I’ve started looking for horse property and need to narrow down my choices of region. I love where I live and grew up but will never afford to own a farm here (they typically start at $2m and my budget is 1/4 of that). Does anything exist that meets my criteria? I love living in remote areas & only need an internet connection to work, but with horses I know better than to be too far from good vets and farriers. So, what I need is a combination of the beauty & peace of a rural environment and enough of a horse community that I can find good care.
- Rural area where it’s possible to find secluded property within an hour or less drive to town (a smaller nearby town with a few amenities would be nice, but not essential). A town with some aesthetic appeal & culture is a major plus, farmer’s market & farm to table culture is also a plus for my partner’s line of work.
- Excellent horse care within a reasonable distance (surgery center within a few hours drive, excellent veterinary care, skilled farriers either locally or who come to the area every few weeks).
- Enough of a horse culture that I might be able to find someone trustworthy to farm sit occasionally (no guarantee of it, but at least the possibility)
- Beautiful, dramatic or bucolic scenery with mountains or some hills - not flat. High altitude is fine, if even preferable.
- Four seasons with a dry winter (not dark & damp) and plenty of sunny days. Snow is nice if it’s typically measured in inches, not feet, and it rarely gets below 0F.
- Low rate of Lyme disease is a plus, which between that & the winters has made me somewhat reluctant to consider the northeast.
- Low property crime rate, the sort of place you can leave your doors unlocked all the time
I realize this is an idealized concept and don’t expect to find this exact thing (especially without spending upwards of $1m), but any suggestions are much appreciated. I love Vermont but couldn’t do the winters. I like the Catskills & the Berkshires, but not the winters & ticks. I love the natural environment of the Rocky mountains, Tetons, etc but am concerned about being either too remote for the horses or too expensive (Telluride, etc). I love Santa Fe & Taos but have the same concerns about horse care & property crime. I like the beauty & horse culture in Asheville, NC & Virginia but as a gay couple I am concerned about some of the social aspects (I may well be wrong about this as I’ve never been there). Marin & Sonoma counties, Woodside & Portola Valley in CA are great, as is the Santa Ynez area, but they’re all way out of my league budget-wise. I was thinking of the Boulder, CO area but rural properties seem hard to come by in that area these days. No place is perfect but I’ve lived in some places I truly loved that fit most of this description (sadly they have changed since) so I know they exist.
Thanks in advance!
) Although I guess that depends on your definition of “hills”. And we’ve close to 18 hours of daylight during the peak of the summer – plenty of time to get horses rode after work.
