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The Best

By Kelly Greene, The Wall Street Journal
November 10, 2003

Lots of people have simple tastes. They're always prepared, as the saying goes, to put up with the best of everything.

With that in mind, we've decided to close this year with a look at some of the best products, services and perks geared toward the second half of life.

Several items on the following list were prompted by readers' letters and questions. ("Do any airlines still offer senior discounts?")

Others address both the practical side of getting older, such as the best source of information about Social Security, and the more impulsive: the best African safari for you and your grandchildren.

After talking with dozens of people across the country with special interests in finance, health, travel and lifestyles, here's what we found:

FINANCE

The best financial worksheets to plan your retirement

The Internet is filled with calculators purporting to tell you how much money you need to retire. But how do you know what goes into the math? We asked a dozen financial planners across the country to try out seven of the most popular online options and select the best overall tool.

Their pick: the T. Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator (www3.troweprice.com/ric/ric/public/ric.do), developed by the Baltimore-based mutual-fund company. The calculator helps people who are approaching retirement, or who are already retired, figure out whether their monthly income goals are realistic.

To do so, it uses " Monte Carlo " simulations -- a type of probability analysis that generates hundreds of computer scenarios of what might happen to your money over any given period, and then uses that information to determine your portfolio's probability of success. You have to supply your starting retirement age, retirement length, marital status, retirement assets, monthly income goal, and investment mix of stocks, bonds and short-term securities. The calculator does the rest.

The runner-up was ING Group's retirement calculator (www.ing.com/us/tools_calcs/retire/), which doesn't use Monte Carlo analysis, but does let the user adjust different variables (retirement age, expected rate of return and so forth) to figure out how long his or her money would last. "It allowed me to play different trade-off scenarios, which is quite reflective of the financial-planning choices people have to make," says Michelle Hoesly, a Norfolk , Va. , financial planner.

The best CD rates

Although some interest rates are at their lowest level in decades, federally insured CDs continue to be popular for their safety and liquidity. The hardest part is weeding through the short-term teaser rates that banks sometimes use to lure deposits from a competitor's branch across the street.

To figure out who consistently offers the best CD rates, we turned to Bankrate Inc., North Palm Beach , Fla. , whose Bankrate.com Web site (www.bankrate.com) tracks interest rates every week for financial institutions that sell CDs that can be opened by phone, mail and Internet. At the end of each quarter, Bankrate chooses a handful of institutions that offered better rates than the rest.

Since Bankrate started keeping track in early 2000, three institutions have racked up the Web site's "top tier" CD rating for 12 quarters (as of June 30): NetBank Inc., Atlanta, and Capital One Bank and Capital One FSB, both units of Capital One Financial Corp., McLean, Va. As of last week, NetBank had the second-highest rate on a one-year CD (currently 2.1%), and Capital One FSB had the best rate on a five-year CD (currently 4.08%).

The best source of help for questions about Social Security

We have heard from readers who get different answers to the same question when they ask different workers at the Social Security Administration. Thus, an outside opinion can sometimes help.

Who really knows their stuff and will take the time to respond? The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a Washington advocacy group, has a spot on its Web site called "Ask Mary Jane" (www.ncpssm.org/maryjane/). There, you can e-mail a question to Mary Jane Yarrington, a longtime congressional caseworker who joined the group in 1986 as a senior policy analyst and has written her question-and-answer column for 14 years. Before you write, check out the list of questions and answers to see whether she has already addressed your problem.

A recent example: If your husband dies before you turn 62, what percentage of his Social Security income can you draw? Answer: At age 60, a widow gets 71.5% of her husband's full benefit.

The best advice for questions about IRAs

Ed Slott, a certified public accountant in Rockville Centre , N.Y. , practically invented the concept of giving advice on individual retirement accounts when he started a newsletter aimed at other accountants and financial planners six years ago.

The publication is too expensive ($89.95 a year) and technical for most individual investors. But on Mr. Slott's free Web site, you can submit questions and get answers from the experts who contribute to the newsletter (http://www.irahelp.com/). A lot of the questions concern 401(k) rollovers and inherited IRAs.

Earlier this year, Mr. Slott published "The Retirement Savings Time Bomb ... And How to Defuse It," which tackles many thorny problems involving IRAs -- and is written in plain English.

The best guides to estate planning and inheritance

If you're looking for a primer for keeping your children from squabbling after you're gone, even if the only thing you're passing along is a bit of chipped china, read "Beyond the Grave: The Right Way and the Wrong Way of Leaving Money to Your Children (and Others)."

Gerald and Jeffrey Condon, a father-son team of estate-planning lawyers who practice in California , pulled the advice from decades of files stockpiled by the father and organized into chapters by the son. Each chapter addresses a practical matter you probably wouldn't think of on your own, such as the conflicts that can arise if you split your assets evenly among your children -- without taking into account gifts you already gave one of them during your lifetime.

For more nuts-and-bolts help, the best place to start is www.elderlawanswers.com. Most laws involving nursing-home payments and probate vary from state to state. To that end, this Web site features a state-specific forum where you can type in questions and get answers from lawyers specializing in the type of law that's befuddling you for the state where you live. To find it, scroll down the left-hand column of the home page and click on "View state-specific content." The site is run by Harry Margolis, an elder-law attorney in Boston . (There's also a directory of lawyers at the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys' Web site, www.naela.org.)

The best places to find deals and discounts

Online, you can't beat SeniorDiscounts.com (www.seniordiscounts.com), which claims to list more than 120,000 discounts. To do a search, enter your city and state or ZIP Code, and then select a category, such as auto services, retail or museums. Immediately, you get a list of discounts, locations and phone numbers. Some of the better discounts: 50% off movie tickets, free skiing, and half off the rack rate at Radisson hotels.

Then there's the classic book on the subject, Joan Rattner Heilman's "Unbelievably Good Deals and Great Adventures That You Absolutely Can't Get Unless You're Over 50," currently in its 15th edition, which has sold one million copies. Her advice: You can almost always get half off the fares of commuter trains and buses, and Kohl's Corp. department stores recently started offering 15% off on certain days if you're over 62.

HEALTH

The best source of help for questions about Medicare

For plain-vanilla questions about coverage, you can usually get help from the Medicare program itself (800-633-4227), and almost every state has a health-insurance counseling and assistance program (there's a directory at www.medicare.gov/Contacts/Related/Ships.asp).

But when you have more complicated questions, or you get stuck between doctors and Medicare contractors telling you two different things, turn to the Medicare Rights Center, a New York advocacy group with hot lines manned by volunteers and new graduates planning careers in public policy, law or medicine who take on complicated problems in the Medicare bureaucracy at no cost to callers.

Beneficiaries with traditional Medicare coverage can call 800-333-4114, extension 1, and those covered by Medicare HMOs can call 888-466-9050.

The best fitness program

Volumes of research show older adults often balk at the idea of taking up organized exercise or joining a gym. If you're looking for good advice for staying physically active on your own, check out the free 80-page booklet called "Exercise: A Guide from the National Institute on Aging." You can find it on the institute's Web site (http://www.nia.nih.gov/healthinformation/publications/exerciseguide/), or by calling 800-222-2225. A video on stretching, balance and strength training is also available.

The best nutrition guide

Most people have seen the traditional food pyramid, the well-known graphic presentation of a healthy diet drawn up by the Department of Agriculture. But there's another pyramid out there -- specifically for older adults -- assembled by nutrition researchers at Tufts University in Boston . It looks much like the traditional triangle, but stresses more water and fiber and fewer calories. The scientists' thinking: Older Americans tend to be less active, and their body composition changes, so they need fewer calories. At the same time, their nutrient needs stay the same or increase, so this pyramid emphasizes darker-colored vegetables and fruits, such as spinach, sweet potatoes, squash, strawberries and mangos. You can get a copy at http://nutrition.tufts.edu/research/modified-mypyramid-older-adults (Acrobat required).

The researchers designed the guide for people 70 and older, but they say it can be used by people in their 50s and 60s as well -- with one exception: People in their 50s and 60s need vitamin D equivalent to what's found in one quart of milk each day. Those in their 70s and up need the amount found in 1 1/2 quarts.

The best strategy for finding caregiving resources

If you plan to start -- or continue -- caring for a family member or friend, reach out to community groups and local-government offices that may have state or federal funding. Such organizations can supply direct services free of charge, such as "respite" care that gives a break to burdened family members.

There are three must-calls: First, the Eldercare Locator (800-677-1116 or eldercare.gov), funded by the U.S. Administration on Aging, should help you locate the area agency on aging (usually supported by a county or regional government) where you live or, if you're taking care of someone from afar, where the patient lives. Many local aging agencies have started caregiver-support programs in recent years that don't get much publicity.

Next stop is the National Alliance for Caregiving. The Bethesda , Md. , advocacy group has an online directory (caregiving.org; the link is in the yellow box) with more than 1,000 caregiving resources reviewed and rated by experts. Third is the Family Caregiver Alliance in San Francisco (800-445-8106 or caregiver.org), which has a National Center on Caregiving with a wide range of information -- and free respite services for California caregivers.

You can also hire a professional geriatric-care manager, who can help assess needs and arrange in-home help, among other services. There's a directory of such managers -- plus a list of questions to ask when hiring someone -- at caremanager.org, the site for the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers.

TRAVEL

The best airline discounts

Industry turmoil has gutted airfare deals for older adults. Almost all the large U.S. carriers have done away with clubs for seniors, which used to offer low-cost coupons that could be traded for tickets. The one club remaining, United Air Lines' Silver Wings Plus program, "is not too great a deal," says Ms. Heilman, author of the over-50 discounts book. "You can usually do better with a sale."

The best age-based deals are through Southwest Airlines, offering one-way fares at flat rates of $39 to $129, depending on the length of the flight, for people 65 and older, she says. "It means you save around 60% if you can get the senior fare." Midwest Airlines offers discounted, flat-rate fares to people 55 and older, though it's a smaller airline with fewer routes.

One other perk worth exploring is US Airways' "special fares" through AARP, which are available to members only (who can join starting at age 50) plus one companion. Still, Ms. Heilman cautions: "They keep extending this for another few months, so I don't know if they're going to have it forever."

The best African safari for grandchildren

We're assuming that money is no object here, or at least not your biggest concern, because getting to the middle of Africa isn't cheap. Grandtravel, a unit of Academic Travel Abroad Inc. in Washington, offers two two-week trips to Kenya for 20 grandparents and grandchildren every July and August -- the height of the migration season for wildebeests in that part of the continent. The cost: a steep, but all-inclusive, $7,995 for grandparents and $7,650 for grandchildren.

Linda Friedman, the program manager and on-the-ground safari escort, has led at least 50 such trips and says the best part isn't the wildlife; rather, it's the "opportunity for children to see how other children live, and that they can beat them in soccer barefooted." Families sleep together in platform tents, so "the grandchildren find out if the grandfather snores louder than the lion outside." The peak ages for grandchildren are 12 and 13, she adds.

Runner-up: Elderhostel, the Boston-based educational program for older learners, offers a two-week safari to Botswana and Zambia for grandparents and grandkids ages 12 to 14, at a cost of $4,518 apiece.

The best around-the-world cruises

Cruising by freighter is generally viewed as the more affordable way to float around the world. You won't find a casino aboard, but standard cabins for passengers are often larger than those on cruise ships, and you typically get a comfortable lounge with couches, TV and videos, books and jigsaw puzzles to share with a handful of passengers. So says George Koch, director of wholesale products for TravLtips Inc., in Flushing, N.Y., considered the authority in global cruising by Pamela Terry, author of "Around the World: A Postcard Adventure."

The best around-the-world freighter trip generally depends on whether you're looking for the most ports of call, or the most time at sea. Among TravLtips' current offerings, the Rickmers Reederei line makes as many as 22 stops, departing from New York for Norfolk, Va., and Savannah, Ga., before moving on to Jamaica, Panama, Tahiti, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Australia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malta, Italy, England, Germany, the Netherlands and France, and finally returning to New York. You have to plan ahead, because the ship allows only three to four passengers at a time for the 84-day voyage. It costs about $9,300 per person for a double room.

The best trip to get the most time at sea is the Rickmers Linie line, with a roughly 124-day trip on each of two routes. It costs $10,416 to $11,904 for a double. (Go to travltips.com/freighterdirectory.html for details.)

The best train-tour operator you've never heard of

Chris Skow, a retired railroad conductor in Portola , Calif. , has been leading train trips, mainly to South America , since 1983, when several friends asked to tag along on his annual vacation on the rails. By 1985, when 25 people asked to go, he formed Trains Unlimited Tours (trainsunlimitedtours.com or 800-359-4870) to handle it. The company, "an afterthought of my own hobby," expects to lead 1,500 railroad enthusiasts on 16 tours this year through Central and South America , Alaska , New England and even China .

Mr. Skow and other retired railroad workers lead the trips. Outside the U.S. , participants often get opportunities to go up in the engine and ride on the roof, he says. The trips are grouped into three categories: rail-fan tours for hard-core railroad enthusiasts, where "scenery and sightseeing are low priority, and trains and photography are high"; tourist tours, "for people who really enjoy rail travel linked to spectacular sightseeing"; and combination tours, designed for "the rail enthusiast bringing along his wife."

The best places to ride your recumbent bicycle

Recumbent bicycles, where riders sit in chair-like seats and pedal with their legs extended in front, are gaining in popularity among older adults. The funny-looking bikes help cyclists avoid neck and back pain, and reduce the wear and tear on the body. But the big drawback has been safety: Riders sit close to the ground, making them harder for drivers to see.

That makes the growing network of rail-trails, old railroad beds and corridors being converted into strips of concrete and asphalt just wide enough for two lanes of bicycles, the perfect place to ride. Already, there are 12,600 miles of such trails nationwide (listed at traillink.com), and 16,500 more in development, says Jeff Ciabotti, trail-development director for the Rails to Trails Conservancy in Washington .

"These are great long-distance, flat surfaces with a three- to five-percent grade, which reduces uphill and downhill movement," he says. "They tend to be straight, without quick turns or corners, which recumbents like." The best part? You might have to watch out for a stray inline skater or child on a bike with training wheels, but no cars or trucks are allowed.

LIFESTYLE

The three best places to retire that you never heard of

We asked Charles F. Longino Jr., a sociologist at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem , N.C. , and expert on the migration patterns of retirees, to point out their most surprising destinations. A few places have popped up in his analysis so far of 2000 census data, including:

•  Fairfield , Conn. The average temperature is 52 degrees, but "people move there because they love to yacht," he says, noting Fairfield 's proximity to Long Island Sound.
 
• The Poconos. Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne counties in northeastern Pennsylvania, once a hot spot for honeymooners, are now where they're coming back to roost.
 
•  Biloxi and Gulfport , Miss. New casinos are the draw, along with relatively inexpensive waterfront homes.
 

If those are the hot spots, Washington state and Oregon are ice cold in terms of migration patterns, Dr. Longino adds. "They just plummeted, and I have no idea why yet."

The best thing to do on your last day of work

Skip the generic, company-sponsored retirement party. "The same people get up and make the same speeches, and they serve the same wine and cheese," says Joel Savishinsky, an anthropologist at Ithaca College in New York who studies retirees. Instead, have a more informal bash, "the kind of event where you can invite your close colleagues, family and friends -- and not the bosses and supervisors. You can't go and tell the supervisor who's been giving you an ulcer, or some other type of pain in your anatomy, what you really think of them. But with your intimates, you can let your hair down."

The best ways to jump-start your retirement

Go back to school -- specifically, a "lifelong learning institute."

More than 300 such programs can now be found across the country. Most are affiliated with local colleges and universities. You can find a list through Elderhostel (www.elderhostel.org/ein/intro.asp), which coordinates a network of learning institutes throughout the country (though there are local programs that aren't part of the national group).

The classes are inexpensive, many are led by other retirees, and members typically run the programs themselves and decide what courses will be offered. The course times and number of sessions vary as well, often depending on whether the majority of students spend a lot of time traveling, says Nancy Merz-Nordstrom, director of Elderhostel Institute Network in Boston.

The courses run the gamut. An institute in Connecticut studied spies of World War II, and "all of a sudden all these people started coming forward who had been spies," she says. The most popular subject is history, followed closely by literature, but some science topics are hot, including the human genome project, she adds.

If you haven't retired yet, two weekend programs at Asheville 's North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement (www.unca.edu/ncccr) could help you get your bearings. Creative Retirement in Uncertain Times, a three-day seminar being offered next April and September, is designed to help people six months to five years from retirement deal with the uncertainties involved, and start thinking about "how to rehearse for the next stage," says Ron Manheimer, the center's director.

Every Memorial Day weekend, the center hosts its Creative Retirement Exploration Weekend, which is geared to people considering relocating to western North Carolina but includes an optional Friday course focused on retirement-lifestyle issues. After both workshops, many participants say the most valuable part was realizing there were other people wrestling with the same "what's next" questions.

The best extended-stay RV park

Willow Lakes RV & Golf Resort in Titusville , Fla. , is the highest-ranked recreational-vehicle park for the 55-plus crowd in the Trailer Life Directory, which uses inspections and unannounced quality checks by RVers to track 12,000 campgrounds every year. The park, located on 70 acres in Brevard County near the Atlantic coast and Orlando , has a nine-hole golf course and lakefront sites. The park fills up quickly in the winter, so many part-timers buy their own lots, which go for $26,000 to $59,500. Or you can rent one, starting at $600 a month in the winter.

The best motorcycle club for older riders

Retreads Motorcycle Club International Inc., with 6,600 members across the U.S. and Canada , has an international rally and statewide events every year. There's only one rule: You can't join unless you're at least 40 years old.

Membership was free until 1986, when the group's longtime secretary, Marlene Patton, retired and no longer had access to an office copier. The club, loosely based in Albany , Ind. , where Ms. Patton and her husband, Larry, the group's president, live, now charges $15 a year to cover mailings. The main purpose is social, giving older bikers a group to ride with -- whether at home or in a winter retirement spot.

"There are never any children at our events. Not that we don't like them, but that time's passed for us," says Ms. Patton, who is 71 years old. "As long as I can get my leg over the seat, I'm going to ride my bike."

The best place to buy a Florida beach house without mortgaging your grandchildren's future

Cape San Blas , Fla. A spokesman for the Florida Association of Realtors says he doesn't know where it is, which we took as a good sign that property values haven't skyrocketed yet.

This sliver of peninsula sits in an obscure part of the Florida Panhandle nicknamed the " Forgotten Coast " -- but don't expect that to last long, with real-estate developers making big plans for the area. At the moment, though, you can get a bona fide, on-the-beach house for about $300,000 -- compared with prices in the $900,000 range just a few miles down on St. George Island .

"People have found Cape San Blas, but they've not found it quite in the numbers they've found other places," says Angel Colagrossi, a local real-estate agent.

The best Web site to shop for the person who has everything

Lisa LaFortune, a Tulsa, Okla., entrepreneur, started 1stopgiftshops.com  because she comes from a large family -- four siblings and 23 cousins -- with a lot of money, thanks to the oil business.

"When Christmastime would roll around, I was always buying for somebody who had everything," she says. So, she put together the Web site to highlight some of her favorite ideas, link people to interesting online catalogs -- and provide a personal shopping service for people who need help finding the right gift. Some of the more creative ideas: a vacuum-cleaning robot, in-home waterfall or Mayan hammock. The service is free to shoppers; the retailers pay her a small commission.

The best three dogs for older adults

Toy dogs are the most popular breeds for seniors, says Daisy Okas, spokeswoman for the American Kennel Club in New York , because they don't require as much exercise, travel well and can live in apartments. The hottest toy breed at the moment is the cavalier King Charles spaniel. "They are great companions," she says, and are not as small as many toy dogs. Also popular are the papillon, which means "butterfly" in French and is named for its wing-like ears, and the trusty Yorkshire terrier, one of the 10 most popular breeds for years and years.

Whatever breed you decide on, she recommends considering rescuing an older dog, because "older dogs often pair well with older people." And if you prefer a puppy, keep in mind that "a toy dog could live for 20 years," she adds.

The best places to live with a golf cart

We found three places where you can run just about any errand in a golf cart. The town of Peachtree City, Ga. , southwest of Atlanta , has more than 80 miles of paths (not including those at three golf courses) and 8,000 registered carts. Two drawbacks: You can't drive carts on the street (except from your home to a path on-ramp), and the carts are used by all ages -- including teenagers occasionally accused of reckless driving.

If you'd rather stick with a retirement community, the best East Coast option is the Villages in Lady Lake , Fla. , with more than 50 miles of golf-cart paths alone, along with hundreds of miles of streets where they're allowed, and 243 holes of golf as well. About 36,000 people live there -- and they own 15,000 golf carts.

Out West, the golf-cart choice is Del Webb's Sun City Grand, northwest of Phoenix in Surprise, Ariz. , with 142 miles of "golf-cart roadway," including dedicated paths and streets. The developer estimates that half of the 6,000 households use a golf cart.

The best books on being a grandparent

Here are the two authors mentioned in the same breath by grandparent advocates at AARP and the National Council on the Aging: Arthur Kornhaber and Lillian Carson. Their names even pop up together at Amazon.com (www.amazon.com). Dr. Kornhaber, a child psychiatrist whose most recent work is "The Grandparent Guide," started the Foundation for Grandparenting in 1980 (www.grandparenting.org).

Dr. Carson, a psychotherapist, is noted for her "Essential Grandparent" books, particularly "The Essential Grandparent's Guide to Divorce: Making a Difference in the Family."

The best online forum for retirees

SeniorNet, a San Francisco nonprofit, started as an online community in the early 1980s to study the socialization of older people through computer connections. In 1995, SeniorNet opened its own Web site. "We had 20 members, and we thought that was huge," recalls the group's president and chief executive officer, Ann Wrixon. Now, millions of people, with an average age of 69, participate in online discussions through the Web site (www.seniornet.org). It has 72 book clubs, "tons and tons of discussions about health," and a lot of exchanges in the geography section among people preparing to visit new places and those already living there.

It's also a nonthreatening place to ask questions about getting started on Internet discussion boards, as well as other computer-related problems.

The best advice for how to reach your 100th birthday -- and beyond

George Burns once said, "Eat healthy and exercise throughout your life in order to reach the age of 100, because after that, you have it made. Very few people die after 100."

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