Sometime next year (not sure when yet) my family and I are looking to move to Tennessee or South Carolina. We know nothing of either state and this is what I am asking for. Where in either of these two states would you live and why? We want to be in the country with a few acres, but close (15 miles or so) to a midsize or large city.
Is this move retirement or due to another life event? Not being nosy, just thinking that might make a difference in location/stage of life.I have a friend who moved to Nashville last year and they love it. But they also have three kids who are all preteen and below.There are two great churches I’ve visited in the last few years in Chattanooga/Cleveland that I enjoyed – Redemption to the Nations/Kevin Wallace & OCI/Perry Stone/Karen Wheaton.The only thing I’m really familiar with in SC is the Mauldin/Greenville area, which I visited 40 years ago when I was in Summer Bible School as a teenager!I live in NC and it is pretty awesome! ________________More of Him…less of me.twitter.com/camiracle77www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=691241499&ref=name
Where are you moving from?Do factors like being near family and friends, or medical centers, play a role in the state and city you choose? Or are you looking for country livin’?
Re: More info
You want to live up a holler? I’m not the man to ask. I was born in TN, (lived in Cleveland, Knoxville and for a short time in Millington), and now live in SC, where my wife and I are considering retiring. You might like the upstate of SC, but its growing so fast and all those Yankees are coming down and driving prices up.
East Tennessee…
Specifically, southeast Tennessee. Now, I would do that because I was born there, all my kin are there, and I have a strong connection there. But there’s more to it….I love the mountains. I love rafting. I love being in the area where the Church of God started (I was born in Cleveland, probably about 50 or so miles from Barney Creek…and Fields of the Wood). Now, if you are retiring, or otherwise have no plans to pastor, etc., I would do it for the sheer beauty that is withing a two-hour radius (or so): The Smokies, the Ocoee River, Hiwassee River, another river that shall not be named, Fall Creek Falls, Bea’s Cafeteria, the Tennessee Aquarium, lots of fishing and hunting, etc.BUT IF YOU ARE PASTORING….One of the things about being bi-vocational is that you can often feel like you need to take a vacation to see something, unless those things are right there…. But if you were in that part of the country, you could easily do something just about every day that is vacation worthy. For instance, on Sunday afternoon (after church–assuming you don’t have night service), you could go to the Smokies. Or rafting. In other words, you wouldn’t have to take off for a week or two bloc, but could do things on or near the weekend, or with just an extra day off one week. If I lived ANYWHERE in the southeast besides Florida, that SE Tennessee would be the place.
I have driven through Tennessee, but I’ve never lived there. I live pretty close to South Carolina, and technically, I think I was made in South Carolina, though I was born in North Carolina.For me personally, I like to be near cities to buy food. I’d want to be near a city that has international grocery stores so my wife can get Indonesian food, and also Korean and Thai food and other things she’d like to eat. So for me, if I wanted to retire in SC and didn’t need to work, maybe I’d go for the Greenville-Spartanburg area. That is part of the largest metro area that also includes Mauldin and Anderson. Technically, Columbia is the largest city, and has less than 150k people. It is also about 4 or 5 degrees cooler in Greenvilel-Spartenburg than it is in Columbia, and cooler than the CSRA which includes Aiken SC and Augusta GA. There is a Greenville-Spartunburg airport also. For me, that’s part of SC is a little more convenient for visiting my parents. If you moved a little out from that area, you could be out in the country, which might be safer if the country goes through a near-apocalyptic type situation. If you didn’t care about the rural acreage, Charleston sounds interesting. But real estate is high there. You don’t get as much land for your buck there. But it’s a historical city known for cuisine.
Thoughts & Suggestions
I may be wrong but I believe there is no income tax in the state of TN. That certainly could be an advantage to living there, but perhaps the tax is made up by higher gas or sales tax.I agree with a previous poster, the upstate of SC would be a good place to consider. However, the area around Greenville/Spartanburg is filling up fast, chiefly due to the BMW factory and its influence.
Well, as one of those “Yankees who came down and drove the prices up†my advice is to choose Tennessee. Beautiful state and climate, and I even found a few people who were nice to this Yankee. None of em were COG though. Just sayin’________________“Hell will be filled with people that didn’t cuss, didn’t drink, and may even have been baptized. Why? Because none of those things makes someone a Christian.”
I live in S. Ga. about 25 miles from the camp ground. And just over an hour from Tallahassee Fl. I happen to know of someone looking for a dump truck driver (10 wheeler) in Moultrie Ga., about 30 miles from the Camp Ground which is in Tifton Ga. Even know of a house for sale about 5 miles from town. Tallahassee has an international market and Valdosta (40 miles away) may have one.Another suggestion would be Hartwell Ga., near beautiful Lake Hartwell, NE Ga, 30 from Anderson SC________________Recorded Sermons @ http://www.pastorwiley.com