This assignment is making my head explode! LOL... There are TOO MANY CHOICES. You need to give us some additional clues to help narrow this down a bit.

As an East Coast girl, with southern roots, there are lots of nice places up and down the coastline that offer quick accessibility to civilization with a smalltown feel. Virginia and North Carolina are good choices. West Virginia -- I would say no. Maryland -- can be expensive. I don't like to go much farther north than that for a variety of reasons, among which are weather and traffic. I haven't spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania, but I do know that parts of it are absolutely gorgeous, and Philadelphia sounds like a decent place to live. (I was there a couple of times many years ago.)

I know nothing about where to live in Illinois, although I would probably try to be reasonably close to Chicago for all that it has to offer.

Give us some other clues, and maybe we can nail this down a little bit better. What career path is your husband on, for example? (You may have said, but I don't remember.) Is he locked into one specific thing, or is he flexible to a point? For example, Arizona-daughter had a school roommate whose father is a very successful rice farmer in Louisiana. There are only so many locations where one can pursue this living!!! (I was going to say "field" instead of "living", but I thought that the pun was a little too much for first thing in the morning!)

Moore ideas wrote:

---

I haven't spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania, but I do know that parts of it are absolutely gorgeous, and Philadelphia sounds like a decent place to live. (I was there a couple of times many years ago.)


LOL
The city has recently undergone redevelopment and is supposed to be greatly improved, but you'd never get me back there to live!

Pine Valley is supposed to be nice! And, you'd become an instant millionaire, Jess. LOL... Everyone in Pine Valley lives in mansions.

Oh, right. It's fictional...

Well, he wants to stay with ATT since he's really moving up in the company, and they are all over the place. I really like the idea of the Virginias, Pennsylvania, or Massachusettes.

Well, of course I'm a little bit biased towards Virginia, but truthfully it's a lovely place to live. If you move beyond the Northern Virginia/Washington, DC beltway area (which is where I am), you can avoid some traffic, and also have a slightly lower cost of living.

Southwestern Virginia is gorgeous, and very laid back although there's access to Charlottesville (Thomas Jefferson's home, and home to UVA, hospitals, etc., etc.), Lynchburg (where Arizona-daughter spent her last two years of boarding school) -- a charming area, Staunton (home of my old boarding school, and one of my favorite places on the planet -- absolutely charming), and Roanoke.

The surrounding areas are just beautiful.

Forget Richmond, though. It's hideously ugly!

Charlottesville is about 1-1/2 hours from Washington, DC; Staunton about 2-1/2 hours away; Lynchburg is 3-1/2 hours away; and Roanoke is about four. However, all of these communities have a lot of offer on their own!

Why did you move, Brandon? Nosy, ain't I?

Traffic is pretty bad but jobs around and of course Chicago is an awesome place to take the kids.... Bulls/sox games, Navy Pier, the lake, American Girl store, Museums, etc, etc

Lots of homes for sale really cheap right now.

We live in Plainfield, not bad taxes, close enough to the city, but small town feel.

My husband and I lived in Colorado the first year we we married (well, not quite a full year), and it's a beautiful place to live. Our youngest daughter ALMOST went to UC at Boulder, but decided on ASU instead...

I think that you made a good decision, Brandon!

Hmmm right now I'm leaning very heavily toward the Staunton area or returnign to Woodridge .. of course this will be a while down the line, but I figure I should decide now.

Bran, the husband mentioned Colorado .. I'm thinking not so much because that's a lot furher than I want to go.

Well, KaeEll, that's part of why we moved back to Virginia from Colorado. As beautiful as it was out there, our families were here, and it was just too difficult to be that far away.

Jessica, Staunton is a lovely college town with a lot of history (also President Woodrow Wilson's birthplace) with a lot of charm. Charlottesville is also a great place! While my heart is deeply attached to Staunton, and I would consider living there myself, Charlottesville probably has more to offer culturally, and has been rated in the past as one of the country's best places to live.

I don't know how long it's been since you lived in Woodbridge, but if you're trying to commute into Washington, DC, there's a lot of traffic during rush hour, and that general area is a bit of a mess, I think. However, if you go a little farther south on I-95, Fredericksburg is also nice. College/University towns are often a good choice...

Jess, stay far away from Wyoming. Besides the insanely cold winters, the cost of living here is OUTRAGEOUS.

My apartment is dirt cheap for this area, and it's $700 a month. Most really nice ones are at least a grand.

And houses? Forget about it. My mom's house in Arkansas was $57,000. Small, three bedrooms and a large backyard. That same house here in Gillette is easily $175,000-$200,000. Easily.

Good luck. Moving is a big thing. Keep us posted!

Something tells me that a simple traffic stop isn't going to result in 7 years in jail. Even Sherrif Joe isn't that tough.

Ditto up here regarding housing. A cracker box 3 bedroom in this neighbourhood is $500,000 for starters. Add a couple of gold taps and you're looking at a million. Insane.

Here is my input on Massachusetts. Massachusetts is a wonderful state, but the cost of living is outrageous. We are actually losing alot of our college grads to other states, because it is virtually impossible to be able afford a starter home out here. Although housing prices have come down.

I live 50 miles west of Boston, in a small town, and you can now pick-up a small three bedroom ranch house, with a tiny yard, in a neighborhood that has identical houses for around $300,000.00. If you want to put yourself about 30 miles outside of Boston, double that amount..... The really only affordable housing section of the state is out west, in the Springfield/Westfield area. Unfortunately there is not alot of industry out there, so the job opportunities are slim.

Driving in Boston is an absolute breeze these days. It was horrific prior to, and during the big dig, but now that it is completed, the change is truly amazing. The public transportation, Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) is excellent. Although if there is a Red Sox game on, going can be a bit slow, because for some reason, those silly games sell out....

My daughter graduated college and moved to New Hampshire. That's a nice state, with no state income tax, although the property taxes are slightly higher. The state owns all of the liquor stores, so that is a major source of revenue for the state. Houses are also significantly less in NH than Massachusetts.

One state that I really like up here is Rhode Island. It has some beautiful sea coast, and the city of Providence is beautiful. I believe that real estate is less there, RI would be my first choice for a New England state, because it has industry, housing costs are less, and the ocean is beautiful.

Good luck!