Tips on Moving to the Country

Road Maintenance

• Your county or township largely handles your rural road maintenance functions, and you help fund those services through property taxes. Your rural roads probably won't include extra amenities such as curbs and wide lanes. Instead, you might notice a drainage culvert at the roadway's edge, which means you won't have a nice wide shoulder on which to park if your vehicle becomes disabled. Your public works department might push preventive maintenance, such as road regrading, to the back burner if budget funds dwindle. Snowstorms or road washouts can overwhelm local road maintenance crews and affect your ability to travel to work or shop for groceries and home supplies.

Job Opportunities

• You'll find it challenging to maintain a professional career from your country home base. You might face an unpleasant commute to your metro area job, and weather-related problems will likely lengthen that drive. If your home has high-speed Internet access, your employer might allow you to perform at least some tasks from home. High-speed access also opens up other telecommuting, or work-from-home, opportunities. If you plan to obtain work at a local business, remember that the company's economic health dictates its hiring needs and pay scale.

Medical Facilities

• Living in a rural community or isolated mountain town means you'll have limited medical service options. Your community's family practice physicians can likely handle routine medical issues, and you might also access a regional hospital serving residents from multiple counties or towns. You'll probably have to drive to a metro area to consult with a medical specialist. In a life-threatening emergency, such as a heart attack or farm equipment accident, your fire department's rescue personnel might stabilize you for ambulance or helicopter transport to a metro area hospital.

Social Interactions

• If you're a social butterfly who enjoys meeting friends for lunch, concerts and mall expeditions, you'll have quite an adjustment to country life's relative isolation and slower pace. You might join a quilting group, meet friends for coffee at the local diner or congregate at the town's hardware store on Saturday mornings. You can also invent opportunities to socialize. Invite a neighbor to help you make blackberry jam or provide advice for your first garden. If you're mechanically inclined, offer to repair a neighbor's lawn tractor while you learn about crop cultivation. From time to time, relish your solitude as you relax with a cool drink or cup of freshly brewed coffee.

Self-Sufficiency

• Self-sufficiency means more than having enough coffee to last until your next grocery store run. If your region gets an extensive ice storm, widespread flooding or another natural disaster, you won't be able to get to your grocery or hardware store. You might also experience a power outage that can extend into days or even weeks. Consulting with a knowledgeable alternative energy specialist, and implementing a power generation system that meets your home's needs, can help you stay afloat until your utility restores your power. Stocking enough nonperishable food, medication and pet food for at least a couple of weeks can also help you become more self-sufficient.