Joecks is a columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Good Stuff Thrift in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania isn’t just big—it’s the kind of place where you walk in needing one specific item and emerge three hours later with treasures you never knew existed.

Tucked away in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains of Plumas County sits Portola, a small California town that’s rewriting the retirement rulebook with its remarkable affordability and quality of life ...