I'm retired now, have been 4 years or so. (early 60's)
I live in a nice high rise apartment on the Gold Coast in Queensland, its warm & sunny practically all year round and is Australia's main holiday destination, we have some of the worlds best beaches which I love to walk along. One of my main loves these days.
We dont use our car much at all now, only for visiting friends family who live elsewhere, we walk mainly (love walking)or get on the tram which runs up and down the coast, buses are free as well. Our building has a large swimming pool so Ive started swimming, not really done that since school.
Ive played in bands most of my life, but the most recent band split up last November, usual thing, ego's, between 2 of the members, I miss the band so I do the occasional solo gig where I sing with a guitar and play along to backing tracks.
Other than that our main activity is travelling the world, Ive been on several large cruises, longest was from Sydney to Barcelona, Ive visited many countries since retiring and enjoyed every minute, we like the 'one way' cruises where the cruise ends in another country then we make a holiday in that place and make our own way back to Oz. We have 4 more booked this year and we just spent a lovely 2 weeks walking in New Zealand (awesome place).....I have a bit of an interest in Photography and I love listening to Jazz and watching movies.
I think there is a psychology to retiring happily, Id say there are a few things that you need for a happy retirement, Hopefully you have squirrelled away enough money or have some kind of private pension to be able to do things you like doing and probably more importantly you really like being with your partner every day, this is vital really, someone said it was hard spending 9 days over Xmas with their wife, (worsley?) well Id say think very carefully before retiring :)
My wife is and always has been since marriage, my best mate, Im happiest when Im with her. (I got lucky there)
Regarding retiring at 45/50 I wouldnt advise it, these are prime years when you really need to be working imo and building up your wealth... I just think by that age you should be really good at what you do and enjoying doing it, I wouldnt have wanted to quit my job at that age, whereas as you approach 60 your metabolism slows down and your more ready for a slower lifestyle and you start to long for days to frigg around with you hobbies/interests, at 45 I wouldve soon got bored of retirement though, no real challenges you see.