Next trip RENO

After years of travel , keeping my eye out for the place I want to retire to, I picked Vegas. Well, my wise and intuitive daughter picked Carson City (by Reno). So this next trip will be Reno area. We only have a short 2 1/2 weeks. Will miss Vegas but we have to pick the right town. Retirement is serious. I hope I can get some good Reno advice from my much appreciated fellow VMBers.

 

I'm in Reno 3 days outta the week (for the past 6 years)
What do you wanna know?
Personally, I'd choose Carson City over Vegas ANYTIME.
I really like Carson City because it feels like a small-town, but it also has 24-hour gambling (and only 30 minutes away from Reno if you want bigger)

 

Or down 'round Gardnerville. Gorgeous. Not congested. Great golf. EZ up the hill.

 

we have been to vegas 30 times, reno/Tahoe only once. we loved reno and hope to go back. airfare out of Columbus always seems to be very high. when we went to reno, it was just after some of the vegas casinos were putting in the 6/5 bj tables and all machines were seemingly tighter than tight. on arrival to reno, we found no 6/5 anywhere and did well on the machines. I liked the casino staffs and thought we were treated very well. we made a trip up to Tahoe to ski and another trip over to Virginia City. enjoyed both things. now that i'm typing this I think i'll have to suck it up and pay a little more in airfare and go back. have fun

 

That is what I want to know. Thanks . I'm excited to go exploring. Timspeed , any bad hotels to avoid.

 

Personally, we stayed at GoldDustWest (Carson) for a few years and it was quite peaceful with a decent little casino (always could ride over to Fandango or Nugget if not)
In Reno, any of the big ones are good...with the rooms at either Peppermill or Atlantis being the best...

 

I would pick Reno (Carson City, Sparks) over Vegas to retire just because of the weather. I do not like the weather in Vegas in the winter. At least in Reno it actually feels like winter, but is sunny most of the time.

Palm Springs has pretty much won my personal choice for retirement. Weather, sense of community, outdoors activities, ease of travel from there, and cost of living all played into my decision. It is a fairly easy commute to Vegas and Reno from there.

 

Yes, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley ... Pacific NW South!

Alaska Air runs effectively as a conveyor belt 'tween the two nodes. lol

 

My grandparents retired and live in the Kings Canyon area of Carson City and they absolutely love it. I like it as well (we go to visit a couple times a year)- air is crisp, decent gambling, close to Reno/Sparks and Tahoe, and they have a pretty kick ass outdoor gun range.

 

This struck me as being funny or at least amusing.

Maybe it's just my sense of humor,but when we drove from Reno to Tahoe, we went past the NV State Capitol. Directly across the street was this really tacky looking ,locals type casino with all kinds of signs in the windows .
Tahoe was beautiful ,Reno ,downtown anyway ,reminded me of Fremont St.

 

Actually, the two-(2) small casinos you refer to (Horseshoe Club and Cactus Jacks) are a couple blocks up the street and across from the Capitol, but still very close to be sure. The Attorney General's Office (in the old Supreme Court Building) is across from the Capitol Building. The Capitol grounds are beautiful and well maintained, but right downtown with it's few shops, eateries and gaming.

To the OP... when you're out this way, couple things to keep in mind. Northern Nevada has grown over the past 30 years, but nothing like southern Nevada. Carson City's population has actually been adjusted down a bit the past few years to 55,000. It has the lowest property-tax rate of any full-service community in the state. By that I mean snow-removal, senior center, recreation facilities, library, etc. If that's important to you Carson City is FAR superior to the surrounding area.

Gardnerville and Minden in Douglas County to the south are beautiful and many have chosen to retire there, as have folks in Lyon County to the east of Carson City. Dayton, has become quite the bedroom community to Carson out that way. Those folks have chosen a more rural lifestyle and don't expect much in the way of services... they also don't pay for them either.

Reno/Sparks (Washoe County) of course, is 25 miles north of Carson City and a super quick trip now that the new freeway open about a year ago. The airport there is fantastic as are the shopping and dining commensurate with a 250K+ population. One area that a lot of folks are retiring to is Fernley, Nevada (25 miles east of Reno on I-80). It's affectionately referred to as "Ferntucky", as it's undergoing a bit of an identity crisis as retirees who move in meet the established red-neck, mobile-home dwellers
who've been out there forever.

 

Lol, funny you mention Fernley...
A ton of players from JANugget live out there...home of the Vaqueros! Lol
Only sucks their dragstrip is only 1/8th, rather than a full 1/4 (considering how much open space there is out there)
But fwiw, I'd choose Carson over Fernley...simply because it's a little more "metropolitan" (lol, did I just call CC metropolitan? LOL)