My wife and I are considering moving to NC. We're looking for: affordable housing (200-300K), a small community (50,000 - 100,000 pop.) close to a larger city (we like city life but don't want to live right in it) and somewhat close to the water, say 2 hours. NC seems appealing because of the research triangle (Duke, White Chapel and I forget the other) and it's close to WA DC but not too far south. Anyone have any thoughts?

I say try the triad area of North Carolina. I live in Lexington North Carolina and the weather is great here, low property taxes, good schools, low crime rate, and the city is pretty small. Not to mention we are less than 30 minutes away from several larger cities like Winston Salem, Greensboro, High Point, Concord. And a little further away from like Charlotte and Raleigh. We are literally in the heart of the triad. Please feel free to look us up, we have beautiful vineyards here, great BBQ... and down south comfort and friendliness!
Hope to hear from you soon!

Great choice! I'm back in Georgia, but would have stayed in NC many years ago when I was there if arrangements had worked out to do so.

Great choice of area also. The Piedmont section of the state is rolling terrain. It is a reasonable drive to the ocean or to the mountains.

Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill make up the triangle area. Raleigh has state government and NC State. Durham has Duke. Chapel Hill has UNC. Wake Forest (the town) is about 22 miles N of Raleigh and is the old site of Wake Forest University, now in Winston Salem. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is now on the campus in Wake Forest, the town.

The Chamber of Commerce in any of these cities should be glad to give you lots of good info. Oh, yes, I live in mid-GA where there is very little snow--an occasional very light flurry which melts on contact with earth. I loved the snow in the Piedmont of NC. It was enough to play in and take great pics but seldom shut down life functioning. Some businesses would allow employees to leave early sometimes and there would be temp school closings. Now--the mountains are a different story!

Just reminiscing. It was 35 years ago! Can you tell I miss it?

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