western TN...does this place exist? (Knoxville, Chattanooga: rent, houses, theater)

[foxywench]

well ive found my little peice of TN and hoping to make it my version of heaven..but now my parents are putting some serous thought into relocating too...

Dad is a sailor...he wants a lake or river large enough to toodle about on his boat...fishing is another favorite passtime of his so WATER within 30 mins max large enough for a small sail boat is a must.
he wants land...alot of land if you ask him, however i honestly dont think hed like having lots of land once the novelty of the lawn tractor wears off...

he likes the idea of having enough land to have a small homestead, and still have land left over to host a flea market, motorcycle camp ground, rent out for faires ect, that kind of stuff.

hes also a motorcyclist, (goldwing to be presice) so riding weather and motorcycle friendly is a good thing.

dad grew up rural and wants that back.

dad can work remotly from anywhere if this comes to fruition. hes an IT guy and is also thinking about going to get his EMT lisence as he used to be a nurse so hell have back up work should anythign ever happen

mum however
she likes to fish as a "something to do" she typically likes to stand on the back of dads boat and dangle the rod in to see what happens..(belive it or not this method seems to work for her she ALWAYS catches something big enough to feed 2 people minimum)

but otherwise shes not a sportsy/farmy/outdoorsy type person.
shes very social and wants a place with "things to do" for mum this means a quaint little downtown, cafes, ect places she can wander around, or sit and meet people passing buy.
doesnt have to be a huge place with theater or arts ect, but a nice little cafe, a few nice little store fronts, mabe a community center with activities, farmers/craft market on the weekends type place.

mum doesnt want land because she knows eventually dad wont be able to look after it...she is quite happy with the 1/4 an acre they have right now...

mum does however want a CHARMING house (house with character) shes inlove with wrap around porches, victorian styling ect..but would also be happy in a smaller cottage, 1 level living as long as it had character, so a town with some nice historic type homes or old smaller farm houses would be fine for her

she doesnt want rural and needs easy acess (within 20 mins max) to larger shopping (walmart, lowes, grocery ect) malls are NOT nessicary however.

they both agree that they need to be no more than 2 hours from a regional airport at minimum, dad may have to do some traveling with work and she wants to be relitily close for pick up for visiting family.

happy medium in terms of land right now seems to be in the 3-7 acre zone...dad would like a little more mum a little less.

so within 30 mins of boatable water, 30 mins of a big town with larger amenities, small town feel with nice selection of older homes with a little land on the outskirts of town mabe.

dads looking around the land between the lakes area, paris, big sandy ect...hes also considering savannah (the latter would be closer to me as im relocating to Finger)
mums not sure where she wants to go

there also looking into coastal NC (particualrly around the belhaven, oriental, washington areas) and around charlotte NC too.
but those areas are of course much further away from me and they want to move a little closer to where im going to be...

being in Finger of course im quite centrally located between memphis and nashville, ive got jackson and savannah as my 2 closest big towns, and the henderson, slemer ect all around me...
but ive only seen a small area around me and i dont live there yet (i wil be as soon as my moving truck gets here lol) so i cant realy help them out.

in terms of weather patterns, they want to avoid the ice and snow...a little is fine, but the 12" overnight stuff...nope done with that. big storms dont worry either of them, mum is a little concerned about tornadoes, but theyll be putting a storm shelter in eitherway and mum realizes that no matter where you go in the usa theres going to be some kind of undesirable weather pattern...shes decided she hates snow and ice more than she hates big storms...lol.

im thinking the paris area might work for them but ive only read about it...never been up there...
so is there a town that might be a nice middle ground for my parents.?

[Capt. Dan]

Savannah or Counce

[strumpeace]

Paris / Henry County, hands down.

[BirdieBelle]

Yep, I was thinking Paris or even Grand Rivers, KY. My grandmother lives there alone and has a great little network of friends.

Plus it's the home of world-famous Patti's restaurant.

Grand Rivers - Kentucky Lake, Patti's, Lake Barkley, land between, restaurants

[NY Annie]

Hehe, so they are moving in with you while they look??

[foxywench]

hah! no...lol
there going to come down and visit though, dads planning on comming out before the end of october to help me get everythign that needs to be done sorted before "winter" (make sure things are hooked up properly, and generally see the place) then hes planning on comming down again in the spring on his motorcycle with my uncle...
since there hoping to start looking in the spring mum will probably fly in (she cant do that long of a ride on the bike) and theyll spend a week or 2 using my place as a base to take a look around and see what they think.
right now dads loving the idea of the paris area with the lake, and doesnt mind the sounds of savannah either...but mums still hovering on the charlotte NC (and lancaster SC) areas becaue of the bigger metro area...we'd have to see lol.

[hiknapster]

If she likes larger metro areas they might want to look around Chattanooga and Knoxville. Even Nashville. I know that Chattanooga and Knoxville get very rural, very quick, coming just out of the city. A lot of people on this forum like Cookeville, too.

Charlotte is the new Yankee South/Florida North, a giant transplant land that sort of invaded the area and the locals. With that comes all of the problems that you would expect like tension and traffic for starters. I wouldn't advise my first enemy to move there. A lot of people like it because it is closer to the beaches, though. Maybe if they could get something somewhere in-between.

[TN Tin Man]

Check this place out... just for the boater. Humphreys County Chamber of Commerce | Home and western Tennessee. Check out recreation link. Land Between the lakes is North of this area.. and Nashville is east.