Hello from a transatlantic couple

Hi there,

Joined to ask a question but thought I'd introduce myself anyway.

I was born in the UK but left for the US when I was 22 (38 years ago!) and met and married a New Yorker.  After 15 years living in the US, my husband and I moved to Surrey, where my family lived and I was brought up.  We had a hard time in the early 2000s trying to adjust and we never have felt we fit in.  Now we're on the cusp of retiring and we're trying to decide where we should live.  It's so cold, wet and dark in the winter here!  My husband's family are in Florida, so we're thinking about living there in the winter and back in Europe somewhere in the summer, but it all seems a bit complicated, especially with health care.

Looking forward to having a trawl through the posts here and I appreciate the information. 

Welcome to the site.

We were in a very similar situation back in 2016. Before we retired and moved to Texas from Louisiana we made a big effort to get mobile, and sold our house and moved into an apartment complex where we could "lock and leave".  For 6 years we would escape the Texas heat for 5 to 7 months at a time and travel/live somewhere else in the USA, Canada, Australia, England.

In 2016 we decided to do the snowbird thing, rent a house in England on a permanent basis, spending summers there and winters in Texas.  We had done a trial run in 2011, renting a house for 7 months in England, and it worked out well apart from the aggravation of furnishing it then disposing of everything before moving back.

It IS complicated but can be done, however after 6 weeks back here we just loved it and decided to tell our 2 adult children in Texas and California that we were moving back to England for good and we bought a house in October that year (didn't complete the sale until end of January), moved back to Texas as planned in November and sold up, returning to England late January.