So true. 
Men do not dance in New England or the mid-Atlantic where I am from. Some danced when I lived in the south. But nearly everyone dances in Texas. One of my most adorable memories was chaperoning school dances and seeing all the little teen boys twirling girls around the dance floor.
When I was growing up in PA, teen boys might have their arm twisted into an awkward rocking-back-and-forth slow dance if they really liked the girl, but that was it.
This seemingly insignificant fact remains the only reason I would ever live there.
Maine men have to be three sheets to the wind to set foot on the dance floor, and no one ever wants to see the result. I’ve seen exceptions, but they were all import models.
Oh yes! People just dance with each other: little boys with moms or older ladies, dads and daughters, girls with girls—doesn’t matter! Great music, and food.
I’ve been here 21 years—there is a lot to like and it’s been good to me. Now at almost 67, I want to downsize to a farm half this size and have less maintenance and more time to ride and volunteer—not have to work basically 2 full-time jobs with my work and taking care of this place. And the area is changing fast, but not really to my taste at all. 
We are of similar age. I rent out my little horse farm in Maine, and work two part-time jobs in order to afford California rents, 700 sq ft for me, 576 sq ft for my TB. Here, I ride nearly every day and so far, it’s working. The balance is delicate, though. One small shift could send me back to Maine in a big hurry.
My husband recently had to go to San Antonio on a long work trip. I was 0% jealous, minus desperately wanting a breakfast taco and a trip to HEB.
If you told me I had to move back to that part of Texas, I’d be torn.
I’d be very, very sad for my horses. The hill country just stinks for east coast English horse people IMO.
I’d be excited for my social life. I’d be okay raising my child there.
My taste buds would be thrilled. My waistline, not so much.
It’s been a minute since I lived there, but I think my dollar may still stretch a bit farther. It’s hard to say.
But man, I just don’t want to own horses there. Maybe I’m being dramatic. But I’ve historically had a hard time adjusting to horse keeping outside the mid-Atlantic. Maybe it’s not such a rough transition coming from MA where land is at a premium anymore.
Call me crazy, but I would actively avoid moving to a place that already is really hot for four months of the year, two of those are sizzling.
While being trapped inside during a blizzard is a bummer, try it when the sun is out, daylight lasts until way past suppertime, and going outside to work, ride, garden, almost anything, is truly uncomfortable until after dark. The adage that there’s no bad weather, only inadequate clothing, doesn’t hold in that kind of heat.
I’m almost certainly being dramatic, and I apologize to the OP for banging on and on. Because I’ve lived and kept horses in lots of climates, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are better adapted for any of them than I am.
honestly the Heat here is very different than the heat back east as the humidity is less here.
In Kentucky it was miserable at 90F with 95% humidity. We fed the horses at 3:30 AM in order to have any training rides completed by 7am when the horses in training were then stood under their fans which did little to comfort them. Those in the fields often sought refuge under the trees, which could be hit by lightening during the often thunder storms
Here it can be 110F but the humidity would be in the 10% area, a swamp cooler will drop the temp by about 20 degrees. Horses are up during the heat of the day then out at night.
I agree to me, it doesn’t feel as miserable as the 80s/90s with high humidity you get east of the Mississippi. Although I always seem to have at least one anhidrosis horse, so I’d just rather not deal with scorching temps and horses most of the year.
I felt like I partook in the outdoors in the summer more in Texas than I do here. Not necessarily riding, just outdoorsy stuff in general.
in north Texas “winter” is normally the first week or two of January.
We still have all of our winter heavy winter blankets, some are Bakers from the 1950s that are still in very good condition as since moving here they are rarely used.
Five of our horses came from North Dakota, their winter coats here is usually just a change to a darker shade. The ones we brought from Kentucky rather the many inches of hair they put on in Kentucky here they have winter coats of may be 1/2 inch or less with most just becoming black or darker bays.
I just got very tired the snow and of chopping holes in the ice on the pond for the pasture horses. After having to deal with a second year of the main water lines freezing I was done
I still remember it snowing on Memorial Day in the late 1950s (you know near the END of May), the trees had already leafed out. The wet snow tore most of the limbs off the trees
We had one horse here that we did air condition his stall to give him relief as he was allergic to nearly every thing in the world. His stall we air conditioned to keep the dust out.
Must add, personally it took me about five years to adjust to being able to see for miles. We are at the dividing point where the Great Plains starts (Ft Worth is truly where the West begins.
In Kentucky the vegetation was so dense, the trees so tall it was usually not easy to see very far. Here a tall tree would be a shrub in Kentucky. It just took me a while to accept that.
I’m late to the party, but I will chime in!
I lived in New Braunfels for multiple years as a horse girl that rode hunter jumpers.
I worked all over the hill country and loved traveling from town to town.
My personal horse was boarded close to home for a while at a private spot before I put him in full care with my trainer out in Boerne.
The Hill Country is beautiful. Its unique in that there is scrub and rock, but there are also places and pieces with lush grass depending where you go. The Hill Country is quite vast. New Braunfels and a piece of Austin barely lie within the boarders of the Hill Country. San Antonio is not Hill Country, IMO. However, I’ve heard people tell me NB isn’t Hill Country. You can go as far south as Concan and as far north as Llano & Marble Falls. All this to say - your geography, snake experience, and people experience will change.
The “larger cities” in the Hill Country are quite diverse IME. Yes - you have die hards on both sides of the political spectrum. I think you’ll get that anywhere in most Southern States. However, to echo someone earlier in the post, the biggest Political encounter you will get is the Texas Pride/Die Hard Texans.
Weather, again in NB, was quite mild in the winter. The Summers are HOT and LONG. It snowed a couple times in my time in NB, and that was more on the rare side. You’d get some ice here and there. Its not a joke when we say we were in shorts on day in December and then full winter gear the next. Tornados aren’t super common. We had a few hit San Marcos, San Antonio, and Seguin when I was there, but that was as close as they’d come and the were ~F1-F2, so pretty much major wind storms with a lil rotation. Not the F4s & F5s you can get up North TX.
The HJ scene is there but its definitely small. If you want to show A/AA or even most schooling shows, you will have to travel to Houston for 90% of them. Tyler for the other 10%, maybe, if your trainer doesn’t hate Tyler. Most trainers get the hell OUT of Texas in the Summer, going to CO, KY, MI, IL, and NC to escape the heat. There are schooling shows in San Antonio, Dripping Springs, and Houston as well. There are some hidden gem trainers in the Hill Country, don’t let people tell you its a hunter jumper waste land.
As for snakes, just teach your kids not to poke under rocks or brush piles. You’ll probably never see them. Honestly, I only ever saw them when my dad sent me photos or the one little coral snake I pulled out of his pool drain. He’s had a couple dogs bitten, and he’s seen quite a few on the ranch, but it’s not something they are overly weary of. When he’s setting up feeders & deer blinds before season he will wear his snake boots and be a little more cautious. Scorpions are everywhere in TX. You can treat for them and usually it keeps them at bay. My cousin did get stung at my dads once while sitting in the hot tub, but that was definitely a one off occurrence. Treated it like a wasp sting.
To wrap it all up - I love the Hill Country. I love the lush rolling green (when there is no drought) hills of North Texas more and it fits my lifestyle better now, but I don’t regret my time in Hill Country at all and we go back OFTEN for vacations and get always. We have a resort in Hunt that we love, SO & his buddies go on boys trips to Concan to fish and tube, and we try to get away once a year to Fredericksburg. We have family all over NB, so we get the luxury of going to visit them whenever. The Hill Country is a unique place with great history and food and full of good people.
I’d recommend you come visit in the summer. Pick the towns you’re thinking of and just do a trip to experience them all at “peak season”. Experience the Texas heat, the people, and the driving. You will know if its the place for you or not!
Before I settled on N TX, I very heavily considered Franklin TN & Lexington KY as moves, so those might be two areas you can look into or surrounding areas! Happy Hunting. I know its stressful but there is a perfect place for you guys.
I visited the hill country last year in June and it was over 113° every single day for, like, weeks. It was not the humidity of New England but it was still so hot it was hard to breathe. Admittedly I was not acclimatized to it but triple digits seems a lot no matter how you look at it. It was, however, very beautiful and we ate very very well.
Seriously?? Damn. That is some seriously attractive data.
WHY don’t men in New England dance? My town’s school system has everyone take ballroom dancing in 6th grade, and all the boys love getting dressed up and behaving chivalrously as per manly dance rules – for six weeks. Then they never do it again.
I am fully mindful of the value of moving somewhere because the men can dance, but, OP, as another poster said, you might just want to board (if you can find good boarding, which is not given) or go south to Aiken or something for January and February. March in New England is not that bad anymore. And if your husband has to stay behind to pay the bills, well, I’m assuming he doesn’t dance, so it serves him right.
I wish I had a good answer. I taught high school English and modern dance in Maine for many years and only ever had two boys in my dance class, one of whom was sent by his wrestling coach to help with his proprioception. The other was simply a cool kid who didn’t care what anyone thought of him. The rest of the dancers adored them both, in and out of class, and yet I had no more takers of the male persuasion.
Granted, modern dance is a stretch for even the most evolved of the testosterone-laden, so one year I offered social dance, swing mostly, I pulled in a handful of dedicated boys who understood how much the girls in their classes appreciated dancing. Though they traveled to dance festivals, and did demonstrations at weekly assemblies to curry interest, I never got enough kids for a class again.
Most boys don’t have adults modeling dancing in small towns anymore. That said, you can still find Contra dancing with live fiddlers in lots of small New England towns, and Portland used to have a big swing and Western swing scene.
If you want to see dance-crazed kids, watch “Mad Hot Ballroom,” a documentary about NYC’s annual fifth grade social dance competition. Looks like it’s on Prime and AppleTV, too. I cannot recommend it highly enough. If I could have created a subatomic particle of the enthusiasm those dance teachers did, I might still be teaching dance in a small town in Maine.
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