America’s Most Active Seniors

For many Americans, retirement promises more autonomy over personal time. As work and child care responsibilities diminish or disappear, opportunities to pursue personal interests typically expand. While some retirees spend their post-work years focused on rest and relaxation, others embrace an active retirement lifestyle highlighted by travel, volunteering and other pursuits.

SmartAsset set out to identify the states that are home to America’s most active seniors. The study calculated the average daily time people ages 65 and older spend on four activities — exercise, gardening, travel and volunteering — and ranked states based on the totals.

Key Findings

The Mountain West is home to America’s most active seniors. Montana (No. 1), Utah (No. 2), Wyoming (No. 3) and Colorado (No. 6) all ranked highly in the study.
Least active states span the country. While states with the most active seniors are clustered in the Mountain West, those with the least active seniors are more geographically dispersed, including Indiana (No. 48), Nevada (No. 49) and Delaware (No. 50).
Seniors in these New England states spend the most time exercising. Vermont (No. 4) took the top spot for the average daily minutes seniors spend exercising and participating in sports: 44 minutes. It was followed by Connecticut (No. 7), where seniors average 31.7 minutes of exercise each day.
Seniors in these states love to travel. Despite ranking only No. 43 overall, South Dakota was tops for the amount of time seniors devoted to travel. In second place for time spent traveling were New Hampshire seniors.

Top 10 States

Montana
• Exercising: 18.37 minutes daily
• Gardening: 48.4 minutes daily
• Traveling: 7.57 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 35.62 minutes daily

Wyoming
• Exercising: 14.44 minutes daily
• Gardening: 33.76 minutes daily
• Traveling: 8.21 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 40.49 minutes daily

Utah
• Exercising: 20.89 minutes daily
• Gardening: 17.91 minutes daily
• Traveling: 11.96 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 32.46 minutes daily

Vermont
• Exercising: 44.02 minutes daily
• Gardening: 18.4 minutes daily
• Traveling: 10.74 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 8.72 minutes daily

Washington
• Exercising: 13.8 minutes daily
• Gardening: 33.35 minutes daily
• Traveling: 7.72 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 24.04 minutes daily

Colorado
• Exercising: 30.44 minutes daily
• Gardening: 21.53 minutes daily
• Traveling: 9.18 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 16.82 minutes daily

Connecticut
• Exercising: 31.66 minutes daily
• Gardening: 18.54 minutes daily
• Traveling: 11.46 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 14.26 minutes daily

New Mexico
• Exercising: 18.46 minutes daily
• Gardening: 39.57 minutes daily
• Traveling: 9.28 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 7.04 minutes daily

New Hampshire
• Exercising: 28.81 minutes daily
• Gardening: 24.19 minutes daily
• Traveling: 16.85 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 3.89 minutes daily

Alaska
• Exercising: 18.48 minutes daily
• Gardening: 39.27 minutes daily
• Traveling: 4.71 minutes daily
• Volunteering: 9.31 minutes daily

Methodology

This study uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey (ATUS), as extracted from IPUMS for the most recent available four-year period. For each state, the average daily minutes residents ages 65 and older (ATUS age top-coded at 85) spent exercising, gardening, traveling and volunteering was calculated, inclusive of those who spent no time at all on these activities. Those four measures were then summed to produce a total time value used to rank the states. Source data providers are not affiliated with, and do not endorse or sponsor, this study or its findings.

Sarah M. Flood, Liana C. Sayer, Daniel Backman and Annie Chen. American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder: Version 3.3 [dataset]. College Park, MD: University of Maryland and Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2025. https://doi.org/10.18128/D060.V3.3