life after 65

7 Dallas neighbors rank among best places to retire in Texas for 2026

Carrollton is the second best place to retire in Texas.

Carrollton, TX - City Government/Facebook

Texas retirees on the hunt for the right place to settle down and enjoy their blissful retirement years have nearly a dozen options in Dallas-Fort Worth to choose from, and Carrollton has come out on top as the No. 2 best Texas city to retire in 2026.

A new study conducted by the research team at RetirementLiving.com, "The Best Cities to Retire in Texas," compared the affordability, safety, livability, and healthcare access for seniors across 31 Texas cities with at least 90,000 residents.

Wichita Falls, about 140 miles northwest of Dallas, claimed the top spot as the No. 1 best place to retire in Texas.

Besides No. 2-earning Carrollton, six more of the Lone Star State's top 10 best retirement locales are located in the North Texas Metroplex: Plano (No. 4), Garland (No. 5), Richardson (No. 6), Arlington (No. 7), Grand Prairie (No. 8), and Irving (No. 9).

The senior living experts said Carrollton has one of the lowest property and violent crime rates per capita in Texas, and it ranked as the No. 5 safest city on the list. About 17 percent of the city's population is aged 65 or older, which is higher than the statewide average of just 14 percent.

Carrollton ranked 6th overall for its livability, and ranked in 8th place for its senior healthcare access, which covered the number of primary care physicians per 1,000 seniors (at the county level) and the number of inpatient hospitals per 100,000 seniors. Carrollton's affordability is the 10th best in Texas, the report added.

Carrollton is clearly preparing for future growth with the upcoming development of its first-ever H-E-B, and Kansas-based grocery chain Urban Street Market is following with its first Texas store expected in spring 2026. The city is also maintaining its small-town feel by revitalizing its iconic Downtown Silos.

Seniors in Carrollton can also revel in the city's many new restaurants that have opened in the last year, including Korean fried chicken chain Puradak, Louisiana-based pizzeria Rotolo's Craft & Crust, cutesy gelato shop Eiswelt Gelato, trendy brunch spot First Watch, and an internationally-inspired sports bar called Kings Cave. Just to name a few.

Meanwhile, Dallas proper ranked as the 29th best place to retire in Texas, and Fort Worth ranked just one spot ahead as No. 28.

Other North Texas cities that were named among the best places to retire include McKinney (No. 16), Lewisville (No. 20), Denton (No. 22), and Frisco (No. 23).

Noticeably absent from RetirementLiving's list is Flower Mound, which was ranked one of the top 50 best places to retire by U.S. News & World Report. About 13 percent of flourishing Flo' Mo's population is over the age of 65, according to U.S. News.

The top 10 best place to retire in Texas in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Wichita Falls
No. 2 – Carrollton
No. 3 – Pasadena
No. 4 – Plano
No. 5 – Garland
No. 6 – Richardson
No. 7 – Arlington
No. 8 – Grand Prairie
No. 9 – Irving
No. 10 – McAllen

retirement rankings plano carrollton garland richardson irving arlington grand prairie dallas fort worth

Here come the brides

Dallas woos top-15 spot on new list of best places to get married

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Let's get hitched.

Dallas is in line to catch the bouquet: The city ranks as the 13th best place to get married in the U.S. in 2026, according to a new study.

WalletHub's 2026 "Best Places to Get Married" report ranked 182 U.S. cities based on the average wedding costs; the number of venues, vendors, and services; and the number of activities and attractions in every city.

Dallas was bested by some of the usual suspects: Wedding-crazed Las Vegas, Nevada (No. 1); the Florida cities of Orlando (No. 2), Miami (No. 3), and Tampa (No. 5); and Atlanta, Georgia (No. 4). Dallas' Texas neighbors Austin (No. 6) and Houston (No. 7) also nabbed top 10 spots.

Based on the report's findings, Dallas' has the 16th best wedding facilities and services in the country, and its entertainment scene and tourism popularity helped rank No. 25 in the "activities and attractions" category.

Wedding planning website The Knot shows there are nearly 700 local wedding venues for couples to tour, including scenic gardens and fancy hotels downtown.

Weddings don't come cheap, and couples spend about $33,000 on average for their special day, according to The Knot. Dallas ranked No. 66 overall in the costs category out of all 182 U.S. cities in the report, proving that the city isn't as costly as other popular wedding destinations.

"Tying the knot is a huge commitment, and the wedding industry in 2025 was worth nearly $66.2 billion, down quite a bit from $78 billion a few years earlier," the report's author wrote.

With all the stress and time that goes into planning a wedding months or years in advance, it's no wonder that experienced wedding planners are in high demand for couples, the study says.

Other top Texas wedding destinations
Houston and Austin were the only two Texas cities to make the top 10 best places to get married, while San Antonio ranked 20th on the list.

Elsewhere in North Texas, Fort Worth ranked No. 44, while Plano (No. 82) and Arlington (No. 90) barely scraped into the top 100.

Five more Texas cities earned spots among the top 100: El Paso (No. 32), Lubbock (No. 74), Amarillo (No. 79), Laredo (No. 99), and Corpus Christi (No. 100).

The top 10 best places to get married in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Las Vegas, Nevada
No. 2 – Orlando, Florida
No. 3 – Miami, Florida
No. 4 – Atlanta, Georgia
No. 5 – Tampa, Florida
No. 6 – Austin, Texas
No. 7 – Houston, Texas
No. 8 – Fort Lauderdale, Florida
No. 9 – San Diego, California
No. 10 – Los Angeles, California

weddings rankings wallethub dallas