you may find it's just about the most exciting, enticing place to retire ever (and there are about 100,000 people who do, including us). Either way you go, it's a big move and worth investigating thoroughly before deciding.

By the way, there are a few books about The Villages that are worth reading that give what seems to be more honest, unbiased opinions about the good, bad and ugly of The Villages. Look around for them, they are worth reading. This forum is also a great resource and I've asked any number of questions here before we bought and had them answered by real people who live here, not just salespeople. People on this forum seem to be incredibly generous in sharing their experiences and opinions. It's an excellent resource.

Oh, and if you want to know the "real" history behind The Villages, you have to take the short, inexpensive boat ride around Lake Sumter. If nothing else you'll learn that the founders of the community have a weird sense of humor!

...and you are the perfect example of people that seem incredibly generous in sharing. Thank you for this brilliant and most helpful and practical posting!