The wife and I are planning a week or so long trip to visit TN around mid January.  The main intent is to check out the state and see if it's some place we'd like to move to.  So far the plan is to fly into Nashville and eventually make our way towards Memphis and then fly back home from there.  We're to a point where we're looking to try and surround ourselves with more like minded people, find a bunch of land and likely put a modular on it and call it a day.  

Considering how many people are migrating to the state the concern is that maybe it won't be as free as I'm hoping for in the years to come.  I'm very much so in the beginning stages or learning about the culture and governing trends of the state but on paper, it seems like a great place to be.  Thoughts or recommendations to help plan out the vacation/scouting trip?

Look up Maury County's mayor. We have the best mayor in the state, hands down. I'm honestly partial to this area.

West TN is more farmland and I grew up there but I love to kayak and wade and swim in creeks, and as you move into middle TN, the water gets much clearer due to differing geology; it gets even clearer still once you get into the eastern part of the state, but the rivers are too bumpy for my liking, and the hills are too steep. West and East TN are different worlds; middle TN is a happy medium between the two.

You could do a lot worse than to fly into the Memphis airport and drive I-40 all the way across the state to get a feel for the area you like. It might also help to know if you're retired or still working, in terms of where you'd want to live, how close you need to be to business centers, healthcare, etc.

I move people for a living (wife and I are realtors) and am always happy to answer question, no obligations, whether you're moving to the area where we work, or not. Feel free to IM me.

Also - sign up for a free TN vacation guide. It's free and will give you a lot of insight into where to find cool touristy things to do:

https://www.tnvacation.com/guide

I believe I read some of the information you put in another thread about the Eastern portion of the state.  Double check your PM's if you can, I think I may have sent you a message prior.  We aren't set in stone as far as where we're flying into vs flying home from so that's up for change as of right now.  We will most likely purchase flights soon though.  

Wife and I are far from retired.  We both currently work remote (we were remote pre covid) however my wife may have to find something new since she currently works for the state.  We're not opposed to being a bit farther out but having a hospital or emergency services somewhat close by wouldn't be a bad idea.  Business centers we can take or leave, we wouldn't mind having to drive a bit for big box stores.  No kids and no plans for kids so school districts aren't necessary a concern either.  We kind of have a clean slate which is either a good thing or a bad thing because there's so many directions we could likely go.

But they can play the shit out of some basketball there.

Good to know.  Memphis isn't so much as a destination that we're interested in as much as it's a end point for us to fly back home from.  Still good to know though.  Ideally we'd like to be more rural so being a hour plus out from a big city would be welcomed.  

Can TN be seen as a place that may hold out and remain constitutionally strong or is it going the direction of most places and ultimately things will be lost?

We're overwhelmingly conservative but our government is generally 'moderate right' with a milquetoast governor. But we have a strong constitution. No income tax. I am absolutely serious when I say that if there was a better place to live in the USA in terms of conservative local government, I'd move there. My family isn't right here and I have no particular ties right here.

We want to be anywhere from Bristol to Chattanooga, but Chattanooga might be too far from family in SW VA.

Finding a job when you live out of state is more difficult. Just put in for one in Chattanooga but I'm not sure I want to be that far south.

OP, you sound like you might really enjoy Johnson City area.  Good hospitals, a little over an hour to Knoxville. Lots to do. Beautiful scenery. You get all four seasons.  It's the conservative version of Asheville.  And you're centrally located within about a day's drive of almost the entire East Coast.

Also, check out this youtube channel. They go all over the region (started in the state) and it shows you a bit how life is around here.  

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbVBNtyA2RVuppKMcOMkZfg

Presidential election results have been running Nashville, Memphis, and a neighboring county to Memphis, blue, with the rest of the state red.  

Some years back, the state legislature was split with a republican majority in the senate and democrat majority in the house (same crooked democrat held the speaker position for 18 years).  That changed after a series of failed attempts to remove the speaker, and a mix of people getting fed up with the house blocking various things that easily passed in the senate and people realizing that the speaker was not going to be removed as long as the democrats had the majority in the house.

On the other hand...

We have had some issues with RINO politicians.

Nashville has apparently been declared "the place to be" with the hip crowd, and urbanites are lining up to pay ridiculous prices for trendy homes near trendy places (even if new trendy places have to be built near new homes).

Somebody in state government decided it was a good idea to spend state funds on an ad campaign in New York, encouraging people to move to Tennessee when they retire, where their pension will buy more.  There seems to be a list of suggested areas for them to move to, near some of the smaller cities (balancing distance from decent hospitals and lower cost of living/real estate prices).

So it's not a guaranteed future of a conservative utopia, but we don't have hordes of invading liberals from a neighboring state, fleeing high taxes and high crime in the socialist utopia that they had created.

I've seen this area mentioned quite a bit.  Ideally we'd like to lost the winter season as much as possible but a little bit of snow and winter vibe here and there will be nice.  We just got dumped on a few weeks back with a couple feet and we immediately realized that we're over it.

We're actually from NY but I don't recall seeing much of an ad campaign.  At least not in upstate.  I'm a realist in thinking that odds are there may not be a safe haven for liberty loving people but if we can stretch our dollar, buy a ton of land that gives us the ability to pretty much do as we want and live the life we want to then it's worth it.  In my head I see the more rural areas having a stronger local government as far as mayors and law enforcement go which I think would lead to more like minded people staying together.

In that area, you'll get about 6" at a time, but it's usually gone in a couple days.  It doesn't snow here much at all (I type this as I'm looking out at a 5" Christmas snowfall), but when it does it's awesome.

You really should hook a right on 40 instead of that left...

We were out in Knoxville for Christmas visiting some recent California transplants (Good Conservative people) we plan on moving out there in the next year or two. love my Texas but have always enjoyed my time in TN and think that is our next move.

Sounds like the general consensus is middle to eastern portions of the state are the more desirable areas and fit what we’re interested in a bit better. We decided that we’re going to drive vs flying.  At least that way we’ll have our own vehicle and make a road trip out of it.  We’ll likely be taking the advice here and not really entertaining much of the western side of the state, at least not this go around.

You could fly into the tri-cities airport and check the area out and head west from there! I live in Erwin, small town of about 15,000 about 20 miles south of Johnson city. I love it. Not IN the mountains but right at the base. Plenty of outdoors things to do nearby yet urban enough where you don't have to take a refrigerator into town with you to do grocery shopping.

The whole eastern area is a great place overall with lots of open land. Some of it can be quite expensive though since the area is a popular one. Probably looking at on average 10-15k per acre for rural and 15-20k for more urban.

Knoxville has some REALLY nice area as well but AVOID Sevierville and Gatlinburg areas at ALL costs. Those areas are MASSIVE tourist attractions and will only cause you major annoyances as a local.

The Nashville are is decent as long as you stay out of Nashville and it's County. A lot of conservative people there but the liberal hypocrisy either outnumbers them, or cheats their way into the top. Current Nashville mayor I believe actually is registered as a republican but acts almost exact same as Bill deblasio.

Western TN things get real flat, real hot, and real humid. I personally have not liked any area in western TN at all. My preference for good places to look at in TN to move to look at a map and and find "the land between the lakes" area just west of Clarksville. Anything east of there, minus Nashville metro, are pretty nice areas to look at.

No, both he and his brother (US Representative for the district that Nashville is in) have self-identified as democrats.

Nashville is one of those places that republicans seem to have given up on running for local offices, because the deck is stacked against them in the election.

Really, it'd be better if you looked at Missouri or somewhere else. Northern Alabama and Georgia are nice. Look at the Ozarks area. NC has more Smoky Mtns than TN. The state of TN  is full of tweakers. Food is highly taxed. Over 9%
Also, people say there's no income tax in TN (and people need to stop saying that because it attracts attention from out of staters), but there is a form of it already in place.
A silicon valley acquaintance told me about it. If you live on retirement/investments as he does and move to TN, it's taxed by the State. This must've been a reflex to retirees moving in from higher rent states and scarfing up the better lands then pushing their politics and tax beliefs.

The above tax was probably due to stories like this one: at a town hall with the mayor (a good while back) who was later elected governor, transplanted retirees next to me were there to push for an income tax. Turns out it was because they didn't want to pay high taxes on food like back where they came from. Then go back home where you retired from. They didn't work and wouldn't be paying income tax. That's what happens here.

I told the silicon valley guy the rules of TN and #1 is never invite anyone to move here, period. Rule 2, if you violate #1, get out.

It’s funny that you recommend the Ozarks and then complain about meth in Tennessee, since that seems to be a large part of the economy in that section of Missouri.

Also, we don’t have to beg our state to let us buy guns, like they do in North Carolina.

If you want to throw stuff out to detract people from moving to TN, at least get your facts straight.

We’re actually here now.  We’ve been staying in Franklin for the past couple of days and spending time locally.  We spent some time in and around Columbia and the Mt. Pleasant area.  Today we drove through the Centerville area.  We liked the more open lands and farms of the Centerville area mainly on RT 230 I believe it was.  We honestly didn’t drive too much through the outskirts of Columbia to see what kind of land was available so it may be an option.

Nashville tonight was a bit refreshing in the sense of it seems like people are still living life rather than cowering in fear.  The signs on Broadway about wear a mask or stay home did remind us quite a bit of NY.

As far as deterring people from moving here, I get it.  Majority of people leave the places they were just to bring those same ideas here and possibly ruin areas.  The reason why we wanted to look in this area is yes to get away from where we’re at now but more so to try and surround ourselves with like minded people and hopefully more unified communities.

We’re heading East as for the next couple of days before we head home.  We’ll be staying in Morristown and likely driving around and scoping things out.  So far it’s all been refreshing.

And as you now know we're stocked up on smugness wherein we all pretend to be uber intelligent as compared to our other state's residents. Here we label, attempt to one-up and behave in a condescending manner to others in the conversation. We're full of meth heads and uncouth people leering at your women, too.
And the Nashville mayor HATES guns.

Wow. That’s terrible. Have you considered moving?

Maybe the MO Ozarks, NC Smokies, AL or GA are more to his liking?

Or maybe NY?

Attached File

If you decide on middle TN, give me a shout and I will help you find an area you like and info on shooting ranges, gun stores etc.

Ban worthy, shameless plug

Odds are middle TN is where we’ll end up.  Centerville area seemed decent and a quick look gives me the impression that our dollar (currently anyway) would go considerably farther for land purchase than say out East towards Johnson City.  All in all it was a great trip and refreshing atmosphere.

Columbia, Centerville, Theta, Santa Fe, Fairview, Bon aqua, and Primm Springs are worthy of consideration if that helps expand your areas within the same smallish region.

We chose Thompson's Station but my wife works out of Cool Springs and I'm working in Brentwood.