Tips for Finding an Active Retirement Village

Staying active through your senior years helps you to maintain your physical, cognitive and emotional health, and if you're moving to a retirement community, you may want to look for a place that promotes activity for seniors in multiple ways. To ensure your new home will make staying active easy, you may want to consider the following tips.

Look for a Walkable Community

Many retirement communities feature on-site restaurants, shops or other essentials. If staying active is important to you, you don't want to drive or take a scooter to these locations. Instead, you want a retirement community that is set up to be as walkable as possible. While touring different communities, look at the distances between the residential and commercial areas and make sure the neighbourhood has lots of walking paths.

Consider Outside Amenities Within Walking Distance

If the retirement village only consists of residential homes and doesn't have on-site shops or commercial facilities, that is okay. In these situations, you may want to make sure the village is next to mainstream commercial amenities and that you can easily walk or even bicycle there from your new home.

Check Out the Activities Calendar

Whether you have the ability to move into a walkable community or not, you should look for other activities. As you speak with a welcome coordinator or sales rep from the retirement community, ask for a copy of the activities calendar. You may want to get all the calendars from the previous year so that you can get a sense of how the activities change from season to season.

Ideally, you want to look for activities such as yoga, aerobics or jogging clubs. You may also want to keep an eye out for activities that are modified to work with different ability levels. That way, if you lose abilities as you age, you know that you can still get involved and stay active.

Attend a Workout Class

To get a sense of the community, you may want to attend a workout class before you commit to moving in. Ask the facility administrator if you can shadow a class. This is a great way to get a sense of the emotional and social vibe.

Spend an Afternoon Walking Through the Area

In addition to going to a formal class, you may want to take some time to assess the community feel of the retirement village. To that end, spend an afternoon walking or bicycling through the facility. Are other people outside? Are they friendly? If so, this may just be the perfect place for you to spend your active third act.