Relocating - any suggestions for a rural town WEST of Columbus? (Dayton: for sale, rental)

[Nikke99]

Hello All!

My Fiance and I are possibly relocating to the Columbus area, and really prefer a rural (small town) area with acreage. We are from Central Indiana, and are looking to stay WEST of Columbus to keep the drive time down when visiting family.

Also - any suggested resources for finding homes to rent (prefer to rent before buying)? I have checked what I would think is EVERY home rental website and local Columbus newspapers with NO luck in the rural surrounding cities.

Thanks for any information!!

[Bowie]

Champaign County is about as rural as it gets and it's less than an hour west of Columbus. It's closer to Dayton than Columbus, though. Will someone in the family be commuting to Columbus? That would be a long commute.

[Nikke99]

Yes, my fiance will be commuting to Columbus...but feels anything an hour or less is a great trade off for country living.

[2006Buckeye]

To give you an idea of what's available one hour west, Urbana is in Champaign County and it has pretty easy access to I-70. It takes about an hour to get to Columbus (depending on where you are in Urbana) in good conditions. If there are traffic problems, it can be considerably longer.

You might want to contact realtors in rural areas, as many houses just aren't selling and people are choosing to rent them out instead. Definitely don't purchase until you're sure you want to stay.

If you consider areas NW and SW of Columbus you might have a few more options.

I'm only trying to be helpful here, but have you faced an hour(+) commute each way? With rising gas prices and the traffic congestion, it's not going to be fun. If you were transferring to Columbus to live in a (relative) suburb of Columbus, it might make more sense. There are areas closer to Columbus that still have a pretty rural feel, they are just not necessarily west of the city.
Am I correct in assuming the work commute will be M-F? Even if you visit family in Indiana every weekend, it might be worth it to have a slightly longer drive on weekends to minimize commute during the week. In your original post you mentioned you were *possibly* moving to Columbus. Is there any way the job situation will allow you to stay in Indiana? Columbus is a great city, but as far as rural areas are concerned, you might save yourself a lot of hassle (plus expenses of moving) if you have the option to stay in Indiana, as rural Ohio towns and rural Indiana towns don't seem to differ a lot.

Anyway, use Mapquest to show the route from Columbus to Urbana, and you will see other towns along the way (that might be worth looking into). Good luck with whatever you decide.

[streetcreed]

For a rural place west of Columbus why not try Plain City?

It is located just west of the Columbus' west side suburbs, Hilliard, and along highway 70. It would be a very short commute to downtown even.

I consider Plain City rural, then again I am city guy to anything outside of Columbus' main suburbs is very rural to me.

[Nikke99]

Thank you for your post. We actually live in Florida now, and his job opportunity is in Columbus. We are originally from Indiana, and before the move we did have an hour commute each way because we do prefer to be in the country (nearest neighbor .5 mile) - worth every minute of the drive !

I think it is a great idea to contact a realtor to possibly rent a home that is having trouble selling, thanks for the suggestion!! I will be sure to look into Plain City as well.

Thanks!

[LancasterNative]

Howdy Nikke,

Ah, rural Ohio! You have many options due west of Columbus, through which both I-70 and good ol' U.S. 40 pass, taking you straight to Indy. I mention 40 because, as I frequently travel this way, there's almost always some construction, an accident, or other freeway mayhem somewhere in the Dayton area For that reason, I've found 40 is a great alternate route for getting around the various bottlenecks.

London, Ohio is the seat of Madison County, a nice little town of ab. 8,000. It has its own hospital, public library, and other amenities. Some beautiful countryside surrounds it in all directions, and the freeway passes by just to the north.

Choctaw Lake, just off exit 72 near Summerford, is a few mi. north of London. It's actually a resort community built around a recreational lake. Of course, the community itself is rather dense (no acreage) so maybe that's not what you're looking for...but it also is surrounded on all sides by gorgeous wide-open country. A gal I used to work with lived there; she commuted to Cols. while her hubby worked in Dayton, and their commutes were ab. the same length!

Plain City, as Creed mentioned above, is a great little town! On the border of Union & Madison Cos., it's very quaint and is also the home of Der Dutchman—a hugely popular Amish restaurant and bakery w/traditional down-home cooking. Check out this website!

The only concern I would have about Plain City is...how long it will remain rural? It's wonderful now, but it's rather close to the metro area. Hungry developers have been very busy along the Dublin-Marysville corridor, cookie-cuttering up farmland into stupid McMansions and shopping centers How long before all that crap moves into Plain City? Who knows...

South Charleston, in Clark County, is another sweet little place—probably about the outer limit of your 1-hr. commute time from Columbus.

If you are working with a realtor, ask them to show you around Madison County in general. It's bisected by I-70, so you'll be able to get places quickly, but it is far enough out that urban sprawl shouldn't be a concern there for the foreseeable future.

Anyways...I am with you 1,000% about country living! I soooo look forward to being back in rural America someday Right now, I'm in the middle of congested suburbia and it sucks, big time. A longer commute would totally be worth it, if it meant I could be waaay out in God's country! Perhaps someday we'll be neighbors

All the best to y'all,
Lanc

[jajosh07]

I have lived in Plain City my entire life and i will tell you it is in one of the best locations in central ohio! The school system is great (rated excellent by the state of ohio), it is less than 25 minutes from downtown and 10 minutes from Dublin. You have a completely rural small-town feel but are incredibly close to the big city. There is also a lot for sale around the area, we live on 5 acres! If you need any other information go to plain-city.com and there are links to real-estate and other things around the community! Also there are strict plans to limit the development to maintain that small-town feel... and Dublin has said it will not annex into Madison County

[Garonyldas]

As the other posters suggested, London is absolutely beautiful, and Plain City has a very nice school system (though I wouldn't consider it rural at this point, since it's become somewhat suburban).

Madison county (again, as others suggested) is really good to check out, since most of it is rolling farmland.

I would also suggest West Jefferson. My dad's side of the family grew up there, and it's really small enough that everyone knows each others' names. I spent a couple years there living in a cabin in the woods, and it was alright. I'm more of a big city girl myself, so I kind of turned my nose up at the whole thing, but that's precisely why I mention it to you. The school system there really takes care of its students, and in fact, has recently torn down it's middle/elementary school building to expand, as well as the high school. Just outside of West Jeff is the absolutely gorgeous Big Darby Creek, with an accompanying park that is a favorite of those of us that even like the city. Schools from all over bring kids on field trips because the creek (which is something closer to a river, IMO) and the park are full of indigenous wildlife that has earned it the title of National Scenic River.

Anything further out west than London and West Jeff I'm not sure about, but I would definitely suggest taking a look at those two. To give you a better idea about the differences between the two, London is more full of historical buildings and Victorian-style homes, though there is certainly more room to grow outside of town, while West Jefferson is more of a village, home to farmers. Forewarning- the only grocery store in West Jeff, "Cardinals", recently closed because the owner passed away. Everyone is stuck either traveling into Columbus (which is about a 20 minute drive) to go to Krogers, or traveling into London (another 20 minutes) to go to Wal-Mart. London is also the county seat (at least as far as I know), so your Drivers license renewals and such will go on there. Also something key to note, On the very very edge of Columbus (it's actually technically Galloway, in the 43119 zip code), there is a park-and-ride COTA stop, so that if you need to commute to a job there, you can travel from West Jeff to this stop, park your car for the day (for free!), and then ride the bus to downtown, or really anywhere in Columbus, as needed. The parking lot is right by a high school, and it's actually right across the street from a major grocery store (and incidentally, my mom's house, lol), so I can assure you it's a really safe area.

Hope some of this information helped, and I really hope that no matter where you choose to live, you truly enjoy it there. Good luck!