On the Asheville website it says, "The region experiences four distinct seasons, but the average annual snowfall is never more than 16.2" and the hottest day rarely exceeds 80°F. The warmest month of the year is July, while winter hits its peak in January. In August, 2012, The Weather Channel named Asheville one of "America's Safest Weather Cities."

Now that is Awesome. Sounds like shangri la.

Aha!! I don't want to say I told you so but I told you so!!! Asheville is my dream location. I've been there and thru there a number of times. Its not perfect. We don't have poisonous critters up here but they do in Asheville. We have zero population of illegal immigrants..if illegal immigrants were airplanes North Carolina is the airport and Asheville is one of the terminals. The good far far far out weighs the bad in Asheville,NC.The motorcycle riding in North Carolina in general is phenominal and Asheville particularly. So much to see and do. Maggie Valley(WTT), the devils chimney,Biltmore estaes. And the rest of North Carolina is well, just great. You got miles of shore line and the famous outer banks.

If you can make that move I'll be jealous. I'll be happy for you but wishing it was me.

Illegals… I can’t imagine it could possibly be to the degree that it is in Houston. I think Mexico should become a state or states… let’s clean up the criminal element and get everyone to living well… instead of what we do now which is spend trillions on wars in the middle east while our neighbor down south is dealing with some vicious criminals.

As far as the city of Asheville itself what I did hear about was the trustifarians and the homeless. When the Olympics were in Atlanta they let Atlanta offload their homeless in Asheville and they never came back to them.

KS, Asheville proper and the areas surrounding Asheville are psuedo typical to other large towns with the interstate loops and by passes etc and not the area I would be interested in. Using the name Asheville denotes the area/location. Its not so much the city of Asheville as much as its the surrounding towns. Asheville had, when the times I was there, a population of street buskers/performers. Parts of Asheville are similar to a Southern version of the 60's Greenwich Village in NYC.

I really just enjoyed being in and around and about Asheville the times we were there. There were fun things for my daughter and her sig other to do as well as fun things for me and my wife and grand boys to do.

Thanks for posting the pics. I appreciate your insight and perspective on the area. Yall should move there when you retire. Is Snow Hill a lot different than the Asheville area?

Snow Hill is in the section of North Carolina affectionately called "Eastern Carolina." No mountains or even really heavy forest for that matter. And prone to tornadoes like it was its job. This about explains it all pretty good:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_North_Carolina

Miles and miles and miles of back roads,you could easily get lost w/out trying to hard. It may have changed but when I lived there,the late '80's you could hit one of those back roads and almost never see a car. And there are places called "Alligator Alley". Eastern North Carolina has Morehead City, Outer Banks, New Bern and other enjoyable coastal towns.

As with anyplace these days - you have to find where you fit. Far enough out of town so you don't have to deal with the undesired element - but not so far out that your ice cream melts before you get home from the store...

+1

Unfortunately, that knowledge is not always known before the commitment of living there.

What concerns me about living too far out in the sticks is security. As we move forward in time I worry the country is going to go through a rough time when the national debt is up a few trillion.

You have to do 'recon' runs my friend - you don't just move somewhere - you need to take a few trips to the region make sure it's what you want. Before I moved to CA - I stayed here for almost 2 months. I found work, I found out where the nicest communities were. I was lucky - I was able to stay with a friend.
But I was young and dumb - you're much more evolved now than i was then - you have the internet, GPS, cell phones - etc... IF I saw something I liked back then I had to try and find it on a map and then drive to a real estate office and see if I could get any information on it - now you hit the gps - and google it.

Go for a weekend and drive around -
You might have to take a few VACA days but in the long run well worth it. You can find nice areas by just looking at sat maps on google maps.
GO to Zillow.com and check into realestate for sale all you need is a zip code.