Broad question, I know. I'll try and narrow it down.

My wife and I are quickly approaching 2025 which will be my 20 years of service at the Fire Department and 20 years of her working/contributing to her 401k. We both have 401k's and I will have a decent pension from the FD that kicks in January of 2025(around $100k/year). I have the rare opportunity from a department merger to continue working and begin a new pension and will go until 2033 or 2035 with the 2nd smaller pension vested. My wife will continue some at home businesses that should also persist through retirement. The 2nd pension will be small or converted over to an investment plan/401k'ish thing at the end if it makes more sense as my age will incur penalties on the 2nd pension. (Currently 59 years of age/25 years of service on 2nd pension to collect with no penalties)

Come 2025 we want to utilize my pension to lay the ground work for our place of retirement. We want to get out of Florida where we've spent our whole lives dealing with Hurricanes and well, Florida stuff. Plan is to bank 1/3 for our tax bill, 1/3 to pay down our mortgage a little quick(about $180k left on a now $900k'ish home?) and 1/3 to down payment on land to build on/home in a different state. Plan is also to really retire when we retire. I don't want to work ever again if possible., after 30 years at the FD I don't think I should need too. (I have lots of hobbies, I won't get bored, promise)

All that being said, we are having a hard time picking a place!

We are Florida kids and hate the cold. We want to pick a state that has good tax laws for retirees or low enough cost of living to offset having to pay taxes on our retirement. Florida has good retirement tax laws but cost of living here is getting out of hand. Our taxes and insurance will be up to $13k this year from $8k/year when we bought in 2013. I'm a left leaning centrists and she's a moderate democrat and it would be nice to be in place thats kind of center too. We also want to try and escape looming natural disasters growing up with Hurricanes our whole lives. I've done lots of research and nothing lands on "This is absolutely the spot for us!" So I figured I check with my fellow redditors.

Have any of you found a state/city that has good/fair retiree tax laws, lower cost of living, warm enough to be outside 300 days out of the year and doesn't have a regular threat of natural disasters?

At this point I am ok with anecdotal answers and then do some more targeted research of those areas.

Right now only place on my radar is Greensville, South Carolina. Seems very safe from hurricanes compared to South Florida. In the foot hills of the mountains so can be at some elevation to avoid flooding. No drought. (Maybe risk of wild fires in the more forested areas still?I'd cut tree line way back of what we buy) Near Clemson so a good mix of politics. When it comes to doing this, buying/building out of state we have one shot to get this right without wasting time and money to do it again if we don't like it.

But curious to hear about some of the places the redditors before me have settled on and what their experiences are like.