3 NC lake towns make retirement feel like vacation, Southern Living says
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Three North Carolina towns made a Southern Living list of Southern lake towns you should retire to.
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Davidson, Lake Lure and Cashiers are all lovely places to retire that will have you feeling like you’re on vacation, according to the magazine.
Just outside Charlotte and with all the hospital amenities of the nearby metro, Davidson isn’t just for the college students of its namesake university.
Davidson has a population of around 16,000, and it sits near charming Lake Norman. Southern Living and The Observer have written about the small town’s various restaurants and downtown.
Kindred, a Davidson restaurant previously recommended by Michelin, has reopened Oct. 20 after a small fire.
You can still have the time of your life, and you could spend it all in Lake Lure. The town sits directly on a lake of the same name, and it was also the filming location for part of “Dirty Dancing.”
Lake Lure has a population of around 1,300. It is near Chimney Rock State Park and other scenic views.
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Despite being hit hard by Hurricane Helene in 2024, the town and lake are regular features in travel writing and North Carolina vacation recommendations.
If you retire to Cashiers, you can spend every fall watching the locally famed Shadow of the Bear off of Whiteside Mountain, after the weather has gotten too crisp for a swim at Lake Toxaway.
The bear was also recently featured in Southern Living — for a few months each fall, a local mountain casts a shadow shaped like a bear onto the fall foliage below.
Cashiers is a census-designated place with fewer than 1,000 residents. Situated in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the population swells in the summer months.
Southern Living has featured plenty of other places in North Carolina, CharlotteFive has previously reported, including:
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This story was originally published October 23, 2026 at 10:00 AM.
