River Cities: Retirement Community or Permanent Vacation?

Talk about a unique retirement community! Strictly speaking, Dave Nelson’s River Cities floating communities are not retirement communities, although it is anticipated that a large percentage of residents will probably be retired people.

I got to know Dave about three or four years ago and after a short while, I concluded that he was one of those few people you encounter in life who are just genuinely nice people who you are happy to call your friend.

Talking on the phone with Dave one day a couple of years ago, he shared with me an idea he had been pondering for a while and how he had finally come to a point in his life where he decided to take the action required to make his dream a reality.

Dave’s idea was to build what is best described as a "floating condominium community" that would cruise the Mississippi River and other waterways to provide residents with a very unique lifestyle that sounds to me like a permanent vacation.

The idea has evolved quite a bit since he first developed it and now has plans to build two floating communities. One would be more static, in the sense that it would spend the summer months of the year docked on the Mississippi River at St. Paul, Minnesota and the winter months docked at Port Isabel, Texas.

The other floating community would travel various rivers and waterways throughout the year and visit ports to provide residents with a constantly-changing environment and seemingly endless variety of places to go and things to do.

Travel While Staying At Home

The idea of a traveling community like River Cities is appealing to me on a number of levels. I love to travel and visit other cities and enjoy all the things they have to offer – particularly cool places to eat! River Cities would present a quantity of such opportunities that would challenge the imagination.

There are a number of problems associated with my desire to visit other cities and sample their cuisine. I don’t enjoy driving and I simply hate flying, and, since I am not yet retired, I have a limited amount of time to occupy myself with travel-related activities.

Although I am not the kind of person that would want to live in a floating community on a permanent basis, I would simply love to have an opportunity to spend a month or two living aboard every year. That would solve my travel problems by delivering me to a number of cities with no effort on my part and provide me with all the comforts of home at the same time.

Fortunately for people like me, there are opportunities that would allow for shared ownership of a River Cities condo or even make arrangements through a home exchange program.

I think the River Cities concept is one of the most exciting ideas I have ever heard of for a retirement community. If you love travel and love being on the water, it would be hard to imagine a more appropriate place to spend your retirement years.

If the idea of floating community is of interest to you, you can check out all the details on the River Cities web site by clicking the following link: