My husband and I are originally from southern New England, but have lived in CO for the last 9 years. We're strongly considering moving back to the east coast to be closer to family. We still really like CO, and aren't totally sold on moving, but we have a 4 year old who we'd like to be able to see his grandparents more than twice a year. Plus, my husband is getting sick of snow. I love snow, so I think we're looking to compromise by moving to an area that still see's some snow, but isn't horribly hot for months on end.
Here's the type of area we're looking for:
We'd like to be within an hour of a large city, particularly one with a decent airport. We like being able to take our son to museums, aquariums, zoo's, etc.
Lots of parks with good hiking area's (hills would be nice)
We don't want to live in the suburbs, since we want a home on a few acres. We can compromise a bit here, but we won't settle for a tiny lot (1 acre is probably minimum)
Nice homes on land for less than 500k
Community feel
Good schools
Decent amount of amenities and restaurants
Preferably a place that isn't completely overcast all winter, but we're willing to compromise, since we know that's common (at least it was in New England)
ETA: A fairly progressive place. We try to eat mostly organic, so either farmer's markets,Whole Foods or some other organic store would be nice.
As for jobs, I work in sports medicine (athletic trainer) and my husband can work in several fields (IT, design, automotive, personal training)
We're taking a road trip this summer, so we'd like to have a few area's to check out. We looked at NC last summer (Raleigh and Charlotte), but I'm not sure we were in love with either place. I liked Raleigh more than I liked Charlotte, since it just seemed more progressive to me. But, it gets a bit too hot down there (for too long) for my liking!
Where we live now:
We're in a fairly rural area, and most things are pretty far from us. The supermarkets are "close" at 20 min away. Most other amenities are 50 min away, the city is about an hr away, and the airport is about an hr and 15 min away. We'd love to live closer to a decent sized town with amenities, but have no problem traveling a distance to get to museums and zoo's.
We live in the foothills outside of Denver, so we have lots of access to outdoor activities. We haven't been able to do as much with a kiddo in tow, but he'll be able to start doing more in the next year or two.
We're used to lots of blue skies, low humidity, and practically no bugs, so it's going to take some time to get used to the east coast weather and bugs again!
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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