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Ive been reading this forum with interest, as my family and i intend to relocate from the UK.
Reading about all the diferent places, and your opinions is a great starting point, and id love your advice on which states and cities we should visit with a view to setting up home.
If i give you our situation, and requirements, it would be great if you could let us know which cities to visit.
This is our situation:
My husband and i have 4 children under 10, we currently own several large businesses in England, which will be run by our employees with little or no input needed from us.
We therefore have no need to find work when we relocate.
Our requirements:
1) We would love a place with low crime (obviously!) but i dont just mean LOW i mean the lowest - if my research is right the states with the lowest crime rates are New Hampshire, Dakota (N&S), Wyoming, Delaware, Maine and Rhode Island.
2) We need a large house, not just for our family, but for relatives who come to stay over. A minimum of 8 bedrooms.
3) We have a substantial amount of money, but we were not born into money, we are not 'posh' LOL we would like to live somewhere with 'normal' people like ourselves. Not rich people. I have nothing against them, but i just want the children to live in a normal, down to earth place.
4) We would like somewhere with great seasonal activities! Snow sports, summer activities, you name it we want it. We also want great SEASONS - ie snow in the winter, sun in the summer!
5) Somewhere near the beach or a lake would be nice.
6) No huge touristy places.
7) A town with a nice community feel would be great. We dont want a tiny place with a pop. of 1000 - where everyone knows your business, just somewhere where we feel welcomed, and we can involve ourselves in the things we want, just maybe not everything!
8) Obviously a good school - from first (elementary) to high school.
9) Near(ie within driving distance but not nearby) to a big city.
Cant think of anything else - but this list isnt the be-all-and-end-all.
We would like to visit the USA soonish, so any suggestions will be received with great thanks!
Maine would probably be the best place for you. It gets more sunshine than any other Northeastern state, is near the ocean, mountains and Boston and it has plenty of lakes. Four distinct seasons will keep you on your toes. If you stay away from the immediate coastline of Maine you won't have to worry about too many tourists.
First off, I would not look at crime statistics for an entire state. There's a huge number of manners in which this data could be skewed to bias the results to either small states with large populations or larger states with small populations or anything in between the two. I'd first take your other criteria and develop and a set of regions and then look at individual locations within those regions.
From your criteria, I'd suggest western NY, south central PA, or central or western MD. South PA is a particularly lovely area with a good mix of rural/urban life. You can put yourself in a quiet safe community within an hour or two drive of either Philly or Baltimore. It's definitely a "normal" area. Lancaster county is very nice.
You should consider Connecticut. The shore towns east of New Haven are beautiful (Madison, Guilford, Branford, Old Saybrook) and are within 10-15 minutes of New Haven, and less than two hours to NYC. These towns are very safe.
Also Fairfield County is an option for you. I don't know what your price range is but there are many down to earth towns in Fairfield County - such as Ridgefield, Fairfield, Wilton and Trumbull. All of these offer a wonderful quality of life and while they can be on the expensive side, you get what you pay for. Fairfield Ludlowe High was recently rated among the top high schools in the nation and the other towns have excellent schools as well.
CT has four seasons and beautiful foliage in the Fall.
Look no further than Lake Forest, IL. Sounds exactly what youre looking for. Its a "showy" town, but nothing like youd find in Beverly Hills or the Hamptons.
I think you might be well advised to do the research necessary to divide the country into regions first; New England, the mid-west, the mid- Atlantic etc. and then settle on a region that seems to have the most attractions for you.
Read the book "The Nine Nations of North America" for clues. Then count on at least a week per region to drive around and look. Two weeks would be better. The US is BIG compared to England. I live in RI (the smallest state) and one could not visit and look around all its towns in less than a week- in fact, many people who live here haven't done it!!!!
Thank you - ive only just seen the last few posts, and have spent the last couple of hours researching Maine which looks beautiful. Will look at the other places mentioned now - can you tell im excited??
We are going to spend about a year or so going back and forth and having a good old look. We want to see the towns year round. Have to say we are well organised people, and do lots of research before we do anything!
Hopefully going for a first look in August, then again near xmas, then after xmas. And a few more trips next year.
Our price range for a house, is from $1,000,000 upwards (but not too up!) it depends on what we see - we may spend $3,000,000 if we see the right house in the right place.
I have looked at Blue Hill in Maine, which seems almost ideal - but a bit sleepy and far from things? Otherwise - gorgeous.
Two questions - i know this isnt the place for it:
Do all american houses have pine panelling!? lol
And more important - do you get english tv channels?
This is our situation:
My husband and i have 4 children under 10, we currently own several large businesses in England, which will be run by our employees with little or no input needed from us.
We therefore have no need to find work when we relocate.
How can I hook up with a situation like this??? Owning several large businesses where your employees run the show without your input while you collect the salary. Sounds like my dream (non) job.
As for your dream town...eight bedrooms will be tough to come by anywhere. It would help to know your budget b/c an 8-bedroom house can be had for under $1 million in some places, but may cost you over $10 million in others.
Two questions - i know this isnt the place for it:
Do all american houses have pine panelling!? lol
And more important - do you get english tv channels?
Thanks!
LOL most American homes do NOT have pine panelling. Most have drywall. The only English programming you can get here is BBC America. I doubt many cable providers offer it but Directv does. And if you need your football fix you can subscribe to Setanta on Directv also for a good deal of EPL.
How can I hook up with a situation like this??? Owning several large businesses where your employees run the show without your input while you collect the salary. Sounds like my dream (non) job.
hehe well, 'hook up' isnt the right way to put it - more like work hard at.....!!
we worked towards a dream thats all. and we are almost there!
as for the 8 beds - yes i see this becoming a prob. we need ideally 5 beds just for us - the others would be for friends and relatives who will be over by the bucketload! but i suppose just one extra bedroom will do. so 6 bed.
CT is looking really good, the pictures ive seen on the net are gorgeous. the houses are lovely (no pine pannelling yet).
this thread is going to be a long one tho im afraid, we dont plan to move til late next year. enough time to do some thorough planning haha xxx
x
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