Best retirement towns - Central & East TN (Knoxville, Chattanooga: rental, homes)

[jguillot]

My wife and I are considering retirement in Tennessee. We currently live in California. I am originally from the south and would like to return to the south. We will be spending a few days in Tennessee in August and will look around while we are there. I've found information on-line about places such as Maryville, Lenoir City, Crossville, Cookeville, Norris, Franklin, and Paris, TN. Can anyone comment about any of these places? Thanks.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by jguillot

My wife and I are considering retirement in Tennessee. We currently live in California. I am originally from the south and would like to return to the south. We will be spending a few days in Tennessee in August and will look around while we are there. I've found information on-line about places such as Maryville, Lenoir City, Crossville, Cookeville, Norris, Franklin, and Paris, TN. Can anyone comment about any of these places? Thanks.

You'll get a variety of answers here, I'm sure.

What kind of information are you looking for? Housing prices? Seniors organizations? Golf courses? Shopping? Tax rates? Churches? Symphonies? Airport access?

[alleycat]

Since I've spend some time there, I'll just add that the Paris/Dover areas are great if you like hunting and lake fishing. Kentucky and Barkley Lakes are nearby, as is "Land Between the Lakes" and Paris Landing State Park (which also has golf course, I believe). There is some beauty countryside around that area.

You could also add Monteagle Mountain near Chattanooga to the list.

Echoing JMT's comment, you might want to mention some of the specifics that are important to you. There are quite a lot of differences in the places you listed.

[LauraC]

Originally Posted by jguillot

My wife and I are considering retirement in Tennessee. We currently live in California. I am originally from the south and would like to return to the south. We will be spending a few days in Tennessee in August and will look around while we are there. I've found information on-line about places such as Maryville, Lenoir City, Crossville, Cookeville, Norris, Franklin, and Paris, TN. Can anyone comment about any of these places? Thanks.

What do you and/or your spouse plan to do regularly in retirement so people can tell you about those things? You know, how do you plan to spend your days? For example, if you like to fish, Norris might be better than Crossville. If you like to golf, Crossville might be better than Norris. If you like to hike in the mountains, Maryville might be a better choice. What size and type of town are you looking for? Do you want something spread out or do you have to have a downtown area? Do you need public transportation? Do you need to be within so many miles of a major airport or within so many miles of a major medical facility? Do you have a boat and need to be near a lake? How close does a major mall have to be? Do you have hobbies that require specialty stores to be in your area? Do you want a religious worship choice (that is more than one church of your denomination is the area)? Do you plan to rent or buy? Some town have slim pickins when it comes to rental choices.

[jguillot]

For our retirement years, my wife and I are looking for a change from what we are experiencing in California. Here is what we are looking for:

1. Friendly people who will welcome and accept newcomers
2. Slower paced lifestyles.
3. Lower cost of living
4. People with more conservative values
5. A less populated state
6. Small town atmosphere
7. An area where boating, fishing, and hiking are possible
8. 2 to 5 acres of land where we can build our home
9. An area within 30 to 60 minutes of Knoxville, Nashville, or Chattanoga
10. An area that provides opportunities for shopping without having to drive to one of the large cities.
11. An area where good health care is available.

I am originally from Louisiana and I would like to return to the south. We visited Tennessee a few years ago and like the state. We will be visiting Tennessee again for a few days in August, so we will be looking at different places. I've read articles on places such as Norris, Maryville, Lenoir City, Crossville, Cookeville, Franklin, and Paris, TN. All of these places were rated as great retirement communities. If anyone would like to comment on any of these places or any other places I should consider, please do so. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thank you to JMT, alleycat, and LauraC for your comments.

[alleycat]

No. 9, would eliminate Paris. It would be considerably more than an hour to Nashville; however, it's about an hour from there to Clarksville, which is a city with a population over 100,000.

[JMT]

Thanks for clarifying, jguillot. What you wrote makes a lot of sense, and you shouldn't have any problems finding what you need and want here in Tennessee.

Cookeville and Crossville might be a bit too out in the country, although Crossville is right at an hour from the far western suburbs of Knoxville, and Cookeville is right at an hour from the far eastern suburbs of Nashville, including the Nashville airport (which is a big plus).

I think just about all of the towns you mentioned are conservative in nature and have lower costs of living than you've experienced in California. Franklin, however, is considerably more expensive than the rest of the towns.

Cookeville (my personal favorite) has just about everything else in your list:

It's a small-ish town (just under 30,000) but is home to the fastest-growing state university in Tennessee. It's not a party school, however; it's the state's engineering school. And being a college town, it's definitely open to "outsiders" and has quite a large foreign (particularly Asian) population.

It's got big-city shopping (Sam's Club, two Wal-Mart Supercenters, Kohl's, Sears, JCPenney, Belk, TJMaxx, etc.), tons of restaurants such as Red Lobster, Chili's, Outback, Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday, with Olive Garden and TGI Friday's announced as well as some excellent, locally-owned restaurants and cafes including an intimate French restaurant in a former bank vault and a German restaurant run by a retired Austrian who used to be the personal chef for Monaco's royal family. There's even a Belgian chocolaterie downtown next door to an Asian noodle shop.

Cookeville has the largest hospital between Nashville and Knoxville, and it's undergoing a $70 million expansion.

It's near three large man-made lakes (Center Hill, Dale Hollow, and Cordell Hull), it's got 5 golf courses, a symphony, and all the fun things associated with a medium-sized state university: dozens of theatrical productions during the year, recitals, concerts, lecture series, galleries, sports, etc. It's also home to the highly acclaimed Appalachian Center for Craft.

Another selling point is its proximity to the Nashville airport (1 hour straight down I-40) where air fares are generally half what they are out of Knoxville thanks to Nashville's being a hub for Southwest Airlines.

[jguillot]

Thank you to alleycat and JMT for your replies. You are both fortunate to be living in Tennessee. Cookeville sounds like the kind of place I am looking for. I'm anxious to see it. I'm currently living in the Sacramento metropolitan area and hating it here. Traffic during rush hours here is bad and getting worse all the time. My normal 45 minute commute home from work (to go 16 miles) took 1 hour and 20 minutes yesterday due to a thunderstorm. The cost of living here is much higher than most places in the south. Young people just starting out cannot buy homes here due to the inflated prices. Regular gas in this area is averaging $3.05 per gallon right now. Unfortunately, I can't retire and move yet, so I'm stuck here for a while, but I'll be in Tennessee in August to see Cookeville and several other places. Thanks again for your help.

[mbmouse]

Hi jguillot,
Not to discourage you from other parts of TN you have talked about, but have you looked at the Tri-Cities region at all? It also sounds like it would have everything you are looking for. Kingsport comes to mind as far as 1-8 on your list. However it is about an hour or even a bit more depending where you want to go in Knoxville. But my question is why the larger cities? If it is for things like culture, theater, events and such, you can get all that in this area. Plus we are easy access to many different cities and towns such as Asheville NC and Abington VA.
Here are two web sites that give you a lot of great information about Kingsport. www.movetokingsport.com and www.movetonortheasttn.com
hope that helps.

[jguillot]

Mbmouse, thanks for your reply. I assume that the tri-cities area you refer to is the triangle area between Nashville, Chattanoga, and Knoxville. I have not ruled out this area and I am open to any suggestions you might have. I will definitely check out the information on Kingsport. Thanks for your help and have a great day!