(FORTUNE Magazine) – It's hard enough to know what you want in life, and it's especially hard on the cusp of retirement, when the prospect of considering a new home conjures both hopeful fantasies and grim premonitions. Thinking about relocation starts with good reasoning--to experience fulltime a town you've vacationed in for years, to be closer to family, to immerse yourself in the outdoor life--but without firsthand knowledge, it's difficult to make the next move. What if you make a mistake? To cover some ground for you, we offer an educated look at six great places to retire--some of them altogether unexpected--written by people who know them well. (As a bonus, we have meticulously studied these and 14 other locales and included most everything you'd want to know from the cost of living to the boredom factor, in a special foldout table.) Along the way, our experts have dispelled some myths, offered some good advice, and uncovered some surprising truths. Some examples: The sun-bleached Provencal stone-farmhouse dream is attainable financially. Central Iowa offers culture and gorgeous scenery. Tropical paradises like Costa Rica can make you really, really tense. Call it our guide to armchair retirement.

THE LUBERON, FRANCE TOUJOURS CHIC

The sun was a great tranquilizer, and time passed in a haze of well-being; long, slow, almost torpid days when it was so enjoyable to be alive that nothing else mattered. --Peter Mayle

When such descriptions of the Luberon first hit print in 1989 in Mayle's best-seller A Year in Provence, no one could have imagined the effect they would have on Americans attracted to this quiet area of southeastern France. "Not many of our clients want the Cote d'Azur anymore," says Gwen Clark, a former Manhattan psychotherapist who moved to the Luberon in 1982 and who has since carved out a career helping Americans find homes there, joining a roster of residents that includes actor John Malkovich, Princess Caroline of Monaco, and Anne Cox Chambers. "This is where everyone wants to be," Clark says. "The Luberon is the most sensual of France's many playgrounds."

Having spent some time there myself, I find it tough to argue with that definition. The Luberon, nestled in the heart of Provence, is France's Tuscany--with a touch of the Hamptons thrown in. Scented by myrtle, sage, and lemon thyme, the region is defined geographically by the soft curves of the 40-mile-long Luberon mountain range; on a clear day you can see the Mediterranean from the peaks. The entire 247,000 acres of the Luberon was designated a Regional Natural Park by the French government in 1977, when a sudden wave of second-home building prompted fears that the neighboring cities of Aix-en-Provence and Marseilles would taint the park with suburban sprawl.

The Luberon's grottoes, vineyards, and cedar forests have been inhabited since the Stone Age and are dotted with Roman ruins and other reminders of its 22,000-year past. They provide a compelling backdrop to the sun-bleached, dry-stone-walled farmhouses and fields of fragrant rosemary and lavender. In August, lured by the rich landscape as well as the tides of fashionability, Parisian ladies dot the terraces of the local eateries, their Chanel bags spilling over with ribbon-tied bottles of lavender and parchment-wrapped bars of honey and olive oil soap.

Summer tourists pose the only serious threat to tranquility--because of its status as a protected park, towns, homes, and business development in the Luberon are all strictly zoned, sheltering the region's major agricultural industries: wine, goat cheese, and lavender. Retirees can benefit from the tourist crush (and avoid it) by renting out their home for part of the summer. According to Clark, typical rents range from $4,000 to $10,000 a month, depending on location.

That kind of extra income could be useful, since the Luberon isn't a budget destination by anyone's definition. The prices are out of reach for high-end properties with lots of land, but during a recent real estate search, I found authentic stone properties priced at $400,000 and under.

In Bonnieux, for example, one turn-of-the-century house (see inset photo on opening page) in the middle of town has a breathtaking view of sweeping vineyards, the valley, and the Vaucluse mountain range. Built into the hillside, the three-story house is hidden behind a stately iron gate, rose bushes, bay trees, and cypress. Inside, there's a marble fireplace, three roomy bedrooms, and an independent apartment.

Buyers willing to invest more can also find the Provencal mas, or large farmhouse, of their dreams, with robin's-egg-blue shutters, rosy tiled roofs, and stone terraces--for $400,000 to $700,000.

According to Anne Gassoch, a Parisian lawyer, "the first step for Americans who want to live here is to apply for a long-term visa." As part of its screening for retirees, the French government asks--among other questions about your history and health--that you prove you can support yourself. Eventually, successful applicants receive a carte de sejour that allows them to live in France, though it does not allow them to work. (Then again, remember how lucrative Peter Mayle's "year off" ended up being.)

The thought of such technicalities nearly took the romance out of the proposition of retiring abroad for me--until Jane Eakin, a 76-year-old former New Yorker and painter who moved full-time to Menerbes in 1982, helped realign my priorities. Says Eakin, "There are beautiful things all around you, and the nights are gorgeous." Enough said. --NADINE FREY

NEW YORK CITY THE FASTEST PLACE OF ALL

When an American stays away from New York too long something happens to him. Perhaps he becomes a little provincial, a little dead and afraid. --Sherwood Anderson

Come 2030 or so, my retirement will begin something like this: I'll take my wife by the arm, bid good day to the doorman, and jauntily exit my Greenwich Village apartment. We'll ride the bus uptown to the Metropolitan Museum, buy our half-price tickets, and spend the morning in the 20th-century galleries. After a scotch-and-steak lunch--both having been proved salutary to the heart--we'll take a stroll in Central Park. At Bethesda Fountain, the two of us will pause. Hold hands, talk of grandchildren. And congratulate ourselves on the joys of taking the slow lane in the fastest city of them all.

We won't be alone. Of the 7.3 million people in the Big Apple, an estimated one million are retired. Why shouldn't the city with the best music, grandest museums, and most thrilling food and nightlife be the greatest place to retire as well?

First let me unburden you of misconceptions--the kind my Aunt Eleanor calls me with early Sunday mornings as she needles me with the joys of say, Belmar, New Jersey.

Crime: Zap the Equalizer reruns. I'm more likely to be mugged in Miami, to be murdered in Minneapolis, or to have my car burgled in Boston than I am in New York City. The city's violent crime has fallen 36% over the past five years.

Taxes: New York City levies its own income tax on top of the state's. Unkind but true. Less trumpeted: The city helps compensate with dirt-cheap property taxes. You'll pay as little as $2,588 a year for a $300,000 brownstone apartment, compared with $3,150 for a similar setup in, say, Los Angeles. The city even undercuts the 'burbs: Taxes on a $300,000 house in suburban Scarsdale, New York, will run you $8,239.

Rudeness: Just two words for those bemoaning Gothamites' famed incivility. "Your mother." I get enough "good mornings" from my doorman, thank you very much, and I pay dearly for them too.

Traffic: Thirty seconds out of the Holland Tunnel will teach the greenest greenhorn what every New Yorker knows. One does not navigate this city by driving oneself; the fleets of taxis and overlapping nexuses of subways, buses, and commuter rails do the work for you. Don't get me wrong. I love cars. But drive ten minutes to pick up a quart of milk or take in a movie? That's how people find themselves in nursing homes.

Supermarkets: Do I miss the fluorescent palaces I grew up with on the other side of the Hudson? Not at all. My preference has always been the humble corner store, the greenmarket, and--something I expect to sustain me long into my dotage--home delivery of the world's greatest takeout food.

What reasons do people give for retiring in New York? Unlike, say, Boca Raton, where the response is often "the beach" or "the weather," New York City provides a cornucopia of answers. For a neighborhood retiree, Sy Jones, an accountant, one hook was a teaching spot at New York University; another was the drop-dead view from the 12th-floor apartment that he got through NYU.

Me? I'm not the workaholic type, nor am I so highbrow. In preparation for 2030, I've begun an ever-growing list of places and things to do that I've tried--and failed--to fit into my too-short weekends: the Ocean Liner Museum, the little Spanish restaurant on 16th Street, lessons at the Manhattan Sailing School.

It will take a lifetime to mine this city of all its riches. But my wife and I have made a pact not to check out of this town until we get to the bottom of that most primal of New York questions: Who does turn out the best pizza in town? I'll let you know in 50 years. --RICHARD TEITELBAUM

IOWA THE MIDWEST, ANYONE?

"This must be heaven," he says. "No. It's Iowa," I reply automatically. --W.P. Kinsella

Ah, retirement in Iowa: The thrill of watching corn grow, the joy of locating your car beneath a snowbank, the bustle of downtown Des Moines after dark.

For many, the idea of retiring in the Midwest has all the attraction of being stuck in Grant Wood's painting American Gothic. Isn't fly-over country the kind of place you retire from? For decades states such as Iowa have watched many of their senior citizens flee to warmer locales, but today the exodus has slowed, according to demographers, and parts are even undergoing a modest retirement boom.

As I discovered on a recent trip there, the secret is that life is good in the heartland: low crime, clean streets, friendly neighbors, high-quality health care, and plenty of outdoor recreation. In fact, Iowa was just named the nation's "most livable state" by the Morgan Quitno Press, which annually publishes state rankings based on economics, education, crime, weather, and other factors. Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wisconsin finished second, third, and fourth in the 1996 rankings.

Dean Caslow, a 64-year-old retired commodities trader who lived for 30 years in Illinois, knew what he wanted when he retired at 59. "I remembered a quiet Iowa," he says of the state of his birth. "I had been in a high-stress job for years, and I wanted someplace calm."

Caslow and his wife, Pat, built a home beside Lake Panorama, 45 minutes outside of Des Moines. It seems an unlikely place to find a retirement haven, but more than half of the 706 homes on the private lake's wooded shores are owned by retirees, who hail from as far away as California.

Say "Iowa," and I think of chores before sun-up, not relaxing in the sun. But Lake Panorama comes with many of the accoutrements of the good life. The lake is stocked with bass and walleye. There's a golf course, on which residents can play for $500 a year. There's even a trap and skeet range.

Lots next to the water can cost as much as $100,000, and most of the homes being built these days are worth $250,000 or more (and are continuing to appreciate). But if you own your home outright, expenses can be reasonable. Irv Gerlich, 72, vice president of marketing for a dental supply company before retiring, says he and his wife spend $2,000 a month on utilities, food, entertainment, and other living expenses.

Many of the smaller cities across the heartland remain a relative bargain, according to an American Chamber of Commerce Researchers Association survey. In Des Moines, every dollar you earn goes 10% further than in Miami and a whopping 139% further than in New York. While real estate in the resort areas and the university cities can be pricey by Midwestern standards, decent older homes with front porches and shaded lawns can still be had in many small towns close by for less than $100,000.

William Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center, believes more retirees will turn to the Midwest as the baby boom ages--concerns about crime and congestion still take the bloom off the coasts for many, in spite of the hopeful crime statistics in many big cities. Frey says today's retirees are worried about access to culture and a diversified population. Midwestern university towns are growing in popularity because they provide both without big-city hassles.

In Ames, for example, Iowa State University has a database of over 4,000 local senior citizens who have come in contact with the university in one fashion or another. Many attend ISU's "College for Seniors," which offers reduced-price courses. Visiting performers like Doc Severinsen and the Julliard String Quartet are also popular. "You get spoiled by a university community," says Julia Anderson, 76, a retired associate dean, who lives with her husband in Green Hills, an expanding community close to campus.

So is Iowa heaven? Well, I grew up in the heartland, and there's no mistaking January for paradise. Many retirees in the region head south for the winter. Others batten down the hatches and adopt a zenlike attitude. "The thing to do in winter," says Duff Brown, 69, of Lake Panorama, "is sit by the window and look at how pretty it is outside." --REED KARAIM

OJAI, CALIFORNIA THE REALM OF THE SENSES

From time to time the continent shifts, and everything that isn't fastened down slides into Southern California. --Frank Lloyd Wright

In a bit of foreshadowing in 1937, Frank Capra cast the crescent-shaped settlement of Ojai, California, as Shangri-La in his film Lost Horizon. Today, Ojai has grown up to become what it symbolized for Capra: a mecca. Two distinct yet surprisingly compatible sets of people are drawn there--those seeking spiritual solace and those seeking a beautiful place to live. They share an abiding affection for this latter-day utopia and have helped preserve it from the mind-dulling suburban sprawl that blights much of Southern California.

Although less than 90 minutes north of Los Angeles, Ojai has always struck me as being worlds away. Its secluded, oak-lined streets are patrolled by sheriff's deputies on horseback. A used-book store, when closed, offers its wares on the honor system. When the local bank was held up recently, the tellers recognized the perpetrator, who was arrested later at his home.

The spiritual and material realms co-mingle peacefully; for every New Age guru I've met who has set up shop in Ojai, there's someone next door more interested in worshipping Mammon. The Krotona Institute of Theosophy and the Krishnamurti Foundation both occupy extensively landscaped campuses that blend seamlessly with the town's manicured estates. Movie types, who find the locals pleasantly indifferent to celebrity, dine regularly in the town's restaurants. A while back I treated myself to a massage at the well-known Wheeler Hot Springs. I was greeted by a woman named Harmony; someone else named Ocean plied me with expensive oils.

What does it cost to live in Shangri-La? $300,000 gets you an "upscale" home of perhaps 2,000 square feet on a third to a half an acre, says local realtor Jerry Michaels of Coldwell Banker, but for fancier digs, plan to spend $400,000 to $700,000.

On the other hand, the place is a playground--in addition to ample tennis, golf, and horseback riding, the best of the California climate is at hand, gratis. Nearby Lake Casitas offers excellent fishing, and Ojai abuts the vast Los Padres National Forest, with its 1,540 miles of hiking trails.

Of Ojai's many charms, for Jeffrey Kerns, it is the lingering fragrance of orange blossoms from the town's vast orchards that made the place irresistible. I can't blame him--the heady scent hangs in the air, intoxicating. Kerns, 47, is creative director for BLT & Associates, which creates posters for such high-impact movies as Independence Day and Mission: Impossible. Ojai is the place Kerns goes on weekends to unwind, and Ojai will be where he settles when the time comes to retire.

Residents like Kerns can head 15 minutes south to the uncrowded beaches of Ventura and, offshore, the unspoiled Channel Islands. For cooks, there's a farmers' market stocked with fresh local produce every Sunday behind the arcade in town. For life's more serious needs--medical centers, airports, universities--Santa Barbara is only 45 minutes away. --DANIEL AKST

LONDON OLD WORLD, NEW ORDER

Dear damned distracting town. --Alexander Pope

It's Tuesday afternoon in the quaint village of Ardingly, south of London, and Harvey Frey is checking out the local antiques fair. Pausing at one of the stands, he picks up a fine glass decanter and holds it up to the sunlight, examining it for flaws. After some discussion with the stand owner, Frey pays for his find.

A longtime passion for Georgian decanters is one reason why New Yorker Frey, who sells his acquisitions in the U.S. through antique dealers, lives in London. When he retired five years ago after 13 years as senior vice president of systems and operations for American Express in Britain, staying on seemed the option that made the most sense. "If you want to live in a big city, there's nowhere in the world that beats London," he says. "You can live without fear, and there's a tremendous amount of cultural activity at still-reasonable prices. We are regular theatergoers, and even after all these years, we visit the museums."

Frey and his wife, Barbara, who rent their house in neo-trendy Chelsea, are among the estimated 21,000 American retirees residing in Britain (that's how many retirement benefit checks the U.S. Social Security Administration mails to Britain each month). Not surprisingly, many live in the London area, as well as in Masterpiece Theater-esque venues like Bath, the Roman spa town in the west, and the ancient cathedral town of Canterbury.

London's big draw is a sophisticated yet unfrantic lifestyle different from anything in the U.S., yet at the same time Berlitz-free and reassuringly familiar. Some Americans look to fill an Anglophile's dream; others are attracted to London's resurgent cultural avant-garde.

But every retiree has his or her own view of what makes London special--from the city's easy access to stretches of unspoiled countryside like the Cotswolds, to its hidden nooks and crannies such as the Royal Geographical Society, a favorite of mine, where you can listen to explorers lecture on their latest adventures. Some Americans drop in on the weekend softball games that bring a hint of home to Hyde Park.

The only drawback of retiring in London, says Tom Malone, former finance director at McDermott, an oil service company, is that "London's so expensive compared with the U.S. that you have to be a nut case to stay--but money's not the only consideration when choosing a place to retire." Malone, 55, who took early retirement in 1989, says, "London's very cosmopolitan. We mingle with all types of people."

Robert Pickens III, publisher of the British-based Transatlantic American, calculates that 10% of all Americans living in Europe are retired and the number is increasing in many European countries, despite the high costs. "One attraction is they have a place where they can get away from it all," says Pickens. "That's what it's all about, isn't it?" And the Reverend Thaddeus Birchard, American pastor of St. John's Hyde Park Anglican church, says retiring overseas sometimes has psychological, and perhaps social, benefits. "You can often adopt an identity that is not the same as when you're in your own country," he observes.

Still, with prices as high as they are, London may impose a slightly less grand lifestyle than some Americans are used to--but one that's not out of reach. A two-bedroom home in a good residential area like Kensington or Hampstead costs $350,000; rents for a two-bedroom apartment start at $600 a week. You can knock $50,000 off the price of a house, though, just by living 20 minutes farther out, on the fringe of the city in Clapham or Greenwich.

Taxes, too, are fairly steep. American seniors can expect to pay income tax to both Britain and Uncle Sam. Tax credits from both countries designed to prevent double taxation will ease this burden somewhat, but you still end up with a higher tax bill.

The trick, according to London-based tax advisers, is to avoid becoming domiciled in Britain, which ups your tax burden. Fortunately for American retirees, "the U.K. Revenue tends to go to sleep on domiciliary status," one points out. Their advice: Make sure you can demonstrate continued ties with the U.S. A house is best, but immediate family living in America will do. At the very least, purchase a burial plot in an American cemetery. A morbid--but small--price to pay for a piece of the city that I certainly wouldn't mind returning to in retirement. --ROLAND FLAMINI

COSTA RICA THE DARK SIDE OF PARADISE

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell. --Friedrich Nietzsche

Ten months have passed since we finished building our beach house in Costa Rica. Now, as we put the key in the door to occupy it for the first time, I notice that rust is already eating away the rust-resistant hinges I brought down from the States. My wife, Holly, is heartbroken to see that leaf-cutter ants have stripped bare half of the flowering bushes she planted. We unpack the belongings we'd stored; everything reeks of mold.

When we first imagined building our beach shack in paradise, we wondered, did we want to escape? Did we want to join some lively expatriate community? Or was it cross-cultural contact we were after? Whatever, Costa Rica appeared to have it all. More than 15,000 U.S. citizens had retired here already, a majority of them to the central highlands where the climate was one of eternal springtime. For people like us who were more drawn to the sea, Costa Rica had hundreds of miles of beaches, from resort developments on the drier northern coast to the greener jungles in the south, plus the brash and funky Caribbean side. The country looked like a sound investment financially, with its image as a peace-loving, rainforest-hugging democracy.

Where we ended up building, though--down near the Panama border on the untouristed Golfo Dulce (the Sweet Gulf), where beachfront land was really cheap--the politicians haven't exactly welcomed us gringos with open arms. One decree, being argued in court, aims to seize 23 lots, including one of the two we own.

Around the yard we have carved out shady hammock nooks to suit the shifting moods of the equatorial day: still and sunny in the morning, windy after noon. I can walk the beach for an hour and not meet a soul. Sometimes I'll think I hear a voice calling to me over the surf--my wife, my mother, my son. But I'll turn, and nobody's there.

This solitude, though, is not guaranteed. Kids pedal up on their bikes as early as 6:30 in the morning, selling empanadas and sweets that their mothers have made. "Oopay!" they call, their clever little faces waiting at the bottom of the steps. "OOOOO-PAYYYY!" Men come around looking for work. "Lo siento," I tell them: I'm sorry.

The 30 or 40 other gringos who live along the sand are a poorly disciplined bunch. The undemanding routines of a place like this make people want to drink too much and take up smoking again. The expats from Germany, especially, have a reputation for partying hard--keeling over on the beach, being woken by the incoming tide. You know: the romantic side of paradise.

The truth about living in the tropics is that it isn't as easy as it looks. In the humidity everything rusts out or rots, breaks down or seizes up, gets clotted with fungus or devoured by termites. The homeowner is always fighting back nature. It's too much like growing old.

So we declare war on those leaf-cutter ants before they can carry away the rest of our dream. We pour gasoline down their holes and set their underground cities on fire. When they regroup, we spread poison along their busy trails. Then a storm comes along and (environmental justice, I guess) washes the poison into our well. Apparently, we have to destroy our beach house in order to save it.

But save it we do. Those ants are history by now. A peace has settled over our corner of the Golfo Dulce, and a sweet peace it is. Sometimes, reading in my hammock, I'll see a movement in the jungle--people coming, wanting something from me. But it's just a palm frond turning in the breeze. --TOM HUTH

REPORTER ASSOCIATES Anne Faircloth, Ani Hadjian, Patty de Llosa