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Guide to Best Places to Retire in Tennessee
Best Places to Live & Retire in Tennessee
Ideal-Living offers a free comprehensive service that begins with helping you find your Ideal Lifestyle. Until you know how you want to live, you can’t know where you want to live. We offer a wide array of tools to help you get answers to the questions that are keeping you from moving to your ideal destination. That includes finding the best place to retire in Tennessee.
There are plenty of hotspots in Tennessee, such as Nashville, Gatlinburg and Knoxville, as well as secluded locales that offer all the privacy you seek. Besides its natural beauty and great retirement communities, Tennessee is one of the most tax friendly states for retirees and seniors. The tax benefits of living in Tennessee include:
- No state income tax
- No tax on social security benefits
- Property tax relief program for qualifying seniors
- Prescription drugs are exempt from state sales tax
Idyllic Communities in Ideal Locations
Tennessee is home to a diverse music scene, with Nashville known as the country music capital. For fans of the King of Rock and Roll, there’s even Graceland. But music isn’t the only thing to explore here. Whatever you wish to experience—Civil War sites, the Mississippi River, distilleries, outdoor adventure, amusements parks—Tennessee has a little bit of everything for you to explore and enjoy.
Prospective residents should choose a community that best fits their lifestyle. Some neighborhoods are only a short walk or ride away from bustling city centers. Others are closer to quieter, small-town shops.
Our free Digital Choose Your Ideal Place Guide and Ideal-Living Magazine offer an abundance of information on which states, towns and cities are the best for retirees, vacationers and second-home buyers.
Sample Communities to Discover
Tellico Village
Tellico Village is Eastern Tennessee’s premier active-adult community for retirees and remote workers of any age who want to enjoy the region’s finest collection of resort-style amenities.
Set on 4,800 acres around Tellico Lake in the Great Smoky Mountain foothills, Tellico Village is an outdoor recreation paradise. Three lakeside golf courses host a year-round schedule of league events, plus pro and amateur championships. The Tellico Village Yacht Club, one of three community marinas, offers complete boating services and lakefront dining. Fitness facilities, indoor and outdoor pools, tennis/pickleball courts, and 50+ miles of local hiking trails give residents a choice of healthy activities every day of the week. The 200+ Tellico Village social clubs and volunteer organizations make it easy for neighbors to become friends. At the same time, the on-site Summit Medical Center offers convenient primary care and physical-therapy services.
More than 2,300 buildable lots and waterfront homesites are available at Tellico Village. An impressive roster of 15 local builders offers a fantastic variety of floor plans with customizable options to create the new home of your dreams. There are also a number of existing homes on the market at any given time, plus rentals available for a week to a year while you check out all of the choices.
Located just 31 miles from Knoxville, Tellico Village residents are just a short drive away from the region’s finest night-life venues, cultural events, shopping centers, and top-rated health care facilities.
Request more information below, and you’ll be on your way to enjoying the good life at Tellico Village.
WindRiver
WindRiver is a stunning, lakefront and golf community located minutes outside Knoxville, Tennessee on Tellico Lake. Inside our gates, you will find world-class amenities surrounded by sparkling, fresh-water lakes and dramatic mountain views. This unique combination is what makes WindRiver the ideal place to call home and create a lakefront lifestyle you and your family will cherish.
You will sense it when you look towards the welcoming shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains. You will feel it standing on the gentle slope of five miles of shoreline along beautiful Lake Tellico, named one of the top inland boating destinations in the nation.
Members enjoy a collection of world-class club amenities which include: a full-service marina, a championship 18-hole golf course, Golf Club and Grill, the Sports Complex with a resort-style swimming pool, sports courts, and a state-of-the-art exercise facility at Overlook Manor, the elegant Lakeside Inn, and Citico’s Restaurant, a signature Member dining experience. For outdoor enthusiasts, WindRiver has access to over 30 miles of walking and hiking trails and a peaceful, lakefront retreat, Brightwater Park.
In addition to WindRiver’s amenities, innate beauty, and temperate climate, an equally important factor is that the state of Tennessee is extremely tax-friendly: NO State Income Taxes, NO State Inheritance Taxes, NO Personal Property Taxes, and low property taxes.
This is Life As It Should Be – this is WindRiver.
Fairfield Glade & Fairfield North
Fairfield Glade is perched high atop the Cumberland Plateau, and offers serene mountain beauty as it sits on the highest point between the Rocky and Smoky Mountains. One of the favorite features of this area is the moderate year round temperatures. The pleasant summer days and the cool summer nights can be attributed to the Cumberland Plateau’s 2,000-foot-elevation, allowing for more comfortable temperatures and much lower humidity than most areas of the south.
What to do with all the fabulous weather and beautiful scenery? Golfing, boating, fishing, hiking, walking, swimming, tennis/pickleball-the list of fun activities available is simply endless! Plus, an outdoor amphitheater and biergarten just opened to host live music, movies, food and community events – it’s a great gathering place for neighbors to come together.
The community offers multiple subdivisions with a wide range of home sizes, price ranges, and views that include mountain, lake, golf and protected woodlands. Another attribute is the incredible cost of living in Fairfield Glade – no state income tax on wages, very reasonable home prices, and extremely low property taxes and club dues.
Fairfield Glade is just 6 miles from the city limits of Crossville, a small town, but bustling with activities. Crossville’s central location on Interstate 40 has made it a hub for many outlying areas and has given rise to a booming retail environment, offering shopping, dining and entertainment choices. The community is also located right off I-40, less than an hour from Knoxville, and an hour and a half from either Nashville or Chattanooga.
Testimonial
“The biggest deciding factor for choosing Fairfield Glade was the people, both in the Glade and in the town. When we came to visit the first time, we had no appointment and no agenda – we just popped in and wandered around. Folks stopped us everywhere we went – Food City, the Wellness Center, Villa Pizza – and just chatted. No one was in a hurry, everyone was interested in our story, everyone had some tidbit to share. The same thing happened on our second visit, and then on every visit we made once construction started. We felt like we had become part of the community before we were actually part of the community.” Michelle and James Bayless
Fairfield Glade has 11 lakes and two marinas.
Get Started
Finding and choosing the right active adult community can be a daunting task. This is where ideal-LIVING can help. Sign up below to receive our complimentary relocation package, which offers tips on how to find a community that suits your needs. In this guide, you’ll discover the top communities in Tennessee, as well as what you can do to get started. Sign up for this free package to take the first step in your exciting journey.
Free Package includes:
- ideal-LIVING Relocation Guide
The ultimate guide to find your ideal destination, life and home. This annual guide contains more than 15 state maps, a location-based cost of living and climate comparison chart and discovery travel packages.
- ideal-LIVING Magazine
Quarterly print magazine features the best places to retire and/or purchase your ideal second home.
- ideal-LIVING E-Newsletter
Receive our digital newsletter, two to three times a month, highlighting communities around the country and abroad.
- Tickets to ideal-LIVING Live Events
The ideal-LIVING Resort & Retirement Show has helped retirees and second-home buyers find their ideal community and home for more than 30 years.
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