25 Best Places to Retire

Your post-work years are a time to improve your golf game, take up a new hobby, or just enjoy a well-deserved break. In these great college towns, you can expand your intellectual horizons too.

Walking through the center of Williamsburg is like living history: Colonial Williamsburg, the heart of the town, is a functioning restoration of an 18th-century British colonial capital. Of course, you've got to like -- or at least tolerate -- the heritage shtick to make this place home. Here restaurant servers wear breeches and petticoats; the likes of George and Martha Washington wander through the historic area; and passers-by routinely hear fife and drum music.

Williamsburg also has many modern-day comforts. There are three airports and half a dozen hospitals within an hour's drive. You can golf almost year-round at one of about 20 nearby golf courses. You can shop till you drop at one of the multitude of malls (no petticoats here).

The local university, College of William and Mary, is famous for both its academics and for having educated three U.S. presidents. And thanks to the school's Christopher Wren Association, retirees can take courses where Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler once tread. 

See complete data and interactive map for Williamsburg

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