poss. move: salt lake city to lexington (Louisville, Frankfort: house, neighborhoods)

[towanda12]

Hi, I'm a new poster. My husband has a career opportunity in Lexington, and it looks like we might move there within 6 months. We're probably more interested in living just outside Lex. I grew up in the country, but have lived a city life lately and can't decide just how "away from it all" I'd like now. Could someone please offer some insight?

-We're from central IN, and most family is still there
-We've also lived in New Haven, CT, and now live in Salt Lake City, UT (and will be sorry to leave the mtns, snow & dry air)
-We love hiking; I also run and my husband cycles
-We have a 1-yr-old son, so will be looking at schools and thinking long-term
-Looking to buy $300k or less
-We like historic homes & architecture, and want enough land to have elbow room (CT and UT homes are usually on 0.2 acres or less, in this price range, so anything's gotta be better than that)
-We're not totally liberal, but probably moreso than many KY/IN people, and enjoy cultural events/theater/music/literature.

Any recommendations? Are Winchester, Georgetown or Paris nice?

We're ready to make a place Home. I hope we like it there...

[censusdata]

The nearest good hiking trails to Lexington are the Natural Bridge/ Red River Gorge area, which is about 45 minutes away. Berea College Forest also has some nice trails, & is 30 minutes away

There are a lot of bike lanes in Lexington, but no separate bike trails that I'm aware of. A 110 mile long bike trail is being built around Louisville (30 miles already completed), which is only one hour away. The shoulders on US 60 btw Frankfort & Lexington are often used by cyclists as well.

[mlpslc]

Hi, my husband and I moved here from Salt Lake last August--he's in graduate school at the University of Kentucky.

As for city life in Lexington and surrounding areas...Lexington itself has about 200,000-250,000 people (as far as I can tell, I haven't looked at any hard numbers lately). It's got a somewhat vibrant downtown life, there's lots of farmers markets during the warmer seasons and there are number of good restaurants/bars in town. As far as living right outside Lexington, well...Lexington doesn't have any "real" suburbs. As in, the city itself just does not melt right into suburbs because the outlying land is made up of horse farms and other horse industry land. So you've got your outlying towns such as Paris, Winchester, Richmond, Nicholasville, Georgetown etc, but there's real country in between there.

From what I have seen of Georgetown (not much), it's pretty nice. We spent some time house shopping and found some very nice family-centric neighborhoods. There's a small college there and so you've got a student population as well. I've never been to Paris or Winchester, so I couldn't tell you about those... I hear the towns of Lawrenceburg (45 min away from Lex) and Nicholasville (10 minutes out) are nice though. 300k would probably net you a nice home around here--not sure about historic homes though, depending on the level of restoration, that could get more expensive.

As far as cultural events go, most of those would probably be centered in Lexington, usually around downtown and the University of Kentucky. We've been to some good plays at the student theatre and there are usually a few big music names (sadly more country than I would like) that come to the 2 or 3 venues around here that host shows. Cincinnati is only an hour and a half away and there is a lot going on there, we've gone twice so far.

And again, the farmers markets are great and definitely comparable to the Pioneer Park market held in SLC on Saturdays. I would say that the more rural you go, and the further south you go, the more conservative it gets, but I have only lived here for 8 months so maybe someone who has lived here longer can give you more insight on things to do around here (schools as well--we don't have any kids yet). We haven't been hiking yet but are looking to go to the Red River Gorge as soon as it gets warmer.

Also: the traffic here is *terrible*. Too many cars, not enough road. You will miss those wide roads in SLC! I live 5 miles from work and it takes me 20-25 minutes to get here in the morning, depending on traffic. Depending on where your husband works, living close to his job may be a big plus for you guys.

If you ever want to hang out with some former SLC-ers let us know! We miss it terribly :P But this is the first time either of us have lived away from Idaho/Utah, so that's too be expected I guess. Good luck!

[towanda12]

Thanks, mlpslc! We'll probably head that way in a few weeks to see the area. We're really torn between living the country life or being able to walk to a coffee shop, so we'll see what we find.

We got a little snow last night and it's melted now. We're going to miss the powder and sunshine...Is the humidity there killing you after growing up in dry air?