Looking to relocate to NC or TN (Asheville, Mooresville: best cities, sales)

[asilmisty]

Hi! I live in Boca Raton,FL. and need to find an area that will suit my needs. I'm a nurse with fibromyalgia,so lower humidity is most important. I plan to take a road trip in the next several weeks and should get a pretty good idea of the worst of the weather. The plan is to start out in Mooresville and head west from there. I want to rent a small house in a fairly rural area with some land. A place where people are progressive thinking,animal and environmentally friendly. Is there such a place? Also,I know absolutely nothing about TN.,but thought it might be a possibility because of no state income tax. Any info. would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[angelaf]

TN has no state income tax?? That sounds really good! Is there a down side to this? Just drove through TN on I40/I75 and was really impressed with this area... It's very beautiful! We liked Knoxville too, MUCH to my surprise. Don't know why but I had a really negative misconception about what Knoxville would be like. It seemed like a very nice city (although we really didn't spend much time there) and I'm thinking maybe we'll start looking at this area as a possibility for relocation as well as Western NC.
I think you'll be able to find plenty of places to rent a small house in a rural area, don't know about renting a place with land although we'd like to do that ourselves so hopefully it's possible! Progressive thinking--if you mean liberal, I wouldn't count on it. Animal friendly, I think you'll be fine--we've been traveling through this area for the past week with our pit bull, and we're used to dealing with a lot of prejudice due to his breed, and we've felt none of that at all here. It's very nice to have people comment on how pretty he is and not say anything negative about him. Also we've had no problem finding motels that allow dogs and from what I've heard, it's a lot easier to find landlords who allow pets than it is where we're from (MN and WI). Hope this helps!

[mm34b]

The only place in Western NC I would consider progressive (liberal) is within the city limits of Asheville. The surrounding area of Asheville is traditional (conservative).

I wouldn't consider Western NC or Eastern TN as lacking in humidity. That's the "smoke" in the Smoky Mountains. What we are noted for is the significantly lower summer highs (15-20 degrees) which make the normal humidity levels much more comfortable than the Piedmont and Coastal Plain regions. Average humidity for the NC is 65-75% depending on the region and season of the year.

[RaleighRob]

If you need a place with low humidity for health concerns, that pretty much cancels out all of North Carolina....if not the whole Southeast.

And if you want a place that's both rural AND progressive/environmental....well that pretty much limits you to only one place in NC that I can think of: Orange County.

[connie]

There was an article in Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine about 2 months ago on the best cities to live in for the money (cost of living versus quality of life etc.) Number 1 city was Memphis Tennessee. It was an interesting article and you might be able to review it via the Internet.

[hapaleeretired]

Memphis...........hligh humiditly and it is hot! Whatever you look at check Accuweather where you can research average humidity. We were torn between eastern TN and western NC.
NC's weather won but if anyone has allergies the Spring pollen here is horrible.

[silverwing]

Originally Posted by angelaf

TN has no state income tax?? That sounds really good! Is there a down side to this?

Sales tax is higher: 9.25 to NC's 7%. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe the higher sales tax is also applied to food. There's another site, google Sperling's Best Places, where you can plug numbers and make a comparison. I take some of the stats (crime) with a grain of salt, but the hard facts of taxes and employment can be relied on.

Angelaf, TN - especially the Knoxville area - might afford you more options than NC. You'd also have other areas: Oak Ridge, Maryville, that are in the mountains but are less metro than Knoxville. I wish I'd known you were going to check that area, I would have pointed you toward their zoo. It's small, but some of the exhibits are really neat. Dh had to pry me away from the meerkat habitat

There's certainly no shortage of service related jobs in the tourist towns of Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg if someone wanted to light there for awhile to check the area out. You just have to get used to the traffic. Boy, it is nasty We avoid the area in the summer, but have visited in the winter and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

[asilmisty]

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my questions. Lisa D.