Like many americans, I will likely have no other choice, than to relocate to a less expensive city/state when I retire due to a combination of the HCOL where I am now (socal) and inadequate retirement savings. As such, like many others, I continuously scour the web in search of statistics that allow me to make comparisons between locations; such information is easily retrievable.
When possible, I try to visit the locations in order to get a boots on the ground view for quality of life issues that are impossible to extract from descriptive statistics that tell me about tax rates, property values, etc. All too often we focus on the math/numbers, and quality of life is much harder to evaluate. Like for example, finding out all too late, that the town has deeply embedded racist attitudes not readily uncovered earlier, or X, or Y, or Z. I guess what I am saying is that for such a major life decision, we should focus equal intensity on understanding quality issues with particular retirement relocation choices.
e.g. In very low tax areas, public services can be weak to nil, which for a middle aged working person might not be so relevant. But in retirement, such services may be critical.