OH please buy my neighbors place!! 40 plus acres, house, barn, small lake, sets back off the road--nice grass, she'd probably even let you buy her 3 or 4 head of cattle. cant remember the name of them, but they're shaggy, long horns. they're moving, and the guy that sold it to them wants it back--and he isnt someone we want back for a neighbor.

The set up sounds nice. Cows??? I couldn't eat a pet. As you can see I'm not a farm girl. I was looking at Arkansas.
We have looked at Florida but the taxes will kill you. We want to cash out of our house here in Arizona and be able to take the money and travel a little.
Georgia my husband felt was a little rural for someone born in Chicago.
I try checking out the garden sites to see what is going on in the areas to try and see if I can live in the area and find something to do.
I hope that you get nice neighbors...
Yours,
Mickey

Sounds like a place I'd like to move to. I've just started looking for a job in the Ozarks area. DH wants to live in or near the Cherokee Nation, but I'd consider anywhere I can find a job and have some land. What kind of work is in the area?

Sally

Hey- my husband and I are in the process of moving from Florida back to the Arkansas Ozarks (north central or northwestern Arkansas, depending upon where the job is). Here's a little info that might help you focus your search.

If you need to work, look first at the Fayetteville/Rogers/Bentonville/Springdale area of Northwest Arkansas. The economy is booming there and unemployment is low. It also has all the "big city" amenities you might be accustomed to.

If you are finished working and want to live cheaply, try the northcentral area (Harrison and Mountain Home are the biggest towns in that area). The scenery is unbelievable, and living costs (including taxes) are very low. However, you'll have to travel to Northwest Arkansas, Springfield, MO, or Little Rock for shopping or high-class cultural activities.

Also fyi-- There's a land developer that's heavily advertising planned communities in Bella Vista, Holiday Island, Cherokee Village, Hot Springs Village, etc-- these are very inexpensive places to live, but they're also fairly remote. (The communities have been stagnating, half empty, for decades-- a developer just bought the remaining lots, jacked up their prices, and is marketing them on TV.) Be sure to explore the area thoroughly if you have an interest in one of those. They're not unpleasant or unsafe places-- just out in the sticks. (Bella Vista might be the one exception because of all the growth in NWA in recent years.)

Thanks for the suggestions. I would love to live in the Harrison area. It's beautiful. I wish I was finished working and was independently wealthy, but that's not the case, of course. My fantasy/dream home would be a nice modest home on a smallish acreage, somewhere around 15 to 40 acres, part prairie and part forest, with a stream running through it. That would be heaven for me. If I found myself living in a "planned community" I'd know for sure that i'd died and gone to h**l - I'd done something to make the Big Gal up there very mad.

Sally