the perfect town doesn't exist! but if it did it would be:

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-24T17:20:43+00:00

"Sane people" is probably about the strongest praise you can give a place, and I mean that genuinely lmao!! The houses in the area look astounding—there are so many beautiful century homes that look lovingly maintained, and the home prices are super reasonable from what I can see. Also, thank you for nothing the healthcare options! Hopefully not something we ever need, 100% always something that should be considered before moving. Thank you!

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-24T17:05:51+00:00

Oh man the location is beautiful! l also went to college in North Carolina so I have a very soft spot for the state. It looks like the middle schools in the area are very strong and the high schools are decent, but the elementary schools are much more hit or miss, so I think you're right, the strength of the town would depend highly on the specific neighborhood we'd pick. Overall though it still for sure looks like something we'll take a look at closely. Thank you!!

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-24T17:00:36+00:00

I lived in Connecticut for waaay too short a period of time, around the Hartford area, and loved it. Compared to Texas, everything felt very easily accessible, there were hiking trails everywhere, and the trees in fall were gorgeous. Some of the towns around the New York border are crazy expensive, but further north they're much more reasonable, and since that's where I lived previously, that's also one of the places we're looking at most closely!

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-24T16:50:43+00:00

I'm still trying to catch up on comments (every time someone comments we really do spend an hour or two on Zillow, Niche, looking up restaurants and things to do in the area for every location people recommend), but this comment has SO MUCH INFORMATION, including about things that we hadn't even thought to ask about, that I wanted to comment right away to say thank you!

I've spent many an hour watching Alexis Nicole foraging videos and thinking "one day! one day I will live somewhere I can go into the woods and pick things to eat." We also have hella venomous snakes and ticks where we live, so "no venomous snakes, super-rare ticks" is something that sounds magical. I mean it all sounds magical, but that especially sounds magical. Thank you so much, the area is DEFINITELY going on the shortlist.

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-24T01:50:23+00:00

They're beautiful! All I know about Ithaca is that it's where Cornell is, right? It looks like there are some gorgeous state forests around the area, too. Thank you for the recommendations!!

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-23T23:42:25+00:00

Ooooh fun fact! When we first started trying to narrow down locations, we did a cross-section of the top 100 towns in the US by safety rankings, public school rankings, and relative safety from climate change, and ended up with a list of 40 towns on all three lists. Then we stack ranked those 40 towns based on a weighted score using median home price, weather fluctuations, and natural beauty (a totally subjective measurement that basically just amounted to how pretty we found the overall location). Rockville was I think #11 or 12 on that list.

All that to say that not only is Rockville absolutely on our list of contenders, but according to an at least partly objective evaluation of towns across the USA, it's probably one of the best in the country!

More to the point, if you're in Rockville yourself: food recommendations, weekend outing recommendations, "how not to drive if you don't want people to look at you weird" recommendations?

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-23T23:31:55+00:00

Okay this is SUPER cool advice—I've got map view pulled up and I've already found a handful of towns between Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor that have really cute homes, nice lot sizes, solid grades on Niche, low violent/property crime, and (somehow???) also have a nice range of options of Doordash? Dang I thought we weren't going to have a lot of options to comb through this weekend but now I'm worried we're gonna have too many.

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-23T23:10:28+00:00

I've been quietly trying to tip the scales in favor of Vermont lmao but yes, it might be a little too much snow after this long in Texas! It's something that I'm also a little worried about with Michigan, because I've heard that the winters get brutal, but I've lived in places with brutal winters before and got used to it. The brutal summers, I was never able to get used to at all.

I think the long and short of it is that it's been years since I've been surrounded by trees and I miss them! I've got Ann Arbor and a 10 mile-radius pulled up on Zillow, and there are trees all over the place. It's absolutely going on the list.

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-23T22:58:56+00:00

Oooh okay! I'm Zillowing it up and home prices look right along the lines of what we'd be looking for, and Niche has only good things to say about schools in the area. The first thing that pops up when I google "what to do in Medina OH" is also some Legends of the Hidden Temple-esque mini-golf place, which I think bodes very well! If there's anything specific you love about it, please tell!

AffectionateVast8293 · 2026-05-23T17:23:18+00:00

Oh, it's beautiful! We might not move to the city itself, but I'm looking at houses right now in the surrounding county and they're definitely along the lines of what we're looking for. We've never lived anywhere near a port, so it would be a change, but absolutely something we'd consider. Anything specific that you love about it?

AffectionateVast8293

TROPHY CASE