The Best Lake Towns In Texas For Retirement

If you want to retire at a lake in Texas, Texas has you covered with a wide assortment of water bodies for retirees with ideal and various amenities. Lakehub chose the following lakes based on activities, weather, amenities, and geography as some valuable, meaningful, and advantageous places to spend leisure time, especially if leisure is your lifestyle. These lakes offer RV and residential lifestyles from low key to upscale and extreme rural to city-centric locations. 

Best Lakes To Retire On In East Texas

The Piney Woods region of Texas is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion composed of pine and hardwood tree forests. It borders almost the entire Texas/Louisiana border and is mostly rural in demographics. Its geology contains a gradient from deposits of sands, silts, and clays in its southern and northern portions, and clays, mudstones, and sandstones in its central portion. East Texas sees four seasons, and winter is quite cold. 

Lake Palestine

The Eagle’s Bluff community on Lake Palestine is 20 miles from Tyler, nine miles from Bullard, and 19 miles from Jacksonville, Texas. Amenities include a full service country club with tennis and pickleball courts, a 24-hour fitness center, an 18-hole golf course, a resort style swimming pool, and an abundance of social activities from holiday events to live music every Friday evening. You can build or buy your dream home right on the shores of Lake Palestine.

Lake O’ the Pines

Lake O’ the Pines is one of the finest lakes in Texas in the heart of the Piney Woods of East Texas. There are lots of little communities hidden in the coves of the lake and several planned communities. Its housing market is tight, but there is a diverse range of prices for lots and homes. There are tons of game fish species, boating, camping, hiking, and hunting. Historic Jefferson, Texas, is only 16 miles away from its eastern border, and Shreveport, Louisiana, is just a little over an hour away with gambling, nightlife, services, and shopping. 

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Best Lakes To Retire On In Texas Hill Country

The Texas Hill Country is not an official ecoregion of the Texas as the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s (TPWD) definition of its ten Texas Ecoregions, but it is a well-recognized region in Texas. We comprise the Hill Country as parts of TPWD’s Blackland Prairie, Cross Timbers and Prairies, Post Oak Savannah, and South Texas Plains. Caves, crystal clear water bodies, and limestone and granite rock formations accurately define the Texas Hill Country’s physiography.  

Lake Travis 

Lakeway, Texas, right on the shores of Lake Travis, is a town with 60% of residents who are over 45 that offers tons of amenities. The Golf at the Hills Country Club, two miles from the city of Lakeway, features an athletic club, club houses, fine dining, swimming, tennis, and world-class golf. Austin, Texas, one of Texas’ most exciting cities, is a hop, skip, and a jump away with everything you need in a city. Fishing is wonderful at Lake Travis, and the climate is temperate most of the year. 

The town operates Lakeway Marina, which offers 300 covered wet slips for boats sized 18-feet to 38-feet long, detailing, diagnostic and repair, and preventative care, and water and electricity at all slips. Its Lakeway Air Park accommodates small aircraft. The Lakeway Airpark is a non-profit entity run by its membership, airpark homeowners, Lakeway aircraft owners, and airport boosters. It provides a 4000-foot runway, ramp, fuel, a small terminal building, and private hangars. 

Canyon Lake

Halfway between Austin and San Antonio, Texas, Canyon Lake offers handsome communities on its many peninsulas. Canyon Lake is one of the best places to live in Texas because of its climate and geography. Residents feel a suburban/rural mix atmosphere at Canyon Lake. Over 50% of its residents are retirees. Marinas, eight Corps of Engineers parks, 800 miles of shoreline, beaches, camping, fishing, hiking, the Lakeside Golf Club, and a temperate year-round climate make it a grand lake to retire at, plus Austin and San Antonio are less than an hour away.  

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Best Lakes To Retire On In North Texas

North Texas sits atop the Texas Hill Country folded between the Piney Woods and West Texas on the Blackland Prairies, Cross Timbers and Prairies, and Post Oak Savannah ecoregions. Rolling and rocky hills, prairies, sandy loam soils, limestone and sandstone formations, and tough brush vegetation characterize North Texas. Forests of blackjack oak and post oak, bodark (bois d’ arc), cedar elm, eastern red cedar, hickory, mesquite, and pecan trees dominate this region.  

Lake Texoma

Straddling the Oklahoma and Texas border and 80 miles north of Dallas, it is the sheer size of Lake Texoma on the Red River that attracts residents and tourists. As one of the largest reservoirs in Texas, Lake Texoma has approximately 1,250 miles of shoreline. It is the abundant and self-sustaining population of bass that draws in the anglers.

There are many small, unchartered communities tucked away around Lake Texoma in both states. Four mid-sized towns with shopping, services, and casinos anchor four corners of Lake Texoma, Ardmore and Durant, Oklahoma, and Gainesville, and Sherman, Texas. Thousands of retirees reside on Lake Texoma for everything offers, like beaches, boating, camping, dining, fishing, hiking, history, lakeside entertainment, nightlife, shopping, wildlife, and more.

Lake Kiowa

Lake Kiowa is the perfect retirement lake. Three-quarters of Lake Kiowa residents are over the age of 45. Lake Kiowa is a gated community around a lake with security guards and a near zero crime rate. This community offers the country club lifestyle with a full-service restaurant and bar, a state-of-the-art pavilion, and a private challenging golf course with a pro shop and golf pro. 

Even though Lake Kiowa is a small lake, the fishing is fine, and there are three boat launches and nine public access points, plus homeowners can build their own private boat docks. Right outside of this gated community, restaurants, health clinics, and pharmacies have grown up, so residents do not have to drive to town for basic necessities. 

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Best Lakes To Retire On In South Texas

Gulf Prairies and Marshes and the South Texas Plains ecoregions define South Texas and its coast. It stretches from the marshy lands on the Louisiana border to the subtropical regions of the Lower Rio Grande Valley near Mexico, where tropical birds from South America hang out. Plains of thorny shrubs and trees like cacti and mesquite describe the South Texas Brush Country. Further west, the Lower Rio Grande Valley is home to wonderful fruits, like cantaloupes, melons, limes, mangoes, watermelons, and pineapples. 

Lake Corpus Christi

Retirees love living at Lake Corpus Christi and in Live Oak County as a whole. The climate is outstanding, and Corpus Christi is only 32 miles to the southeast. The average price for a home is just over $100,000. Outdoor activities and watersports are available year-round, as it rarely gets below 42 degrees. Several towns and nooks of villages dot Lake Corpus Christi. Fishing for channel catfish and alligator gar is excellent, and this lake supports healthy populations of largemouth and white bass, black and white crappie, sunfish, and trout. Several golf courses are within 30 miles of the lake.

Lake Conroe

Lake Conroe is chock-full of food and nightlife, lake resources, and real estate, plus Houston is only 55 miles to the south, and Galveston is a little over 100 miles away. Nine upscale communities with seven golf courses and condominium complexes surround Lake Conroe, along with an attractive business environment, which proves attractive to retirees. Lake Conroe is also popular for boating, fishing, swimming, and watersports. Activities on Lake Conroe go year-round because temperatures rarely go below 40 degrees. 

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Best Lakes To Retire On In West Texas

Physiographic characteristics categorize West Texas into sections. For this purpose, we define West Texas as parts of the TPWD’s ecoregions of the Edwards Plateau, High Plains, Rolling Plains, and Trans Pecos ecoregions. West Texas is a land of its own and begins in the trees on the east and ends in the desert on the west. West Texas belongs to the history of the American West and is still the epitome of the romantic American West today. As a whole, West Texas is hauntingly beautiful country with a divergent geography.

Possum Kingdom Lake

Possum Kingdom Lake is one of the most amazing lakes in Texas, with some extremely stunning terrain. This lake boasts 18,000 acres of cool, clear water surrounded by beautiful cliffs and rolling hillsides. Fishing for largemouth, smallmouth, and white bass, blue, channel, and flathead catfish, crappie, and sunfish, is excellent. There are plenty of homes and lake lots for sale.

Besides the beautiful land and skyscapes, there are tons of things to do. Possum Kingdom Lake boasts two golf courses, plenty of restaurants, a plethora of hiking, off-road, and equestrian trails, and some of the most popular yearly events in Texas like its Hell’s Gate Fireworks show. Ft. Worth is only 110 miles away. Possum Kingdom Lake is a wonderful lake to retire at. 

Lake Fort Phantom Hill

Lake Fort Phantom Hill is near Abilene, and it has a limited real estate market, but there are homes and lots available. A planned community of neighborhood homes, weekend cabins, and businesses of almost 10,000 acres right on the lakefront offers a perfect place to retire. Besides that, pockets of communities surround the lake, and fishing is great year-round. Anglers love fishing Lake Fort Phantom Hill for hybrid striped bass, white crappie, and blue catfish, but other species in the lake are largemouth and white bass, flathead catfish, and drum.