Relocating - any suggestions for a rural town WEST of Columbus?

[xnyer]

Originally Posted by 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!!

If you want rural, check out the intersections of SR 161 and SR 38. For some reason there's a sign marking it as "Chuckery". There is a house and a church there. It's 10 miles south of Marysville. If you lived there would you be a Chuckerian or a Chucketarian?

[xnyer]

Originally Posted by 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!

Suburban sprawl around Galloway is ruining the rural flavor of the place. It will be interesting to see what this area looks like in 10 years. I'm betting, just another Hilliard--interesting (expensive) Main Street, but surrounded by overcrowded, look alike subdivisions and that traffic nightmare of Rome-Hilliard Rd. When they next over build along US 42, empty storefronts will pop up along Rome-Hilliard just like West Broad St. and then watch the property values go down.

[Molerst]

Check out Ostrander. It's a one road, three building town, but covers a huge mailing address area. Anything with an Ostrander mailing address is generally pretty rural, farm fields subdivided to large estate lots and smaller country houses all mixed in. Northwest of Columbus. Didn't see Marysville mentioned, but I wouldn't want to live there anyway