Wife and I live in southern Wi. We have 40 acres of a nice homestead. Problem is that we are between Milwaukee and Chicago areas and they are slowly joining.
Wisconsin used to be conservative and that has changed quite dramatically.


I'm in my 40's and work in Quality Management (currently manufacturing)
wife is in 30's and works in IT (was a director of IT now not really sure)
I drive 1hr one way to work in Milwaukee and work 10+ hour days. Wife works from home and if she has to go in the office it's only 30 minutes.

We both work a lot. We have no kids and a pretty simple life.

We were planning on moving to Montana and just got back from some time on a recon Mission. We passed through and stayed twice in rapid city. Has Mountain View’s and low population density.

I’m hoping job opportunity and property are better than Montana,

I have NFA goodies and think they are allowed. Your governor is awesome too.

Any recommendations?

I would think both you and your wife would be able to find something here for work. Dont know your wage requirements but generally you will make less here than you would elsewhere due to competition and a desire to move here from others.  Very gun friendly here. Real estate market is pretty hot but I don't have a good filter for here compared to other places. I have heard basically anything in the 250-275 range is sold in a couple days.

I was born and raised here, work kinda took me elsewhere, and I finally made my way back after about 5 years.

You'll both take a pay cut, but the cost of living is probably lower than WI.

Plenty of land for homestead type existence. Commutes aren't bad. Currently a relatively free state. Leftists trying to take over, of course.

City itself is growing fast. Lots more traffic at peak times than some of our roads can handle. Upper percentile crime rate per capita. Big drug problem, being right on I90. But PD is pretty good for being constantly short staffed.

Lots of craft beer these days. Some decent eating. Farmers markets. Great hiking. Some fishing, hunting. We're light on shooting ranges.