[Coldjensens]

You will probably need to decide how far away from your son is acceptable. Then people here can be of more help. There are some beautiful places int he UP but they are as much as 10 hours drive away. I live 1 hour form my father. At first that was fine. As he got older, the drive is a bit much for him and he rarely comes out to our house anymore. We go see him (usually just me), but a 2 hour round trip is kind of silly when I can only stay for and hour or so. Plus the kids rarely want to come, so he does not see them much. I get out there probably 3 - 5 times a month. My brother probably about the same. One of my daughters tries to go to dinner with him once a week, but it really works out to twice a month. Dad gets pretty lonely.

So now. an hour away is too far.

Also you need to define inexpensive housing. If you are accustomed to Seattle prices, all of our housing will seem inexpensive. There are some really nice foresty areas that are suburbs (I live on one, it is made up of a group of 14 islands closely spaced), but they are not cheap by local standards. A house on the water will run about $450,000 and up. If you just want to be out of site of the neighbors and do not care about a whole lot else, there are some ruralish areas where a small house on 20 acres can be had for half that or less. (You will not be on water).

Sunshine? We get it sometimes. You can tell the sun is shining because you see people staring up at the sky in puzzlement. That is of course an overstatement. Michiganders love to complain. We excel at it. We bash our state and city continually, but let an outsider say anything remotely negative and bam - they get a lecture. There is a saying popular here. If you do not like the current weather, wait ten minutes. You can get snow, rain, sunshine and shorts weather, 40 mph wind all in on day (unusual to be that extreme but possible). . The temperature can swing 70 degrees in a week. Fall is the prettiest time of year and fall here is better than fall anywhere. iIf you do not like it here in fall, do not move here.

Michigan is one of the top 5 prettiest states in the country IMO, but that excludes the bottom 10% (flat farmland) and most of the metro Detroit area. Some of metro Detroit is reasonably pretty and a few places are super beautiful, but not much of it is. The West Side of the State and the north is extremely beautiful. The Upper Peninsula is stunning in places, but it is very cold and snowy up there. However if you could chose anywhere in the State and did not care about snow, I woudl guess Marquette would be ideal for you.

What will decide your area to look in is how close do you need/want to be to your son?

[LittleSwissArmyGirl]

Originally Posted by magellan

But honestly having traveled and stayed around the United States extensively, I think we have the best summer weather of anywhere in the U.S.. Anything South of the Mason Dixon Line in the summer (after May) is just unbearable for me to be outside.

I've traveled and lived around the US also. So I believe you when you say MI Summer=good. I tried to consider FL when the older son was in St. Pete. My other son & I drove my Ranger down there for Xmas but we thought the place was laughable; sinkholes, hit n runs, the mugshot page in the city paper, and Cat 5ers. Northern CA is awesome but it's still currently a part of CA so they'd tax me to death if the wildfires didn't get me. Eastern WA looked attractive until I remembered the wildfire season THEY have and how vicious and often it blows up these days; yet the Calies keep moving up there. OR is just a cartoon now. And for the life of me I don't know why PNW people move to AZ or NM to retire in an RV park. Sounds so much like a bad B movie.

So thank you for helping fill in all the blanks. I'm slowly getting an idea of what to do;
Yooper Yeep with 2 sets chains/check. Big dog for hiking partner/check. Acreage to barter hunting rights for a venison roast/check. Reacquaint myself with bug spray/check. Stone/brick house to never paint/check. Located 10 minutes or $100,000 away from the Lake Huron Shoreline/check. My WA house will be on the market in 3 weeks! Yay;onward!

[LittleSwissArmyGirl]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

What will decide your area to look in is how close do you need/want to be to your son?

Great question Coldjensens! I have 2 but let me explain; They are both 20 somethings. #1 is a film college hipster working his own youtube business online. #2 is a barista/cook & online herbal remedy/farmers market guy, living on his sailboat p/t and p/t with me. Both are minimalists, small business internet entrepreneurs with 45 second attention spans, don't want cars, careers, kids, pets, etc etc.

We will always be close to each other because we rely on each other. We've never lived near extended family, and their fathers have tragically died. We don't do family reunions or big holidays with extended family. Though we are adventurers, we are a tight group. Like Marines, we will never leave one behind. Also they have good inheritances so now I don't worry that much about them.

Having built my own house and lived in the company timber lands of Western WA I'm familiar with the loneliness your father suffered from. Yet I don't think living super close to #1 son in Detroit would be a good idea. He and his wife will be very busy doing their online business thing and probably won't have a lot of time to visit, and so then what? Wow I'd feel lonely. In fact cities make me feel lonely anyway. There I would be, feeling miserable. Some towns even make me feel lonely. I'm always outside and the neighbors never are!

So I think what MikeBear or Michmoldman said, about Northern Lower Michigan would be ideal. Because as stated above, it's going to come down to ME making MYSELF happy, having to be flexible, & doing all the driving to visit or it ain't gonna happen. That's just reality. Most of our visits, I predict, will be "Mom! Come meet us at such and such museum or train station; we found the coolest thing!

My budget ideally would be 250K for a brick or stone house with enough acreage that I only hear crickets. I bought my current house as a business and rent the master bedroom out online through Airbnb. See littleswissarmyhouse in Cathlamet WA. It's been wildly successful especially since a past owner installed an exterior door in the master bedroom. I'd love to find another home in MI and continue the littleswissarmyhouse business because 1. It's side gig income, 2. It's fun 3. It's like community service!

So to be clear, a grocery within 80 miles r/t, Yooper Yeep with chains, fishing pole, canoe & troller motor, big dog, stone/brick house with trees near but corn is ok, and a room to let, on the Airbnb online program. Honestly Coldjensens, that would keep me pretty occupied!! BTW what are cold jensens?? Longjohns?

[LittleSwissArmyGirl]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

Michiganders love to complain. We excel at it.

That made me snort my coffee. hahaha

I'll fit right in!

[leebeemi]

If you wanted a lot of distance, Marquette would be your place. But it's likely too far away from where your family will be. We have many brew pubs & espresso joints. Many. We need all the customers we can get for them! Bakeries are popping up a lot too...We're all going to be fat drunk insomniacs pretty soon.

One of the sayings you hear about northern Michigan weather is, "Don't like the current weather? Wait 10 mins." It is changeable. I lived in Iowa, and the winters were just days on end of cold, cloudy, depressing weather. Here, we do get a lot of sun in the winter. If it's really cold & the lakes freeze, we get more sunshine. So cold (sub-zero) is actually good. We do not get much in the line of spring. Today is nice, but we'll be lucky to break 50 degrees.

I lived in the Traverse City area for a time and enjoyed the climate. It did have a little more of a spring, which is nice. Winters were a little drabber than I like, but not terrible sunshine wise.

Best of luck finding your perfect spot!

[rntim]

Leebeemi, you just described where I live in Alaska-sorta. My wife is dead set on moving to Marquette area real soon; she is originally from Bay City. I guess I have to tag along because she is my wife after all. I'm not real keen on moving down to the lower 48. Seems like the whole place is just nuts from what I see on the news. But, we are getting old and it is pretty expensive to live in AK. It rains tons where I live and thats getting a little old. We live on a point overlooking the ocean. Think I'd go a little nuts not seeing the water...she says Lake Michigan is just like an ocean. Yeah but you can't pull a halibut or dungy crabs out of Lake Michigan. Can't go brown bear hunting there. She says, "You can't hump up mountains here anymore either." She keeps shooting down all my good points of not moving down south. All I've ever seen is pictures of Michigan and what I can find on the internet. We are both nurses and have worked in several states over the years and Florida was the worst. Haven't left AK. in a decade and and always came back after contracts ended down there. But then...I've never been to Michigan! Might not be that bad on the UP.

[MikeBear]

Originally Posted by rntim

Leebeemi, you just described where I live in Alaska-sorta. My wife is dead set on moving to Marquette area real soon; she is originally from Bay City. I guess I have to tag along because she is my wife after all. I'm not real keen on moving down to the lower 48. Seems like the whole place is just nuts from what I see on the news. But, we are getting old and it is pretty expensive to live in AK. It rains tons where I live and thats getting a little old. We live on a point overlooking the ocean. Think I'd go a little nuts not seeing the water...she says Lake Michigan is just like an ocean. Yeah but you can't pull a halibut or dungy crabs out of Lake Michigan. Can't go brown bear hunting there. She says, "You can't hump up mountains here anymore either." She keeps shooting down all my good points of not moving down south. All I've ever seen is pictures of Michigan and what I can find on the internet. We are both nurses and have worked in several states over the years and Florida was the worst. Haven't left AK. in a decade and and always came back after contracts ended down there. But then...I've never been to Michigan! Might not be that bad on the UP.

Marquette is on Lake SUPERIOR, not Lake Michigan. They are basically fresh-water inland oceans, so you won't miss much not being on a salt-water ocean. It's also not too far East of the Porcupine mountains. It's about the closest you can get to being in Alaska, while staying (barely) in Michigan...

https://goo.gl/maps/ACdEuVR4uVN2

[rntim]

Yep, I was wrong--it Manistique she is talking about us moving to.

[Heather67]

Looking at Lake Michigan south from Manistique, I'm pretty sure you won't see the other side of the lake. Crabs are right out, but you might enjoy hooking a Northern Pike. The minimum legal catch size for those is 24 inches, with some reaching over 50 inches. This isn't halibut size, but it isn't too shabby. And while you can't hunt brown bear, there is a black bear season, as well as deer, elk, and various birds and small game. You could do a lot worse as an outdoorsman than the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[MikeBear]

Originally Posted by rntim

Yep, I was wrong--it Manistique she is talking about us moving to.

You are gonna be bored out of your mind in a few months after moving to Manistique...

Once you visit The Big Spring, Fayette ghost town, Seul Choix lighthouse, and the Cut River Bridge, there isn't much reason to live there.