5 Best Towns Near Seattle For Retirees
Retiring near Seattle sounds appealing until the housing costs land. Within two hours of the city, these five towns keep the ferry rides, specialist appointments, and weekend trips within. Their housing prices also all stay below the state's average home value of $601,016. Bremerton has a 30-minute fast ferry and lets residents over 60 audit college classes for five dollars a term. Sumner runs commuter rail to King Street Station and shuts down Main Street every July for rhubarb milkshakes and baking contests. And Puyallup earned AARP's Age-Friendly City designation and has a five-mile flat riverwalk along the river. The lifestyle and the math both add up in all the towns ahead.
Bremerton
A one-hour ferry from Colman Dock in downtown Seattle drops passengers on the Bremerton waterfront, so a morning appointment at a Seattle hospital requires no car at all. Kitsap Transit’s Fast Ferry cuts the trip shorter to just 30 minutes on a passenger-only vessel. Many of Bremerton’s best-known attractions are clustered along the waterfront. The Puget Sound Navy Museum is free and is located in Building 50, a 19th-century structure that was moved to the waterfront in 2007. The USS Turner Joy, a Vietnam-era destroyer, sits next door and is open for self-guided tours. The Bremerton Boardwalk links to Harborside Fountain Park, where the sail of the submarine USS Parche stands as a monument.
Away from the waterfront, the Zillow average home value is $483,132. Olympic College’s Bremerton campus lets Washington residents 60 and older audit classes for only $5.00 per term, a program retirees use for everything from ceramics to beginner Spanish. Healthcare is close by, too. St. Michael Medical Center, part of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, operates a full campus in nearby Silverdale with a 24-hour emergency department and cancer care. A 12-minute foot ferry crosses Sinclair Inlet to Port Orchard, making it easy to spend a morning on one waterfront and lunch on the other.
Port Orchard
Bay Street runs the length of the waterfront, making it an easy place to walk and spend a morning downtown. It closes several times a year for festivals, including the Mosquito Fleet celebration in May, which highlights the region’s maritime heritage. The Sidney Art Gallery and Museum offers free admission and rotating monthly exhibitions of Northwest artists. The museum on the second floor covers the Mosquito Fleet era with photographs and artifacts that explain how Puget Sound communities survived before bridges. Manchester State Park sits a short drive east with saltwater shoreline on Rich Passage, and a converted torpedo warehouse that makes one of the better picnic spots in Kitsap County.
With a Zillow average home value of only $556,428, Port Orchard also has one of the strongest transit setups on this list for retirees who no longer drive. The 12-minute foot ferry to Bremerton, occasionally operated by the historic Carlisle II, connects to St. Michael Medical Center and the full Kitsap Transit network. Car ferries from nearby Southworth run to Fauntleroy in West Seattle.
Sumner
Nicknamed the Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World because every July, during Rhubarb Days, Main Street fills with baking contests and rhubarb milkshakes from the iconic 1950s Main Street Dairy Freeze. About 33 miles south of Seattle in the Puyallup Valley, Sumner’s average home value is at $593,648, the highest on this list but still below the state average. Memory Haven, an assisted living facility, serves seniors locally, and Good Samaritan Hospital in neighboring Puyallup covers anything beyond routine care.
The Sounder commuter rail station in downtown Sumner runs 26 daily trains to Seattle and Tacoma, putting King Street Station less than an hour north. Main Street is walkable, lined with Valley Social Wine Bar and Tasting Room, and Inta Vintage, an antique shop spread across multiple rooms. Reuben A. Knoblauch Heritage Park hosts free concerts every Friday in July and outdoor movies every Friday in August, both on the lawn near the Sounder station. The Daffodil Parade rolls through each April, filling the street with floats covered in fresh-cut daffodils from the surrounding valley.
Puyallup
In 2016, Puyallup became the first city in Washington State to receive the Age-Friendly City designation from the AARP Network of Age-Friendly States and Communities. The city offers a welcoming community, easy-to-navigate streets, and a multitude of events, businesses, and attractions that appeal to older residents. The Washington State Fair draws over a million visitors to Puyallup each September, making it one of the largest state fairs in the country. The fairgrounds stay busy the rest of the year, too, hosting three more major festivals, including Oktoberfest, the Taste Northwest, and the Washington State Spring Fair. Puyallup sits about 32 miles south of Seattle with a Zillow average home value of $570,442, below the state average of $601,016. MultiCare Good Samaritan Hospital serves East Pierce County and includes the Dr. Richard C. Ostenson Cancer Center.
To help the elderly settle in better, Pierce College Puyallup offers a senior citizen tuition waiver for residents 60 and older to audit credit classes for a small fee, along with specialized fitness programs like SAIL and various personal enrichment courses through their Continuing Education department. The Sounder commuter rail connects Puyallup Station to Seattle’s King Street Station in under an hour, which means there is no need for a car or a drive on I-5. Downtown runs along South Meridian Street, where the Ezra Meeker Mansion sits as a museum dedicated to the Oregon Trail pioneer who became Puyallup’s first mayor in 1890. Pioneer Park, a block away, hosts the Puyallup Farmers Market on Saturdays from April through October, one of the largest in Washington. From there, the Puyallup Riverwalk Trail extends five miles along the river, flat enough for a morning walk at any fitness level.
Shelton
Shelton’s nickname, “Christmastown, USA,” grew out of decades of commercial Christmas tree farming, and seven years ago, the town broke the Guinness World Record for the most lit Christmas trees. The average home value is $422,092, and the drive from Seattle takes less than two hours. Healthcare is easily accessible here as well. Mason General Hospital runs a Medicare Wellness program for residents turning 65, with nearby housing at Alpine Way Continuing Care Community.
OysterFest has filled the first weekend of October in Shelton since 1982, drawing crowds from all over the state. The oysters come from Hood Canal, the glacially carved fjord accessible directly from the Oakland Bay Marina at the Port of Shelton, which makes a nice morning stroll. For more on that history, the Mason County Historical Society documents the region’s logging and oyster industries through detailed exhibits and preserved artifacts.
A Fresh Start Near Seattle
The city will always be there for the big days, whether that means watching the grandkids perform or taking a nostalgic stroll down 5th Avenue. In return, these five towns offer lower housing costs and an easier pace of daily life. Shelton has the lowest home values on the list, while Puyallup and Sumner both sit on the Sounder commuter rail line. Bremerton and Port Orchard keep ferry access close to daily life. All five keep Seattle within reach with a more affordable cost of living, services that support older residents, and plenty of things to do year-round.
