Snowbirds and snowflakes: Mobility and aging across the Canada‐United States border.

Changes brought about by globalization such as the growth of the travel industry and increasing interconnectivity between places have opened up new lifestyle options for Canadian retirees. Commonly called "snowbirds," thousands of Canadian retirees choose to spend their winters in warm destinations outside Canada, with most going to localities in the southern United States. Most snowbirds visit the same place every year and spend many years going back and forth between Canada and their chosen winter destination. Drawing on insights from both life‐course theory and the new mobilities paradigm, this paper considers how the cross‐border snowbird phenomenon links to wider processes related to aging. Qualitative interviews were conducted with retirees wintering in various communities in southern Florida. The findings of the study highlight the importance of understanding both aging and mobility as processes that intersect in variable ways over time to influence new geographies of aging. Key Messages: Globalization has led to increasingly complex mobility patterns among retired Canadians.New theoretical perspectives are needed to better understand evolving relationships between aging and cross‐border mobility.The mobility patterns of aging Canadians have important impacts on both sending and receiving communities and efforts must be made to understand emerging trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]