This Southern ‘small town’ with a ‘revitalized downtown’ is touted for retirement

This “charming town” in upstate South Carolina is touted as a top place to retire.
With a population of about 39,000, Greer has maintained a small-town atmosphere with a revitalized downtown area with easy pedestrian access and attractive twinkling lights, according to Travel + Leisure. Its downtown boasts a variety of restaurants, parks and recreational activities to keep residents booked and busy. It also features affordable housing while being less than a half-hour from a big city, as well as two and three hour drives to a few of the country’s major cities.
The state’s biggest city, Charleston, is also considered a great place to retire. Golden Bachelor couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist have choosen to settle there after their lavish honeymoon in Italy, where the newly weds jetted off to after their live wedding.
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Far from a sleepy retirement town, there is always something going on here, whether its weekly farmers markets or Thursday food truck nights. Its also home to annual festivals and holiday gatherings.
Public transportation is also accessible with the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, as well as Amtrak, making it easy and convenient to take a trip to nearby city, Greenville, which is less than a half-hour drive away. It is also less than an hour-and-a-half from Asheville, North Carolina.
Greer is also a two-to-three hour drive to other major cities, as well as lesser-known cities. It is two hours from Athens, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina’s state capitol; Charlotte, North Carolina, and a three-hour drive to Charleston, South Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; and Knoxville, Tennesse.
 

The media home value in Greer is $326,400, according to Zillow, which is below the national average. In terms of home prices, cost of living, lifestyle, and distance to nearby cities, other comparable towns touted for retirement include Bristol, Vermont, less than an hour from Burlington; Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, less than an hour from Allentown and two hours from Philadelphia and New York City; and Hamilton, Montana, about an hour from Missoula.
“Greer has extremely nice expensive areas and hood,” one Reddit user in the Greenville subreddit wrote. “The downtown is small but a handful of great restaurant options.”
“They have dumped a ton of money into the downtown and are still in the process of renovating,” another added a few years ago. “They have lots of events, but they are smaller things.”