How to Relocate to Kissimmee, Florida for Travel, Retirement, and Major Sports

Kissimmee in Central Florida is on the WalletPop preferred list of Florida retirement places, but the city is known for travel attractions in general, along with its location near other travel destinations like Orlando and Cape Canaveral.

Kissimmee supports the usual numbers of water parks, airboat rides, golf courses, mini golf places, amusement parks, and other touristy destinations, but it also offers several unusual attractions, listed below.

Along with visitor opportunities, these venues offer jobs to the community and even to Seniors that prefer to continue working post retirement. This is especially true of DisneyQuest® Indoor Amusement Park and places like Disney Orlando, Busch Gardens and such. Columbus, Ohio Zoo's Jungle Jack Hanna works out of Busch Gardens and the surrounding area; you may see him taping animal programs for TV.

There is plenty to do and see in Kissimmee, for either the traveler or the retiree.

Shopping centers may contribute a large chunk of the local economy in Kissimmee, but a haunted house all year long is an attraction that many people do not want to miss. The Haunted Grimm House is the one and it's billed as quite scary. That seems to fit, because Grimm was my doctor's name when I was small, he was scary, and he moved to Florida suddenly!

The website for this attraction offers a coupon off the price of admission. The haunted house is in the Old Town district, two stories high, and offering 20 rooms of thrills.

Actually, Old Town looks like an amusement park with lots of shopping. It features many rides, including zip lines, climbing walls, and ropes courses. Most malls and downtown areas have not been refurbished to that extent. Other rides nearby include a carousel, Ferris wheel, and a dozen carnival-type rides that are permanent. A large rides area is located at the front of the shopping district and the back of the shopping district, with the Haunted Grimm House in the middle. If you see my old doctor there, say, "Hi!" and run.

This shopping area is a lot like having two of the old trolley car parks book-ending the retail shops. It's great fun, even if you just watch others enjoying the rides until late at night any day of the week. And Fridays see a weekly Muscle Car Cruise-In. The shopping mall is four blocks long, the shops having individual entrances from the sidewalks. Stores of all kinds are present, including eateries and gifts. For example, the Kissimmee Popcorn Company offers 106 flavors of popcorn.

This one does not close up for 9 months a year, because it is a town all to itself, right in Kissimmee. It operates all year long and may be more fun than the nearby Disney venues. Medievil Times is a dinner and tournament venue that is quite entertaining, a little like medieval dinner theater and you don't have to walk through mud.

Kissimmee Castle is located on a major highway at 4510 W. Irlo Bronson Highway; Kissimmee FL 34746. It offers a tour through a village inside its walls of 8 medieval houses. The castle and its cohorts in other cities train their own Pure Spanish Horses in Texas to perform in their jousting tournaments. Horses are trained for three years, perform for a few years in dressage and jousting at a castle, and return to their home ranch to be cared for thereafter. Men and women actors portray the Knights and the King's Court.

Another of the most interesting places in Kissimmee is a foundation that honors WWII fighter aircraft. Its facility is at the Kissimmee Gateway Airport at 3955 Merlin Drive; Kissimmee FL 34741. However, it is not dedicated to American aircraft, but to WWII German aircraft, which is very interesting if you have not seen these planes. They began with the White 1, and followed with the Black 3, and are available to help collectors rebuild WWII aircraft from any country. You may see some planes at this facility that you would not see in other air flight museums.

The Wordspring DIscovery Center complex is sponsored by the Bible translators of long note, Wycliffe. Located next door to the offices, interactive venues address Biblical languages and cultures for anyone interested in knowing more. A convention and banquet center are also located on site, with a cafe that operates regular hours. Exhibits include presentations on less-expected topics, like which 26 countries on earth do not yet have a written Bible.

Free tours are given hourly, with an in-depth presentation by a different missionary every day about their work in Bible translation and sharing. Inexpensive workshops concerning arts and cultures around the world are also available.

This is my type of venue, because I enjoy examining the original languages of scripture and combining this knowledge with that of local history and customs to find out what is really said in scripture. A few places like Wycliffe help that to happen. Wycliffe includes materials on languages of people mentioned in scriptures as well, from Egyptians and Ethiopians to all the Middle Eastern nations' peoples. I could spend an entire summer, right here.

Kissimmee's Osceola County Stadium Complex is huge, containing five baseball fields for professional, amateur, college, and league games and competitions. An umpiring school is also conducted on site.

An additional sporting complex contains five softball fields. Both of these venues are also used for concerts and conventions every year. Baseball is important to the county economy, because the Houston Astros conduct yearly spring training at the county baseball complex and baseball is popular as both a spectator and participant sport in Central Florida.

The Astro's website tells us that the county stadium is a Grapefruit League venue, referring to one of the agricultural crops famous in Florida. A children's playground is provided in the complex and a dedicated area for collecting autographs of the players is maintained for each game.

The Astros are civic minded and pursue many community projects. One is the Astros Urban Youth Academy in their Houston ball park, where they provide training to urban youth in both baseball and softball. Educational programs are also available. The tram also maintains participation in a number of sustainability projects. Back in Kissimmee, the baseball and softball complexes maintain their own community youth programs that are well attended.

Inside the baseball sports complex, the USSSA Sports Museum and Hall of Fame welcomes visitors. Inductees includes players in slow pitch softball, fast pitch softball, baseball, basketball, golf, flag football, Taekwondo, Karate, and many more.

• Real Estate: Median home cost is $70,090. Copared to the rest of the USA, cost of living is 20.40% lower than the national average.
• Kissimmee Retirement Home: 702 Verona St,; Kissimmee FL 34741

Most residents of the Kissimmee area are employed in Sales, Service, Business, and Financial occupations. The population of the city is approximately 65,000 with an unemployment rate for June 2011 at 10.7%.

Of 23,000 jobs open at the end of July 2011, the most frequently listed were for Physical and Occupational Therapy positions, Event Specialists, Speech Therapy jobs, Dentists/Assistants, Managers/Assistants, Pharmacists, Sales and Service clerks, and Account Executives (financial products). Sales, Service, Financial, and Healthcare are represented by the most openings. Healthcare contributes the largest numbers of open positions.

It is also interesting to note that aside from Hospitals, top employers are Lockheed Martin for aircraft manufacturing jobs and the USAF for Healthcare positions.