SLO lands on another list of the happiest places in the country
San Luis Obispo has landed on another happy places lists.
This time, the Central Coast city is ranked as ninth on a list of happiest places in which to retire, according to a report released Tuesday by financial firm SoFiLearn.
The company’s study of the country’s 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas, based on census population estimates, determined that “if being in a comfortable environment is one of your top retirement priorities, look no further than San Luis Obispo. Along with San Jose, the city scored the highest level of comfort for retirees on our top 20 cities list, thanks to its temperate weather.”
While this may come as a surprise to people trying to find a reasonably priced place to live in the city, “San Luis Obispo’s financial score was the biggest contributing factor for its #9 ranking,” according to spokesman Alex Creek of npdigital.com.
In this case, “by identifying key elements that contribute to happiness — social networks, financials and health — and examining 13 pivotal rankings within them, such as community, cost of living, and healthcare access, we created the Happiest Places to Retire in the U.S. in 2024,” the study report described.
The eight cities that outranked SLO this time were: Barnstable, Massachusetts; Naples, Florida; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Durham, North Carolina; Boulder, Colorado; North Port, Florida; Olympia, Washington; and San Jose.
Madison, Wisconsin, rounded out the top 10.
San Luis Obispo has been ‘happiest’ for years
List compilers who’ve lauded SLO’s happiness ratings through the years have included such notables as Oprah Winfrey and her WOW Network, Reader’s Digest, Outside Magazine, Coastal Living Magazine and a two-year Gallup/Sharecare study.
Some factors that Winfrey/WOW cited in 2011 included San Luis Obispo’s location and setting, pedestrian-friendly layout, lack of fast-food drive-throughs, the city’s landmark 1990 ban on smoking in public and its many miles of biking and hiking trails.
