The Villages is an attractive city with gently sweeping streets and impressive, upscale architecture. Driving along the main drag, we looked over to the side and saw a parallel road with a yellow stripe down the center of it and golf carts zooming comically along it. In fact, it seemed that there were more golf carts on the move than automobiles. We also noticed parking lots exclusively for those little contraptions.
Nancy and I had a fine lunch at The Lighthouse, a seafood restaurant. The diners were mostly seniors, a few with canes or walkers, but there were younger people as well. The ambiance was friendly and cheerful.
We dropped into one of The Villages' sales offices. Patrick, a sales representative, sat with us and gave us the history of the city. The families of the original owners are still in charge, and they make sure that there are unlimited opportunities for activities, support, learning, and entertainment. The musical schedule for February included Tony Bennett and a number of lesser-known artists. We were shown a list of hundreds of clubs available for participation - not only the expected ones like Tai-chi, bingo, golf, and yoga but also cheerleading, philosophy, astrology, freethinking, jazz, and a social club for the deaf and hearing-impaired. The city has available a plethora of restaurants, some of them world class, plus golf courses, basketball and pickleball courts, and fields and courts of every kind of sporting activity anyone could want to participate in. The medical services there are reportedly first-rate.
Patrick told us that home prices start at about $120,000 and go up into the millions. Quite a few model homes were available for inspection, but only in the morning, and we were there in the afternoon. Patrick offered to meet us at 10 o'clock the following day and take us around, but we decided against it - because our RV park was some distance away, the traffic to get there wasn't fun, the brochure pictures were not all that impressive, and to be honest it was unlikely that Nancy and I would ever decide to become village people.
And yet I think The Villages is an amazing achievement and offers a perfect solution for many retirees, as long as they are able to tolerate the hot, humid summers. It is extremely easy to meet people and to become engaged in the community. The list of available activities and opportunities is truly mind-blowing. One could lead a varied and interesting life there. But Nancy and I are not mentally ready to live in a city with so many old people, even though we are old people ourselves - although that attitude may change in the years to come. And we want an environment that holds a bit of magic for us, which we just didn't feel in The Villages.
Below is a photo of the elegant lobby of the sales office we visited. I'm disappointed that I didn't get shots of the golf cart parking lots and the golf cart freeways. You'll have to check those out for yourselves.
Addendum: In talking with a gentleman at the Tiki Bar in our current RV park down the road in Sarasota, Florida, we learned from him that The Villages has a reputation as a wild town. Supposedly if you're available for swinging (an old term but a good one), you decorate your golf cart with a yellow flower. We cannot confirm or refute this information, but it may increase or decrease your likelihood of considering The Villages for future relocation.
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