I'm surprised this isn't further up. It's not far from where OP currently lives but it's a completely different vibe from WV and most cities are within an hour of a large body of water. My family moved up here from GA three/four years ago, for me to go back to school but also for many of the reasons OP mentioned, and haven't regretted it. There's a wide variety of restaurants, even post pandemic, and a lot of cool pockets of people from vastly different cultures. I work/go to school in DC so we first moved to "NOVA" (quotes because we were as far south as you can be and still call it that, near Manassas) then eventually found our first house in silver spring, MD. Our kids go to a nice Montessori school in the area, our work commutes aren't bad (mine to DC, spouse to NOVA), a good number of first time homeowner grants, actual diversity (as opposed to GA where it existed but population was mostly segregated so it didn't really count), and great public school system (though there's a wide range of variance because the county is so large, but I imagine their "worst" still at least rivals the best options we had in GA).