When I joined this board, my DW, and I fully planned on finding a large acreage lot (25-100 acres) in Kentucky, or Tennessee, and building our dream homestead away from the bustle of a big city.
We ended up deciding to make the 10 acre farm where we have been for 25 years better, and turn it into our dream homestead. We already have horses, chickens, lots of equipment in two large barns (including an indoor riding arena). All of this would have been a monumental undertaking to set up infrastructure, and move 400 miles South from Northern Ohio.
Another vote for N Ohio, call us N Central
. DH & I fully intended to relocate after retirement. After RVing for 15+ years, we sold our house and moved into a large RV. We had a tentative plan of being full-time RVers for 5-10 years. We had filled in many retirement surveys and found many areas of the country that we liked. We were experienced RVers with the funds to travel as we pleased.
I have had serious health issues since 2012 & DH also ended up with a rare & life-threatening condition in 2015. We became less pleased with full-time RVing after a few plane/hotel trips and forced RV relocations for medical care.
It turned out that almost all the areas we love to visit do not have the world-class medical facilities we need within our limit of an hour’s driving distance. If they did (Portland, for example), we would be spending WAY too much time in traffic, and/or spending way too much $$$ for housing/taxes.
So we looked at the reality of how we are spending our retirement, and our day-to-day activities. For example, it turns out that we become annoyed with aggressive/crazy traffic between us and the nearest grocery store. And that gorgeous hiking trails (outside SLC and Denver, for example) lose almost all of their appeal when they are overcrowded and covered with litter.
Gradually, the vacation areas we love lost their appeal as home bases. I started comparing each place with what we knew of Ohio - traffic, amenities, costs, etc. We decided to take another look at northern Ohio as a home base. We found that we could get affordable housing, low taxes, low crime, easy driving, hundreds of parks & trails, friendly people, and world-class medical care within 1/2 hour of our new base.
We now use the RV to temporarily move to any area in which we are interested. If we fell in love with any one of these places, we still might consider purchasing a home or RV spot. So far, though, there have always been one or two “deal breakers” that pop up after weeks or months in an area. We haven’t even found a perfect spot to spend winters, so we will continue to explore until we don’t feel like doing it any longer.