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I lived in a small coastal town in FL before moving to a rural area of TN, on a lake. And I’ve lived in plenty of cities.
I like the rural people, once they get to know you enough to trust you, they are true friends. Of course there are too many druggies etc these days, but that’s a city problem too.
Rural folk tend to be more religious (Christian), and around here they don’t drink enough for my taste (If you take a Baptist preacher out fishing, he’ll drink all of your beer; if you take two they won’t touch a drop).
Most of my neighbors are armed, many carry. They can “process” deer and other varmints if needed to survive. Hopefully that will never be an issue, but real life skills still exist in rural America. Because they are armed, we don’t really need the police much. Crime here is petty theft; get into the towns and it gets more violent crime (rural places see their share of murders, but it seems to be more isolated and less random).
You’d better like your neighbors because there aren’t many of them, and you might need to rely on them (or help them) at times. Rural is really nice if you’re a loner or introvert, but hard on those with a high need to socialize.
Prop taxes are low; sales tax the same as anywhere else in the area.
We don’t have garbage pickup. It is common to burn, and there is a “convenience center” (couple of compactor-dumpsters) where we can drop off trash, recycle cardboard, etc. Some rural areas do have garbage pick up.
We have 500Mb Internet and 1,000 is available. Priced like in the city, very reliable here. We have electricity too! Served by a cooperative which is nice. We have town water and it tests good; some areas have wells and people use bottled water to drink but every property is different.
I’m sitting in my living room looking out at the lake as I type this. Can’t hear anything except the dog snoring. Light boat traffic, no road noise. Very peaceful.
If we want to go out to dinner, the closest place is 15 min; the closest with alcohol is about 25 min. Fewer top-end choices (none) but some good, local “home” cooking. However the drive time means even when alcohol is available, we stay to one or no drinks. The last 5 miles home is narrow, has some steep fall-offs, and of course night critters to be wary of when driving.
There are subscription life-flight type services you can purchase here (and in the rural area around Lexington KY where I used to live) if you’re worried about getting to medical care quickly. But if you’re really worried about that, you should live closer to a hospital with the competencies you need.
Our “test” for houses was proximity to pizza delivery. This seems to be a good proxy for other services like clinics, eat-in restaurants, basic shopping, etc. So for example on Zillow if we found a nice house, we’d check one of the navigation apps to see how far any pizza place was and look at their websites to see if they deliver to our home. I suppose you could look for Uber/Lyft service with the same idea.
Land takes maintenance. I hate mowing (really tough on allergies) and have it done - $100/week for a bit over an acre, steep and bumpy, mowed and edged. In Lex that might have been closer to $500/week.
Mice and other pests are rural problems. Cutting the lawn short helps (predators can see them) and there are several other steps to take. Learn to identify and love snakes.
I could go on and on. [edit: I guess I did, sorry!]
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