I have a friend who made a bunch of money working 7 days a week for a few years. After buying a motor home and touring the country, she decided to settle in Bristoe’s part of the world. She bought some rural acreage with a house and river frontage. She posted the property against trespassing. And then the trouble started. The locals didn’t take kindly to an uppity female outsider moving in and excluding them from “their” property, and trespassing and vandalism were constant problems. At one point, she would sling an AK47 to get the mail. One time she could not get out of her house and it turned out that someone had welded the doors shut. The sheriff couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything. I haven’t spoken with her lately, but I heard from another friend that she moved to another state.
Due diligence is important. I am sure my friend’s situation could happen in a lot of places, not just in Kentucky.
That doesn't sound like typical behavior in the Bluegrass region,...maybe southeast of here.
Have no idea what her situation is, but often times how you treat your neighbors when you move in often times affects how they treat. If one comes into the neighborhood and introduces themselves to the neighbors and breaks bread with them they'll likely have a different experience than if they act in a way that says, "Stay off my property you backwards hillbillies."
Just announced that Alaska,s health care costs are the highest in the nation.
Said that a family of 4 pays an average of 40 k for health insurance here in Alaska.
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Wow, I must be way below average. when I lived in AK, I paid about $7K a year for insurance, but there were only 3 of us in the family. But I will bet that our average health care costs for the year did run up to maybe 12K overall. (Insurance cost plus what we had to pay out of pocket) Thanks Obongo...
Don't know how long you've been out of the state, but insurance premiums have pretty much doubled in the past 4 years combined with rising deductibles to where it seems everything is out of pocket.
That said I don't know how an average family is spending $40k a year unless they are on expensive medications.
We left Kodiak in 2011. For being a small city, we had what I considered some excellent health care there. Great trauma surgeons, optometrist, but you did have to get on the list for some specialists and see them about once/ quarter depending on what it was for.
Taxes, politics, and other factors rule out all but Tennessee for me. And even then, it would have to be in Eastern Tenn in the mountains.
I was actually out in the Johnson City area earlier this year, and there simply wasn't enough motivation and incentive for me to consider moving from Texas. YMMV
The "M"s are out...... Missouri too flat, humid (but they have Black Widow bows in Nixon)... Michigan is beautiful but out b/c too humid and all the tri-county, knuckle-dragging sub-humans (but they have Pierce Engineering - awesome rifle actions)
-Indiana - why the phouck would anyone in their right mind consider moving to Indiana? Seriously? Nothing redeemable there.....
-Kentucky - beautiful, but too hot/humid (it's a phoucking jungle.....) -Tennessee - again, beautiful but too hot/humid
-Wisconsin - contender - but a little on the taxy side as well as too close to Chitcago and a generally liberal state government (too many firearm related things to mention that are AWESOME).
I'm liking KY and IN. Always have. Now about where to live? But keep all suggestions coming. But locality to family tops the list right now. It's a good time in life for me to move.
If you're seriously thinking about moving to a place in Kentucky that would keep you relatively close to Illinois, You might want to look around in the semi-western part of the piece of Kentucky that's between Owensboro and Bowling Green.
I don't like either Owensboro *or* Bowling Green,...but the part of Kentucky that falls between them is very secluded, low cost of living, and has good people.
Also,..it's "the south".
For such a small state, Kentucky has quite a few very distinct regions. Anything west of Elizabethtown is the south. East of there is the Bluegrass and Appalachia.
I've seen all of this place and I much prefer the rural areas of the Bluegrass region, but it's a bit of a drive from here to Illinois. Not too much, though. The illinois state line is maybe 4 hours or so from here.
If you moved into far western Kentucky, Illinois is just across the bridge. But I don't recommend far western Kentucky.
Geographically, politically, and culturally, Kentucky is a very diverse state. I'm in southwest Kentucky, close to Tennessee (it's okay, unless the winds blowing from the south), and this part of the state is very much Southern in our culture. The eastern part of the state is much different, and although the scenery is beautiful, I wouldn't want to live there. Northern Kentucky is just too Yankee like for me, and I tend to stay away. The Bluegrass area is okay, for visiting anyway. Western Kentucky is where it's at. I honestly wouldn't want to live anyplace else, other than Texas maybe, or South Dakota. The only downside here is the summer heat and humidity.
Much good input... A lot of variety here in KY. Do you want hills and up and down, and very colorful season changes in the fall ? Eastern KY. Do you want relatively flat and open areas. lotso corn and beans ? Western KY. If you're into deer hunting, the deer hunting map below, dark colors are "Zone 1" with very generous bag limits, and often times some good racks to boot. The dark part of the deer map out to the far western part of the state is also part of the Mississippi flyway. Good duck hunting. That area also has Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, EXCELLENT crappie fishing at the right times of the year. Finally, anything along the top edge of that map is the Ohio river. Always some type of fishing to be done on the river.
Born and raised in KY. Spent 4 years in NE PA on a job rotation. Loved NE PA. But, KY is home. No intentions of leaving again. If I were to move again, within KY, it would be further south and east which is where my mother's family came from...