Top Amenities Seniors Should Look For in Retirement Communities

Senior living has changed dramatically as baby boomers enter retirement. You likely have a much more active lifestyle than your parents and grandparents did, and you want to keep going well into your 50s, 60s, and 70s. Retirement should be an enjoyable, lively experience, whether it’s staying fit or traveling around the world. So when you enter a retirement community, you should have amenities that suit your needs.

Thankfully, many retirement communities have expanded their options to make your golden years entertaining and exciting. The amenities they offer make sure that your life after leaving work is rewarding. However, you may not need all that a community has to provide. Here are some of the amenities that you should look for when looking into joining a retirement community.

Housing Amenities

The most important amenity at any retirement community is where you’ll live. Housing will matter whether you want to retain the life you had in your old home, or wish to downsize to something more modest. Here are some of the important amenities when it comes to finding housing:

Choice of Housing

Many senior living communities, especially continuing care retirement communities, vary in what they offer for housing options. Some places are a single building with different-sized apartments from studios to two bedrooms. Others offer a neighborhood of houses and bungalows with up to two floors, with different sizes to suit your needs. While it’s important to consider how much space you’ll need in your new home, you should have the flexibility to decide what space is right for you.

Quality of Housing

Just because you may be changing your living space doesn’t mean it should be a downgrade from the home you spent so many years of your life in. If anything, it should be better. You should look at housing that offers many of the luxury amenities that your old home had, or more. Some retirement communities provide housing with smart home features you can control with your smartphone, central heat and air conditioning, and more. Look for something that makes retiring there worthwhile.

Low Maintenance Housing

You probably spent several Saturdays fixing one part of your old house or another. Why spend time doing that in your retirement? There are retirement communities that offer housing that aren’t just built well, but have on-call maintenance. So whether there’s a problem with your plumbing or your yard, you have peace of mind knowing that it’ll be quickly fixed.

Entertainment and Active Living Amenities

Of course, an important part of retiring is being able to enjoy yourself outside your home. Even if you live near family, you want to spend time being out and about, whether it’s maintaining your active lifestyle or meeting new neighbors and friends. Here are some amenities to consider that make living in a retirement community more fun:

Different Dining Choices

It’s not always enough to enjoy a communal meal at your standard dining hall. You want choices, whether it’s a healthy lunch or a steak at dinner. Sometimes, you just want something quick to pick up and eat as well. Retirement communities may have restaurants and to-go food bars that make it easy to try something different every day.

Fitness Opportunities

You want to enjoy your retirement for a long time, so you know you have to stay active as much as you can. While many retirement communities offer fitness centers and swimming pools, some take it a step further, with biking and walking trails that make it easy to stay healthy. In addition, it’s a great way to meet other seniors like yourself and enjoy the great outdoors.

Entertainment Options

While it’s important to stay healthy, you want to have fun once in a while. Of course, a game room is a great feature to have, but in some cases you definitely want more. Many retirement communities have more to offer, including their own golf course to tee up, theaters to catch the latest movies or screen classics, or a library to read all those books you never got around to.

Social Amenities

Retirement isn’t just a time to relax. It’s also a great time to stay close to your family and old friends. More importantly, you’ll never have a better chance to meet new friends. Of course, you’ll want amenities in your retirement community that make it easy to be sociable. Here are some examples:

Convenient Location

Location matters in a retirement community. Maybe you want to be close to your children and grandchildren, or perhaps you want to be somewhere comfortable. Regardless, you want to be in a community whose location suits your needs. Close proximity to a major airport, so your kids and friends can visit you or you can take a vacation to explore the world, is always an important plus. Transportation services can help with the latter.

Places to Learn and Create

In life, you never stop learning. And there’s no better way to do that than with other seniors your age. Many retirement communities offer free classes, whether it’s learning a new subject or taking up some art. Speaking of, many communities offer a great way to develop what you learn into a hobby, such as an arts and crafts studio.

Social Spaces

Of course, there are times when you may want to relax with other seniors. Great retirement communities offer more than just a lobby or communal room to meet and enjoy each other’s company. Some have chapels for the more faithful, others provide bars to enjoy a drink or two. If you have a four-legged friend as part of your family, some communities have dog parks where your pet can roam freely while you meet with other dog owners and chat.

No matter what amenities you need, Kithward is home to the retirement community where you’ll find them. Take a look at how we can find your home in retirement today.