Book excerpt: Where to Retire offers the best advice not only on where to relocate in the retirement years, but why people should pick up and move just as life is settling down. Retirement guru John Howells provides well-researched and completely revised and updated information on how to find the ideal home base for the retirement years. To help the decision-making process, the author offers a list of items to consider when selecting the ideal community: safety; climate; housing availability; cultural and recreation opportunities in the area; social compatibility; affordability; medical care; distance from relatives and friends; transportation; and jobs and/or volunteer opportunities. Howells gives readers clear snapshots of life in hundreds of the most affordable, comfortable, and stimulating places to retire in the United States, including locations in Florida, California, the Pacific Northwest, the Gulf Coast, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, the Southwest, and the Rockies. This guide tells not how to retire, but where readers can retire happily.