We moved to Paducah, Kentucky last spring as sort of a second career in the ministry. We plan to be here 10 or 15 years and then retire. Great area. VERY cheap housing. Got some snow but not near as much as where we used to live in MIchigan. Didn't have snow until a week ago and it will probably melt this week. Western Kentucky has lots of hunting and fishing. Lots of water around...within two hours of St. Louis or Nashville or Memphis if you want to visit big cities (don't know why!). Paducah is small enough so traffic is no issue but big enough where you can get most anything and most big stores and shops are here. Overall pretty good area.
I’m familiar with W. KY and concur with most of that. I don’t think that snow from last week is going to melt until late this week tho’ — NWS blew the forecast and parts of W. KY not only got 2x what was forecast last week, today most got 3-4x what was forecast over a pretty general area (not localized banding - a front “hung up”.) Looks like lows around 4 deg. F the next couple nights, but by next Sunday NWS says 58 deg. high @ Paducah. It’s still not “Michigan”, but then I was around for the 2009 mid-South ice storm. THAT was NO fun! Summers are pretty humid; also expect a fair amount of severe t-storms in spring & early summer especially — like a lot of the USA. Paducah has 2 fairly good size hospitals & Vanderbilt is not too far away — ditto Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. The City has a lot of festivals and activities for a town its size. W. KY is generally a moderately conservative area, but quite a few local “Blue Dog” dem pols are still around - some of whom are crooks or worse: Web search “Julian Carroll scandal” only if you wish to become nauseous. But Pubs are generally getting the upper hand in KY. In addition to Land Between the Lakes, the rivers, and 3 most interesting “wildlife management areas” west of Paducah, much of the Shawnee National Forest is under 90 minutes away (in IL) with many nifty little spots tucked away in it, plus several State Parks and other such facilities. Many are usually low traffic / usage. Drive an hour up to “Devils Kitchen Lake” for an almost Canada-like experience (short hikes to rock ledges overlooking a clear, 90 ft. deep lake — supports rainbow trout year round), fish the Ohio or Mississippi Rivers for “monsters”, or drive 45 min. (?) west of Paducah & find Cypress swamps / lakes — stay after dark and wonder what those “human size” splashes are! But in the summer be sure to bring plenty insect repellent. (The IL parks seem fairly mosquito free.) All in all, there’s nothing spectacular like one finds out West, but there are lots of nice spots, some intriguing, to discover, if one likes the outdoors. Later on, plenty of retirement apts. have gone up around Paducah, should things come to that.
All that said, there is a lot to recommend in the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks, too. One of my best friends plans to retire from the Chicago suburbs to something like Bull Shoals or Norfolk Lake in AR.