Which state in the USA for a small-town lifestyle?

[EleventyTrillion]

I have the opportunity to move to the states, basically anywhere I like. It's something I've always loved the idea of, though I've never actually been there.

First off - guns. I know. I don't have any children and it's just not something I'm particularly worried about. Ditto politics. I know many people would not entertain a move to the states for these reasons, but I still want to go. I'm purely interested in which parts of the country would offer the best quality of life for someone like me.

I've always lived rurally in the UK and am definitely not wanting to live in a city or large town. I just want space - the kind of space you don't get in the UK unless you're very wealthy. Not necessarily a big house, but space around it.

I love the look of the towns in Christmas films. Maybe Vermont or Massachusetts. I don't really like the heat and I do like mountains. Can take or leave the coast. I don't have many hobbies except walking, and am very introverted and not bothered about meeting people really.

So for someone like me, where shall I start looking? I'll only be renting for the first while, but have £400k equity in my UK house which I plan to eventually put towards a home wherever I settle.

You should set up a blog/vlog/Facebook page/whatever about this: looking for somewhere to move to and the whole process til moving and beyond.

Massachusetts hands down. It's a wonderful New England state with a high quality of life

I'm in the US, in the midwest, in a large city in Nebraska. The reputation of Nebraska is that there is a category called "Nebraska Nice". We have lots of small towns and many small minds. New gun laws allow anyone without a background check or license to carry a concealed weapon. No training is required.

1. If you don't drive, the first thing you should check is public transportation options.
2. Make sure you have health insurance.
3. Renting an apartment is not easy.

New England area is lovely but some drawbacks like taxes (Mass for example). Best place I have spent time was North Carolina but either one of the Carolina's is great. Mountains, forest and sea all close and you are normally south of the snow and north of the hurricanes. Look around Raleigh.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont- all beautiful and the only places I'd live.

Obviously NYC would be my first choice but, money.

I definitely think you should go and visit before committing to a move. I studied in the States for a year (New England) and have also lived in Germany, and I found the culture in the States more foreign and difficult to adjust to than Germany, even though my German wasn’t brilliant when I arrived. We think we know the US because they speak English and we’ve seen all the movies etc, but actually it’s a very very different culture.

Anywhere you still have autonomy over your body.

I’m from California, so I can say “ not California!”.

With your list of criteria I first thought of North Carolina, then maybe Colorado or Idaho.

Wisconsin is gorgeous, especially close to the lakes, gorgeous fall, climate similar to Europe (south was just way too hot for me), people were super friendly too where we travelled.

North Carolina I really liked. Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill.

Concord is hardly rural though. Nice, but deffo suburbia.

I disagree about New England being depressing in the winter. I've lived in VT and NH. Yes, the winters are very long and very cold but if you can embrace that and the downhill skiing, cross country skiing, iceskating on frozen rivers and ponds, hot chocolate, cosy houses and log burning stoves then it's much more preferable to our cold, wet winters in the UK.

As always on these threads it's worth saying that you need to consider health insurance and the cost of living which is much higher than here. Is your employer providing health insurance?

I don't really know the US well at all, but we stayed in a small town called Mariposa, which was just an hour's drive from Yosemite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariposa,_California

Do not, I repeat do not, move to West Virginia

Food prices in Alaska are off the scale. Don’t know if that’s the USA in general.

I've studied in Mass in a small town near Springfield. It's a great area full of pretty colleges, white churches, fabulous countryside and of course fall colours in October and snow in winter. Amherst is a real delight and very Gilmore Girls. But I would recommend New Hampshire for your list, or - if you win the lottery - Kennebunkport in Maine.

This was my first thought too. I’d worry about health care and my retirement a lot more in the USA.

From what you have described, I think you would like the North East (Maine, Upstate New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania) or the Pacific North West (Washington state, Oregon).

Definitely have a look at Connecticut as well

When I think of Concord I picture it still being the 1860s there, and the March girls getting up to their various wholesome adventures.

I lived there with an ex. I once considered making it my permanent home. It has much to recommend it.

Even an idyllic state like this does have its downside, though. One immediate issue is jobs and careers. It looks like the perfect place to raise a child, but it's remote, freezing in winter, doesn't have all that many warm periods even in summer, and when they come to working age they'll up sticks anyway and move to the more gun-ridden areas that a life in Maine was meant to protect them from in the first place.

A lot of people leave the state in their 20s to go and work elsewhere; some choose to return in later life.

It's a peculiar anomaly politically speaking: the coastal areas tend to be quite blue, whilst the interior is predominantly red.

For a nature loving, country loving person like me it's a dream come true and I've often wondered how life might have turned out differently if we'd stayed. New York State and the New England states are all lovely, likewise Connecticut. Small town US is in many ways a very comfortable, pleasant place to be.

A friend of mine lived just near there: near Alewife where the subway ends. She had a railroad running nearish the back of her house, and it was lovely to sit out there on the decking, listening to the melancholy train whistles and hearing the great horned owls hooting from the nearby woods.

This thread is making me really nostalgic.

Susan Coolidge describes that place so vividly in What Katy Did at School that ever since reading the book I've always wanted to see it. She rechristened it 'Arrowmouth', but the descriptions of the surroundings are unmistakable.

As an academic I still sometimes wish I'd netted a job over there, with UK HE now being in the state it's in!

Im curious why now?

I suggest you visit first OP.

Be under no illusions that the US is anything like the UK, just because they speak the same language.