Need help finding a town to move to (Scranton, Bloomsburg: sale, real estate)

[SunnyFLErin]

My husband and I live in Florida right now, but we are planning on selling our house in the next few years and moving to PA or NC. I like PA better, but the reason my husband likes NC is the mountains and the scenery. I know there is beautiful scenery in PA, he just has never seen it himself. If we find some towns we love then we can take a trip and decide for ourselves. We are looking for a small town (less than 5000 residents) somewhat close to a city (so we can work). We are willing to commute up to 45 mins each way. We also want to be near the mountains or in a very hilly area, with lots of nature and wildlife nearby. We don't currently have children, but we will, so we need to be near a good school district. We also want an old home (to me, old is 65+ years) with a lot of land (an acre would be nice). This move is where we plan on spending the rest of our lives, so we want to find the perfect area. One other factor is that we have a pit bull, and I know some areas of the country have banned them, so we won't live in a place where we can't bring our baby with us. We don't have a preference of where in the state we go, but my family lives in Maryland.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Dylan D]

St.marys is nice or if you want the suburbs kind of stuff kersey is a very nice little town. St.marys is nice, it is somewhat middle sized 15,000 people. but it doesnt feel like it at all. it has a nice small town kind of feel there are plenty of old houses in st.marys that are nice but ovoid the downtown if you would move there pick out of downtown like out by the airport or towards east branch dam. it has a good school district and it has public or private school, elk county cristian or St.marys area. good sized schools. st.marys really is not that bad on crime but it has its ocasional regular stuff no killings or rape or anything like that. if you like shopping, there are the main stuff like walmart and all kinds of grocery only a few clothers stores like peebles and fashion bug. but dubous or altoona which have malls are only like an 1 (D) to 2(A) hours away. St.marys is in a very hilly area with some great veiws it also has its own brewery where STRAUBS is made, very good stuff. ask anybody around in pa and st.marys is very wild lifey we have the only elk herd east of the mississippi which is nice. and a lot of wildlife its like a city in the middle of the forest. there are lots of jobs to get whatever field. if not st.marys like i said kersey or surronding areas exept for ridgway and johnsonburg they are very dirty and really nothing to do. there are a lot of parks, 2 golf courses public and private.

[SteelCityRising]

The following communities come to my mind immediately for you to investigate further:

Honesdale
Lewisburg
Montrose
Towanda
Milford
Moscow
Conyngham
Jim Thorpe
Hawley
Tunkhannock
Muncy
Hughesville
Montoursville
Selinsgrove
Danville
Bloomsburg
West Pittston
Wyalusing

I'll elaborate further upon some (or all) of these communities tomorrow, as I'm leaving shortly for work.

[SunnyFLErin]

Wow, that's a lot of towns! I can't wait for the elaborations!

As for St Mary's, it looks nice. I've been looking into it and it seems like a quaint place. We would probably go to the outskirts of it though, because it seems a little bigger than what we have in mind. I like that it's central to highways, though. Makes traveling easier. And I like the Alleghany part of the state. My husband really likes mountains, haha.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep em coming!

[Marodi]

I'd say shoot for something in apple country around biglerville/arendtsville. It's a skip away from some state forests, close to harrisburg which has most of the major national and regional stores and restaraunts along with local things.

(If everyone is saying St Mary's, my assumption is that everyone is going there and it wont be small for long)

[SteelCityRising]

Here's my expansion upon a few of those towns I listed. I'll only elaborate upon those that I have already done photo tours on. Expect the "holes" to be filled in as the months progress and more of my photo tours start making their City-Data debut.

Honesdale: This could quite possibly be the closest match to what you seek. Honesdale has just about 5,000 residents, a quaint Main Street with cafes, antique stores, and other mom-and-pop shops, and various day-to-day conveniences. Just outside of the town are a Home Depot, Wal-Mart, KMart, and other chain stores. You'll be about a 30-35-minute drive from Scranton (pop. 70,000), the region's largest employment center, and the drive to and from the city along U.S. Route 6 is rural, scenic, and pristine. It's possible to drive just a half-mile outside of the town proper and find yourself on a small farm with a barn, old farmhouse, and a few acres of land. It's also possible to find a great historic brick or Victorian home in the town proper on tree-lined streets with sidewalks, even though you won't have the large lots that you seek. Traffic in and around the town becomes quite hellish during the summer tourist season, as many seasonal residents from NY/NJ with vacation homes on nearby Lake Wallenpaupack like to saunter into town in their Mercedes SUVs to point and gawk at the "goofy-looking Pennsylvanians." LOL!

I find most of the townspeople to be phenomenally friendly though, as they're the types to stop on Main Street to motion pedestrians across the street and greet you with a smile as you pass by their stores. There's several annual festivals in town that draw thousands of tourists in from the Tri-State Area, including the Roots & Rhythms Festival, Sidewalk Sale Days, and the Fall Harvest Festival. Honesdale is like Mayberry on all accounts. Just outside of town is the Dorflinger Glass Museum, which is also worth a visit to spend an hour learning about how the Dorflinger family put White Mills, PA on the map with their amazing pieces of glass, some of which were utilized in the White House. Honesdale is just a tad too far away for the NY/NJ commuter crowd to move in and suburbanize the hell out of it, as they've now done with parts of Monroe County, PA.

Here's my photo tour of Honesdale, PA, a town I think you'll love (try to picture it on a sunnier day):

Northeastern Pennsylvania Photo Tour: PART THREE

[SunnyFLErin]

Thank you so much! Honesdale is beautiful! We looked up some census info for there, as well as some real estate listings, and the properties are very affordable! I think we may have found our town.