Yet you don't list the state you live in.

It's the winter, jobs, and infrastructure.

ME is a harsh place for the unprepared.

Living in Texas all my life,  I have heard this from most that I’ve discussed this topic with. You guys have definitely solidified that opinion. Crazy how much politics and weather,can have over a state being great, meh or to be avoided.

Lived in NH for 12 years, have family there and in ME. All the posters from both covered the necessary information already. Beautiful states but with some downsides and I constantly go back and forth about returning to either one of them.

I lived just outside of Wolfeboro NH, incredible views of the lake.

Moved to VT from TX when I was young and had no clue how bad it was here.

Randolph VT was just in the news for letting a boy in the girls locker room, many rural locals cheered it on.  Don't let anyone fool you into thinking it is only in Burlington.

Gun laws have been incrementally getting worse and once Phil Scott leaves, I think it will be a free for all.  Also FPS for being a rino POS and starting all this. Also no militia training allowed.....whatever that means.  

Taxes, housing, and cost of living are insanely expensive with a serious lack of decent housing.

There is a constant threat from landowners to shutdown atv and snowmobile trails. Gotta constantly bow down to them them to keep the trails open.  They eventually close them off.  Last 5 years have been pretty light on snow to the point there are only a few good days a year to ride anywhere short of the NEK.

The Fish and Wildlife board was under attack to be transformed into a 50/50 mix of hunters and Peta members.
 
The VT legislature seriously fucked up the school funding this year.  Jump on the Barre front porch forum to see their thoughts on why we should just pass the budget and deal with the bad laws later on, for the kids.  

My corporate office is in the midwest and were pretty lax about Covid rules,  it was cringeworthy when our plant manager declines any travel from corporate to our facility well into 2023 due to Covid.

About the only good thing I can say about VT is they are generally good drivers.  Unfortunately MA drivers, who about outnumber the native Vermonters, are quite possibly worse than Ohio left lane campers.

I hate the place with a passion if you can't tell.   Go to Maine or NH.  VT is fine to visit once.

Lived in Northern NY for my whole life.  I don't hate snow and winters, but I am over it.  Northern NY is not as bad as southern NY politically, but the restrictive gun laws still exist even if most rural folks don't even know they exist.  Winters use to be lots of white fluffy snow.  Last several has given us nothing but frozen ground and a few inches of snow turned ice.  Fuck that noise.  I am happy it has averaged 80-degree highs so far this sept.  I fully embrace climate change and want to ride my motorcycle year-round without relocating.  City transplants and tourists can go back from where they came IMHO.  I very much enjoy my back 40.  Be hard to replicate in today's economy if i were to attempt a relocation.

I'm originally from Northern Maine, after the USAF I lived in CT for 25 years.  New England is no longer a place I want to be.  VT isn't the worst, but its not good.  NH is probably the better of the Northeast, but ALOT of Masshole Libtards from Boston are ruining it.  CT sucks dong!  RI is not much better.  Some parts of ME are good, but you better not be sick or have any medical issues, health care sucks or is non existent.   MA, well......just no.

If you do it, leave your mags and guns in TX.

We lived there from 1999 to 2006. I am the reason why the Red Sox and Patriots started winning.

We moved to be closer to my wife's parents who lived in Tulsa. It was the stupidest career move I ever made, and I have never found a place as beautiful as my back yard in NH. For years we took all vacations back to NH.

When my youngest was born at Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, her birth was announced in the Monadnock Ledger. People we did not know came by our house to bring baby gifts and meals. I had taken 6 weeks off because my wife had to have a c-section, and I did not have to cook for about 4 of those weeks.

When I went to get my permit to carry, the police chief handed me paperwork which I filled out right there. He said, "Come back tomorrow and I'll have the permit ready for you."

There was this large section of land outside of Dublin, NH, that backed right up to Mount Monadnock. I wanted to buy it, and I knew if I did, I would never move again. It did not work out.

Would I go back now? If my kids weren't firmly settled here near RTP, yes, in a heartbeat. It was the best place in the world to raise kids. The quality of life was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

My car. Turbocharged, of course



My family



The Highland Games



Sabbaday Falls



The Mount Washington Hotel



The coast

Those are in the middle of nowhere! Why don’t you check similar listings in York, Kennebunk, Freeport, or Scarborough?

Sounds like Florida for you

The list can be deceiving, though.   Look at Rye - less than $7/100.   Sounds cheap, eh?    Not so; it's because Rye is one of the richest towns in the state.   You're gonna pay dearly to buy real estate in Rye.   If I was choosing a NH town, I'd look at registered voters; Solid red towns are going to be run by good old NH people.    Solid blue towns will be run by big spending newcomer city Democrats.
And as others have said, northern (or at least central) NH is the real NH.   South of Concord is just Masshole suburbs.   And avoid college towns like the plague they are.   And that includes a 2-3 town radius around them, too; especially Dartmouth.

all this

More or less all states are following national party lines. If you like VT you would probably like NH, which has better gun laws. No 10 round mag limit and whatnot.

I like the middle of nowhere.

I just pulled up the map view of those and both give you easy access to amenities in a nearby city while still being away from city stuff.

Those prices are cheaper than NH.

Here is a house search with min 20 acre lot size.  Look north of say Campton on the map while avoiding Lincoln/Woodstock.



Whatever you do, don't go crazy and try to build on a 40 acre lot just north of Littleton and think you may save money.

TBH, I knew it would be more expensive, but I didn't think it would be this expensive.  Only the storm door install and a final bill and she'll be done though.

Born and raised here- my family goes back forever here; even my European ancestors make my kids 12 or 13th generation.  That being said, this place, specifically the cities are fast becoming shitholes.  Drugs, crime, crippled police presence and libtarded voters are destroying this state.  When we bring our kids to playgrounds, first thing we do is begin scanning for dirty needles- free ones handed out by the state mind you- which is great, thanks for making it everyone's fuckin problem.  Wife and I were just discussing going to vote for the school budget, again later today, and where all this $$$ is going exactly.  4/5 of our criminally high property taxes goes to education fund.  All the legal gambling (lottery tickets) go to the education fund....  My personal take is there's been something nefarious going on behind the scenes- from stealing our money, to cheated elections.  There's lots of stupid libtards here now, and the statehouse is lousy with them, but I'm still not convinced they outnumber us....  It breaks my fuckin heart the thought seceding my territory to these vermin, but NH is looking better and better

I have relatives all over northern NY, VT, NH, and Maine.

Rural, trades, working poor types.

Wonderful places destroyed by proximity to and infiltration by city types.

With targeted refuge and illegal infusions for decades.

It has destroyed the way and quality of life.

I am visiting my brother in Northern VT in a month, we are taking my boys to Jays Peak ski resort for the water park. I also want to hit Burger Barn in Jeffersonville while there, any other suggestions?

We live in NH, close to the border with VT. Crossing into Vermont feels a little like crossing into the eastern Europe of the cold war. Towns near the border tend to be run down because they can't compete with tax free NH on the other side of the bridge.

And it tends to be poor and backwards away from the coast.

Up and down the border, I can only think of maybe 3 towns on the wrong side of the river that have anything.  WRJ(VA hospital), Bradford(Hannafords, Farm Way, and restaurants), and I guess you can throw Brattleboro in.

EVERYTHING else is on the NH side.

I cross the river at Gilman all the time.  That's one sad little town with a closed up paper mill.

Tell that to Norwich/Woodstock/Quechee. Even WRJ is doing pretty well these days. I couldn't remotely afford to live in any of those towns.

I think the pendulum may have swung a little far here. Vermont is far from perfect, and as NH resident it pains me to say it, but it isn't a desolate shit hole either. There are a lot of happy people in Vermont. I see them every day. Most arfcommers would be unhappy with the politics, but this isn't exactly a normal crowd. I doubt there's any state that'd make this crowd truly happy.

While I doubt, very much, that any Texan would enjoy retiring to any where in New England it's for reasons that have nothing to do with the liberal politics. It's the beans in chili. Total nonstarter for the meat soup crowd.

I won't even stop in Brattleboro to piss anymore, and I grew up in Putney/Dummerston and spent a lot of time in Brattleboro.

Welcome, neighbor.

What years?

For relatives in southern VT,

Brattleboro was one of those towns people would drive an hour to go to to shop, see a movie, go to a McDonald’s, etc.
Or a Dunkin’ Donuts -back when they were baking the donuts fresh in the back.
The movies were old theatre used to do plays kind of set up that converted to one screen/show movie theatres.  
There was a huge sporting goods store people would go to also.
It was a big deal.

When I was real little I remember being with some cousins one summer and seeing a Disney movie at one of them,
When I was in HS I was at some other cousins and we went and saw The Terminator at the other one.


This was 70s/80s.  
Bennington would have been another one.
Not sure if that had an old downtown or not.

I have been up and down I91 many a time.  
As well as 87, 89,93, 95.
And the smaller routes.
Still many a town with lots of dirt roads and no cell service up there.

I haven’t been to  upstate NY, VT/NH /ME , Quebec, etc. in about a decade.

Are you saying you’d prefer living in the mountains?

This one of the most dumb-ass posts I have read in 22 years on this site and there are 10's of thousands.  What bastion of freedom are you from?

Yes. I am from North Georgia. Family has been there >320 years. Call it genetics, call it preference, I breathe easier in the mountains.

Nice. I’ve always thought NC would be the best of both worlds. Not too cold winters, not too hot summers, have mountains in the west and beach to the east.

Summers are miserable here in the piedmont, and where I live, you always have to watch where you walk, even in your own yard. I got nailed by a copperhead last week, but fortunately, it was a dry bite. Not much happened.

I still remember when a timber rattler was spotted in MA. It made the news.

OK maybe equating VT with North Korea was harsh, so let's just say it's the Hermit Kingdom.

Its unfortunate. I'd seriously consider living in Maine if it wasn't so blue.

Everything has all ready been covered by others, so I won't say things again.

But, I am amazed how many people on here live close to me and one even went to my HS  

What are the winters like?

A few tourist towns don't exactly tell the tale. My point was that towns along the border generally can't compete with NH, and as a result are run down. Wells River is a great example.  Drive NH Rte 10 and then drive VT Rte 5. There are a lot more nice places on the NH side than there are on the VT side. Again, my comment is limited to towns along the border.

I thought Vermont was just the rich people from Seattle.  Bat shit crazy left but got money

Oh another red flag that you're in the wrong area of VT is if there is a police department.  Cities or over bloated liberal shithole towns have police departments. The rest of us have an elected town constable that doesn't wear a uniform, drive a cruiser or generally bother with anyone or anything.  You rarely see a state trooper unless you are on a major highway around here either.  I think the nearest barracks is about an hour away lol

This is what originally attracted me to VT. I personally envisioned this older world, kinda 1980’s style America that had low crime and kept to themselves. Unfortunately I didn’t look into the politics of it to get a better understanding of the state as a whole.

On the NH side, much of this is a funding issue and whether the juice is worth the squeeze to fund a PD.

My town pays NHSP 15K a year for four hours of 'patrolling' each week and to provide emergency response.  

Our only cops at night are the one or two troopers on duty in Grafton and Coos counties.

A whole lot cheaper than maintaining a PD, but response time...  Better be self sufficient.

A "Once Great" state, unfortunately. So where do I start?

Born and raised. Lived all over the state, but mostly grew up in Burlington area, as that is where my mom is from. My dad was from Norwich. I have family in Essex and St Albans. My dad is buried in the veteran's cemetery in Rutland. So I grew up mostly in Burlington, I was a member of the VT National Guard, and I attended UVM for a year before I went on active duty.

In the 80s it was an awesome, sort of a live and let live place. Hell, I used to hike Camels Hump as a 15 year old kid with my Marlin .22 rifle. My buddy carried an M1 carbine. We'd go off the trail as set up "live fire" lanes practicing "react to contact drills" that we read in the Ranger Handbook. Super 2A friendly place. My high school experience was like an 80s movie. Good kids out to have a good time, little to no hard drugs. Kids would keep deer rifles in their cars to hunt after school.

Traditionally VT has been Republican believe it or not. Probably now what we would recognize more as "Independents" or even Libertarians. But starting in 70 and 80s the "progressive" AKA socialist commies from NYC came in and fucking ruined the place. This would be the Ben and Jerry's crowd led by the commie pied piper Bernie Sanders - and people loved him because he was "independent" and frankly their plan worked, strongly supported by the uber lib voting base associated with UVM. Then came the high taxes, socially liberal laws and the entitlement programs which hooked old people and the poor - galvanizing their support base. Also, about that time came organized efforts by the progressive left to make the state less entitled and more diverse (less white) and also religious groups (some even well intended/humanitarian) that brought in central Americans and Africans in by the thousands. That went sideways. Now there are "no go" enclaves of immigrants in Burlington and other places. Defund the police was huge up there too. Now they want to hire cops but nobody will work there as it's such a shitty environment. At one point Burlington had a BLM outfit providing "security" in city park. I don't think I've ever been anywhere more anti-police except maybe Seattle. Of course, the liberal enforcement policies towards enforcement of drugs has been a complete disaster. Heroin has sadly destroyed many small VT towns.

I'd like to say it's only Burlington and Montpelier - but it's not, it's all trickled out to smaller towns too. Progressive communism spreads like a cancer. There are a few rural hold outs no doubt, but the state and local gov't is lost. Case in point they went full retard during covid with population control measures. The state's "republican" governor signed a high-capacity magazine ban, and an AWB will probably get passed in the near future. I remember the old fudds insisting for years how pro-2A Berrie was, well that turned out to be bullshit didn't it? Go figure, you can't trust a commie. It's only a matter of time before they come for your AR. The "you don't need an AR to hunt deer with" crowd is a thing there.

St Albans, once a great solid blue-collar town refuses to have SROs in the schools because they will intimidate students of color (what - all 2 of them!?). Insanity.  Also, the trans agenda shit is huge up there too with boys on the girls sports teams. It's a shitshow.

I joined the Army in 1991 and never looked back. I've been a Tennessee resident since 1996. There is no scenario I could ever see moving back there. It's sad, but the place as seriously lost its way and won't ever be the same. I hate it as all my people are from there and I still have family there, but it's gone far, far from the place I grew up.

There are several seasons in VT, (and NH), :-
mud season
black fly season
mosquito season
leaf peeper tourist season
and winter
sometimes it snows, but it is always cold.

When you cross the State line, you gotta wind your watch back 20 years.

Used to be 'constitutional carry' - there was no facility to even get a pistol permit.

Since there has been a HUGE influx of fucking liberals from MA, CT, NY, there are all kinds of gun laws, permits, 10 round mags etc. etc.

Used to be a beautiful place to visit, for 2 weeks in July, maybe.

Now it is just a fucked up liberal shithole, with everybody complaining about why  cannot we do things like 'back home'?

Remember - this is the home of Bernie Sanders, a devout communist.

And the heat has probably been turned on for a couple weeks now,

IMHO YMMV

If only that were accurate and we could keep the flatlanders out.

The term hermit kingdom is an epithet used to refer to any country, organization or society that willfully isolate itself off, either metaphorically or physically, from the rest of the world. .

I grew up on the Southern Vermont/New York border and recently moved back to the area to retire.  December to March suck.... the rest of the year is great.  I've only been to Burlington 3 times in my entire life....the first time in my forties.

I am fascinated by New Hampshire people bitching about how bad Vermont is.

My town pays Lisbon for a similar hours of "patrol", but with no emergency response. It's a ridiculous waste of money, and what makes it worse is that my corner of the town doesn't get coverage...we just pay for it.

We don't need a police department. Wtf would they do with their time other than shoot radar?

You are in for a quite a weather difference. I'm just guessing that you don't have a snow shovel.

That hasn't changed.

Yet

Same neck of the woods.  A couple towns north- starts with a D.

BS that the town you're paying for patrolling doesn't respond to emergencies, but I think Littleton is the only 24/7 PD around.  

At least I've heard on the scanner when Lisbon calls in for a directed patrol there.

I've seen SP on my road maybe twice in the last year, but in reality what do we need it for?  Sure there is crime here, but what is 4 hours a week going to do.  We've got three state roads that run through town, 4 hours could be done running laps on those.  Whoopie.  Outside of an emergency response and calls for vin verifications, etc what are we paying for?


Of course there was just a self defense shooting/road rage incident in Littleton last night.

Like the towns with PDs here--go fishing.  Pull over all sorts of stuff just to run names.

A shooting in L-Town??? Hard times in da 603.

All the Lisbon cops manage to do in our town is write speeding tickets for the dumbasses that voted to have the there in the first place. It would be amusing if it wasn't so expensive and pathetic.

I'm from the area. Gilman was a decent little town 40 years ago, always a little rougher than Lunenburg but people still didn't even lock their doors when I moved away in the early 90's.

Then again, Lancaster/Littleton/Whitefield weren't looking so hot either when I was back in 2016.

Sad to see.