Moving to KY with teenage kids (Lexington, Owensboro: purchase, public school, living)

[mommysoup]

My husband is retiring in August and we want to move to KY or TN area. We are looking for an area with small town living that will be welcoming to an out-of-stater. I would like to be within 30 mins of a hospital and other amenities. Could care less about malls and shopping though. Our kids will be in 8th grade, and 10th grade at a public school. Son is not interested in sports, more of computers and graphics. Daughter is social but quirky, artistic and opinionated.
Housing needs to be less than $200,000 with at least 5 acres and we are looking towards the southeast part of the state. We want the rolling hills,streams, and trees, not flat farm land.

Our main focus is a place that our kids will be comfortable and be able to make friends to make the transition easier. We will be coming from CA but we are not "CA people". Which is meant to say we are pretty conservative politically and socially.

Oh and we like cake AND pie

[EricOldTime]

Originally Posted by mommysoup

My husband is retiring in August and we want to move to KY or TN area. We are looking for an area with small town living that will be welcoming to an out-of-stater. I would like to be within 30 mins of a hospital and other amenities. Could care less about malls and shopping though. Our kids will be in 8th grade, and 10th grade at a public school. Son is not interested in sports, more of computers and graphics. Daughter is social but quirky, artistic and opinionated.
Housing needs to be less than $200,000 with at least 5 acres and we are looking towards the southeast part of the state. We want the rolling hills,streams, and trees, not flat farm land.

Our main focus is a place that our kids will be comfortable and be able to make friends to make the transition easier. We will be coming from CA but we are not "CA people". Which is meant to say we are pretty conservative politically and socially.

Oh and we like cake AND pie

Well there's plenty of cake and pie in Kentucky so no worries about that!

You mentioned: "We want the rolling hills,streams, and trees, not flat farm land."

The thing is with Kentucky is there's a little bit of all of that in just about every county in the state seems like, of course save for east and south and north east of Lexington where there's alot of mountains. It seems like every county has some hilly and more wooded areas and also some more flat to farm like areas with big fields etc.. Some have a bit more of one than the other. One minute you could be driving through some fairly rolling to open country, cornfields, tobacco etc. Then, go around a curve and you might plunge into suddenly an area that's got alot of high hills "called knobs" or drive up some long wooded ridges with wooded gullies and "hollers" all around.....the scenery is like that in lot's of parts of Kentucky...it can change that quick.

I'd say, personally you'd need to avoid alot of the "Purchase" in far, far western Kentucky or southern Kentucky along the Tennessee line from about Franklin Kentucky over to about Hopkinsville ( we say "Hop-town" in Kentucky..

These areas are rather flat to rolling in spots and fairly open country, beautiful in it's own right but I wouldn't call it hilly with streams and alot of trees.

However, some areas of the Purchase close to around Kentucky lake and Lake Barkley can be rather hilly and picturesque, with LOTS of trees. Kygman will probably correct me LOL but I believe the "Land Between the Lakes" area has several hundred thousands of acres of rolling to some high hills, wooded and all the streams and lakes that you'd ever want. Plus nearby you've got Paducah, Mayfield, Benton, Grand Rivers, Eddyville....the biggest being Paducah. Paducah is a pretty good sized town, right on the Ohio river so if you bought some "hilly, wooded ground over around the lake somewhere, Paducah's relatively close by.

Another area you might like is between "Bowling Green" and "Owensboro" area....especially around the Green and Gasper rivers in that area. This is closer over to the areas where my family lives. It's quite hilly in and around those river valleys and bottoms down through there, a nice area and Bowling Green is pretty close by which is a nice decent sized town. Or even NE of Bowling Green around Hart and Edmonson county and "Mammoth Caves" nat'l park. Plenty of pretty good hills and timber up through there as well. It's another area of Ky I personally really like.

I mean, honestly there's probably about a zillion places throughout the commonwealth that could be recommended for you. I'm sure that some others here who are more familiar with other parts of Kentucky will chime in with some good suggestions.

Have you ever been to "Ole Kentucky" for a visit? If not, you should come and check it out, you'll quickly fall in love with it. I see that you also mentioned you were looking at "the south eastern" part of Kentucky. Well, that part of the state is "anything" but hills. It's a very mountainous and very beautiful area with steep grades and is "heavily" forested.. to say the least with the "Daniel Boone Nat'l Forest" and alot of other wilderness type places over there.

Maybe you'd like the "Berea" "Mt Vernon" area?

[CHAIN5]

Originally Posted by mommysoup

My husband is retiring in August and we want to move to KY or TN area. We are looking for an area with small town living that will be welcoming to an out-of-stater. I would like to be within 30 mins of a hospital and other amenities. Could care less about malls and shopping though. Our kids will be in 8th grade, and 10th grade at a public school. Son is not interested in sports, more of computers and graphics. Daughter is social but quirky, artistic and opinionated.
Housing needs to be less than $200,000 with at least 5 acres and we are looking towards the southeast part of the state. We want the rolling hills,streams, and trees, not flat farm land.

Our main focus is a place that our kids will be comfortable and be able to make friends to make the transition easier. We will be coming from CA but we are not "CA people". Which is meant to say we are pretty conservative politically and socially.

Oh and we like cake AND pie

Hi, we're also considering a move to KY with kids. I have three girls, ranging from 4 - 14. Currently they are in a school that ranks fairly high for the state of PA and the US in general - so schools are definitely a big consideration, I know we're going to miss this one, no matter how good the schools are elsewhere. And not only because of its ranking, but also because it's still fairly small and teachers know everyone, which I really like.

If it's at all helpful to you, here are the schools districts we're considering.


Pulaski (Science Hill)

Calloway (Murray) MHS ranks #20 for KY high schools, US News and World Reports

Marshall (Benton)

Warren (Bowling Green) BGHS ranks #10

We're also looking a bit at the Corbin area (my mom grew up there, and I still have relatives in different parts of the state).

CHS ranks #18, and South Laurel HS in London (near Corbin) ranks #11

Of course, it seems like most of the highest ranking schools tend to be in either heavily populated areas or more expensive areas.

I'm concerned about my kids fitting in, too. The oldest can be opinionated as well, the middle one is pretty shy, and neither of them want to move. If everything falls into place well, I'm hoping we can connect with some fellow students through a church youth group before the next school year starts. If you're church goers, that might be an option.

Hope your move goes smoothly.

[Dave dave]

Do yourself a huge favor and wait until they graduate.