Many of the links in this needs fixing... mostly minor ones.

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

Contents

Introduction

Purpose

I am writing this report with the hope that it will help others out who are exploring a move to New Hampshire.  It is a detailed account of our trip there in early November, 2003.  On that trip we learned more than we could have possibly learned without a report like this.  As far as I am aware, nobody has yet written this detailed of a report about their New Hampshire exploration.  We would have found this useful and it is my hope that you will too.

Background

In order to better understand the perspective of this report, I'll relay some important background information about myself and my family.  Edi (my wife) and I were both born in 1974 and at the moment we have two children, a son, Edison, born in 2001 and a daughter, Erin, born in 2002.  We would consider ourselves Christian and regularly attend church, however we are not particularly closely tied to any specific denomination.  We normally find ourselves most comfortable in Baptist, Evangelical Free or non-denominational churches.  Our circle of family and close friends includes protestant Christians, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims, and a variety of 'other' religious backgrounds. 

I work as an airline pilot for World Airways.  I also play the drums and percussion professionally part time (mostly jazz and Latin jazz) and enjoy working with computers (we use Linux in our house).  Edi is a homeschooling mother, currently serves as the coordinator for two MOPS (Mothers Of PreSchoolers) groups, and is a Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultant.  Edi also sings, most recently with the Choir at our church and two different opera companies in Fresno.

I was born in Hayward, California and moved to Fresno at age 3.  Edi was born in Maryland and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in grade school and to Fresno in High School.  We met in High School and were married in 1993 at age 19.  We moved to Florida (I had actually moved there a year earlier to go to flight school) and lived there between 1992 and 1996.  We moved to the Cincinnati, Ohio area (we actually lived in Northern Kentucky) in 1996 and lived there through mid-1999.  We moved back to Fresno, California in 1999 after deliberating much like we are now as to where to relocate to.  Edi and I have both lived in several different states.  She has visited many of the states and I have visited almost all of them (45 of the 50).  We have been to Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas together, and I have traveled to over 30 different countries around the world while playing music and flying for a living.

Our personal living preferences lean towards newer suburban living with creature comforts (shopping, etc.) relatively nearby.  We gravitate towards larger more utilitarian housing and don't necessarily prefer to have a lot of land (we prefer indoor square footage to land).  I enjoy the outdoors (I like to backpack) but, honestly, we spend most of our time inside.  Edi enjoys movies (much more than I do) and we both enjoy live music and eating out.  As a result of having kids, much of our free time activities lately revolves around them.  When they're asleep, we enjoy playing games (I enjoy online gaming occasionally but we both enjoy board games), cards, and good conversation. 

We first heard of the Free State Project in mid-2002.  At the time I first visited the website, there were 400 or so people signed up.  After researching and discussing the project, Edi and I decided to join.  By the time we signed up, the project had grown to over 1600 members.  We opted out of 7 states including New Hampshire.  Some time before the vote, we decided that we would at least go look at the winning state.  The vote results were announced October 1 and we began our visit to New Hampshire on November 1.  The information in this report is one of the results of that visit. 

Organization

Because of the complexity of providing this information in a most usable format, I will organize it in two ways:  First, chronologically on this page as an overview, and Second, by geographic area.  Providing a third level of organization (topical, for example) is more than I have time to do right now.  If you want to know about real estate (for example), you'll have to search for that by location.  I'll use the same topical format on each area page to make finding the information topically easier.  Some information will be statewide and will be included in the statewide information page.

Each detail page will contain all the details we discovered about each location.  They will not include details about 'events' unless those events were associated with characteristics of the area.  An example of details that would not be included would be details about dinner conversation with various FSP people or the details about my son's finger injury.  Those details (if included at all) will only be on the chronology page below.  Examples of details that would be included would be details about the places we ate at with the FSP people or the emergency room experience as a result of my son's finger injury.  Some pages will be dramatically more detailed than others, since we learned more and/or spent more time in some places than others.  Generally speaking, I'll include all the detail I have.  If you have questions, please feel free to ask, but I probably don't have any more detail than you can find here.

The detail pages will have the following headings (assuming information is available):

1. Real estate - information about land, new homes, and pre-owned homes
   
2. Commerce and Restaurants - information about stores, restaurants, and other places of business
   
3. Churches - information about churches
4. Events - information about or related to events
5. Other - other information that doesn't fit the above (look and feel, etc.)
   

Conspicuously missing is climate and job information.  On the chronology page I'll include weather information about our trip, but because our trip isn't necessarily representative, I'd urge you to do your own climate research.  With few exceptions (Lebanon, for example), I don't have any job information, and in those cases that I do, it's very general.  I am not looking for a job so I didn't do any research about the job market at all. 

Chronology

Saturday, November 1 -  location details here:  Statewide, Nashua

We flew America West from Fresno through Phoenix to Boston.  We arrived in Boston around 11:00 p.m.  We rented a Chevy Venture minivan from Alamo.  The rate was reasonable and we liked the van.  I have now driven all of the 'big-3' minivans (Ford, GM, and Chrysler).  This was the best of those I've driven yet.  I still prefer the Honda to all 3 of them.

We drove from the Boston airport to our hotel in Nashua.  The drive took roughly an hour.  We didn't time it exactly.  There was construction on a bridge on 3 south of Nashua which required us to exit and re-enter the highway.  The weather was cool but not terribly cold.  Upon arrival in Nashua we found a 24 hour McDonalds drive through and a 7-11 to get supplies for the evening and morning.

We checked into our hotel around 12:30 a.m. that night.  We stayed at the Extended Stay America hotel in Nashua.  That location turned out to be perfect for our entire trip.  The hotel is in a business area right off exit #8 (101A bypass) which is near the north end of Nashua.  We could not find a better rate for a newer chain hotel with 'kitchen' facilities, hence our choice.  We booked a Queen room because that's the best room the website showed.  Upon arrival we discovered that the room was a little bit too small for us.  There is no couch, just a recliner.  The kitchen facility is small but functional.  We all went to bed knowing we had all had a long day and needed to get up the next morning for church.

Sunday, November 2 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Manchester

We got up in the morning and got ourselves ready to go to church.  We attended Grace Fellowship Church in Nashua.  We went to the Burger King drive through, Market Basket (for 'supplies') and then returned to the hotel.  When we began to do our paperwork we found out that there were King rooms available.  We switched rooms which gave us a bigger room with a bigger bed.  That wound up being just what we needed for the rest of the trip.  We all napped, then got up and headed to Manchester for dinner.

We had been emailing with several people who were going to be in NH while we were there.  We had Alan Weiss's cell phone number so we coordinated what ultimately turned into dinner with Alan and some others.  We drove up to the Highlander Inn near the Manchester airport.  We met with Alan, Amanda Phillips, Tony Lekas and another gentleman whose name I didn't catch enough to remember (pleeeease forgive me... and because of the seating arrangement I didn't get a chance to talk much with him - rats.).  I sat between Tony and Edison and across from Edi and Alan.  The dinner conversation covered all kinds of topics.  Probably my most important observation is that, though email is a spectacular tool for meeting people and coordinating activities, there's no substitute for meeting in person.  I really enjoyed the dinner and feel as though I've made some friends that would be great to live near.

Among other things, we talked quite a bit about education.  Amanda mentioned the Sudbury Valley School which struck a chord with me.  Tony is a homeschooler so we had plenty to talk about with respect to the practicalities of homeschooling in New Hampshire.  It sounds to me from our conversations that New Hampshire does not have the best homeschooling environment in the nation (compared to, say, Idaho), but it's good enough to get started and, of course, we can improve it (I believe easily).

At the end of the dinner we exchanged some contact information.  Tony invited us over to his place for dinner which.  Unfortunately, due to our ridiculous schedule we ultimately had to pass on that generous offer.  We headed out and drove back to Nashua and went to bed.

Monday, November 3 - location details here: Statewide,Nashua, Southeast, Manchester

We hadn't set up any meetings so we decided to use Monday to make phone calls and then tour the southeast part of the state.  We had also contacted Kelton who was staying until Tuesday.  We did have a Monday evening meeting set up with Eric Knight in East Derry and Kelton also wanted to meet Eric.  Ultimately we devised a plan where we would meet up with Kelton in the evening, go to Eric's, and visit for a while.  Since Kelton was going west that day we didn't attempt to spend more of the day together.

We left late morning and headed on a church drive-by trip that would ultimately take us on a substantial driving trip through much of the southeast part of the state.  We headed east from Nashua first to Pelham, then Salem, then to the coast, up 1A from the MA border to the ME border, up to Dover, then Durham, then back to Manchester for dinner.  After dinner we went down to Derry to visit Eric.  As you can see we covered a lot of ground.

Among the things we did while we drove: looked at a church in Pelham, looked at a church in Salem, got some info about a house in South Seabrook, drove the entire NH coastline (save a few feet between 286 and the MA border), drove around New Castle, drove into Maine, drove by a church in Dover, drove by a church in Durham, took 101 back to Manchester.  Details about all that are on the respective detail pages.

We ate dinner at McDonalds near the airport in Manchester and at the end of dinner Kelton showed up.  He grabbed a bite and we headed to Eric's house in Derry.  We were a little bit late for our 7:00 appointment.  Kelton had gone all the way to Keene and back and we had gone all the way to Portsmouth and back (with plenty of stops along the way), so we were simply running late after packed full days.  We arrived at Eric's around 7:30.  Unfortunately it was dark while we drove through Derry.

We spent, if I recall correctly, a little over an hour at Eric's house and visited with Eric and his family.  He told us some things about the Derry and Londonderry area as well as some general NH things which were helpful.  We also got a tour of his house which, if things went on schedule, he has likely now moved out of.  Among other things, we discussed towns, zoning, property taxes, and education with Eric.  We headed out sometime shortly before 9:00 p.m.  Kelton had an early flight home the next day so he went his way and we went back to the hotel in Nashua.

Tuesday, November 4 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Western

Some of the days flow together but I believe we started Tuesday out with Denny's for breakfast in Nashua.  We spent a lot of time that morning figuring out where we wanted to go and made some more phone calls.  We didn't get on the road until 2:30 p.m.  We had planned out a road trip for that day to look at land.  Most of the day was simply spent driving.  By that time we had set up a Wednesday appointment to tour a manufactured home factory and wanted to have some insight on land prices and locations. 

We drove north from Nashua, through Manchester, through Concord up to Tilton.  We had seen some lower price land listings in Franklin which appeared to be closer to I-93 than some other less expensive places.  Franklin, however, was not a very attractive town.  We looked at a couple of pieces of land and then drove south on U.S. 3 back to Concord, checking out the towns along the way. 

Tilton was a nicer looking town, though small, and had some important stores (Wal-Mart, for example).  Franklin (as I mentioned above) wasn't so attractive.  Going south from Franklin, we saw Boscawen (or some of it anyway), then parts of Concord, some of which were nicer.  We took 202 west from Concord through Hopkinton to Henniker.  Hopkinton was very nice looking to me.  For some reason, Henniker just seemed small and isolated to me.  From there we went south on 114 to Weare.  Weare was what I might call 'average'.  Decent town, not much there though.  From there, we went through Goffstown to Manchester.  Goffstown was larger and had a few more 'things' there as I recall.  By the time we got to Henniker, it was dark, so we didn't have a great look at Weare or Goffstown.

Wednesday, November 5 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Western

We set up a meeting with Bob Lebel of RML General Contractor who builds Epoch manufactured homes.  Our meeting was to take a tour of the Epoch factory in Pembroke, near Concord.  The previous day we had ruled out Franklin as a town to live in so we decided to investigate another area that has low land cost: Hillsborough.  Details of our findings are on the 'Western' page.  After touring Hillsborough, we returned to Pembroke for our meeting.  The tour went well.  The factory looked like a suitable place to build manufactured homes and it appears to me (I'm no expert) that they build great homes there.  We also toured their model.  Their model was set up with lots of fancy upgrades in the downstairs to showcase what they can do and basic trip for part of the upstairs to show what a base house looks like.  Both looked great, though some of the nice touches in the kitchen and dining room were really nice.

After we finished our tour, we headed back to the hotel.  That evening, after doing some research, we decided to tour a couple of more expensive lots in the Nashua and Hudson areas.  Because of the land prices and locations, we figured it would be worth taking a look just to see if it would somehow be 'worth it' to pay more money and be closer to a bigger city.  We looked at several lots and called it a day.

Just as an aside, pretty much every day (or, more accurately, night), we spent a considerable amount of time researching our next moves based on what we found during the day.  That meant pretty much a short night of sleep every night.  I was typically up until at least midnight or 1:00 a.m. every night and we were out of bed by roughly 8:00 a.m. every morning (sometimes a little earlier).  With all the driving, looking, thinking, eating, diapering, talking, meeting, and so on, it was a pretty tiring trip.  But it was well worth the time and money.  There's no way we could have learned everything we did just over the Internet or looking at pictures from a real estate agent.  Now, on with the show!

Thursday, November 6 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Western

Thursday brought us 'more of the same'.  Having seen a couple of lots in Nashua, we decided to look both at lots and at houses in Nashua as well as a few in the surrounding area.  After a 'relaxing' (read me doing research while we all get ready) morning, we headed west towards Wilton and Milford.  We looked at a piece of land there and then a couple more in Nashua. 

When it got to be nap time, I took the family back to the hotel for a nap and then went to visit another builder.  I went to the Value Homes.  Value Homes is a builder for Excel modular homes of PA.  Their model was nice and I was able to get more specific pricing information than I was from RML/Epoch.  It appears to me that Excel and Epoch are fairly direct competitors.  I haven't examined the spec sheets to the finest detail, but it appears both are very nice, well built homes which rival or exceed the quality you'd get in a site built house. 

I returned to the hotel, picked up the family and we toured a little bit more, this time heading over towards Hudson.  I don't recall now where we ate, but it may have been Denny's again.  Throughout the course of the week we ate at Denny's probably 3 times, Pizza Hut once, a local pizza place once (Papa Gino's, I think it was called), and several fast food establishments.  Overall, we were happy with the food. 

Friday, November 7 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Western, Manchester

Friday we got a late start on our day.  We decided to go back up to Tilton to look around in a little more detail.  There were a couple of lots for sale that were less than what was available in Hudson or Nashua.  Nearby is Wal-Mart and the outlet mall and Concord is just 20 minutes away.  Tilton is right off I-93 and is at the 'base' of the lakes region.  We looked at some lots there and then headed back towards Nashua. 

We did make an addional quick trip up to Manchester later in the day to look at a house in town there.  We drove around the neighborhoods in the center of town and found them very pleasant, though older.  In the evening on the 7th, I started working on putting together our trip for the next day.  We decided to go to Keene for a tour and a visit with a friend.

Saturday, November 8 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Keene

We got a late start (I don't recall why now, other than doing more research) and were under way to Keene in the early afternoon.  We went by way of Manchester so that we could time the Manchester - Keene drive.  That added about 15 minutes to the trip which was almost 1 1/2 hours (including the detour).  On the way, I spoke with our friend (amidst losing cell service off and on).  I got some church information from him and we looked as we drove by at the church we wound up going to the next day (Monadnock Congregational Church).  When we arrived in Keene, we got right into looking at land and homes.  We had mapped out about a half dozen places to look and drove fairly quickly around town checking them out (with a stop at the UPS store downtown along the way).  Keene has much more to offer than Tilton (details in the Keene page) and the property prices are a little lower, I presume because of the 'perceived' distance from the metro areas.  There are several brand new stores in Keene and they're building more by the minute.  The Borders is brand new and the Wal-Mart opened within the last year. 

After we had toured the town, we arranged to meet our friend at Uno's (yes, there's an Uno's in Keene).  We enjoyed a great dinner there together and he was able to tell us a few more things about the town and we talked about several other things.  Among them were the Acton Institute, Keene State College, Economics, the relationship between liberty and Christianity, and churches.  After a great dinner we headed back to Nashua.  On the way back we were able to observe a full eclipse of the moon.  We were right on the outside of the area where it was actually totally eclipsed but it went from totally full to totally eclipsed in such a way that it was just a tiny sliver of 'halo' around the bottom part of the moon.  The kids particularly enjoyed the eclipse.

This brings to mined one important facet of our trip: weather.  The first several days it was rainy and cloudy.  By late in the week it had cleared up and was a little bit cooler (lows in the 30's v.s. 40's).  That particular night it was crystal clear.  It stayed clear until the day before we left when it started raining again.

Sunday, November 9 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Western, Keene

Sunday, we went to Monadnock Congregational Church in Peterborough.  We arrived around 10:00 a.m. for their 'coffee' time and then attended the 10:30 service.  Details about the church are on the 'Western' page.  On Saturday, I had observed a sign at the Colony Mill Marketplace indicating that Sunday, the 9th, was going to be the Taste of Keene event.  I assume that event happens annually so I'll include the details about the event in the Keene section.  We enjoyed our lunch and shopping time there.  The Colony Mill Marketplace is a nice mall and the feel of the event reminded us of a smaller, indoor version of the Taste of Cincinnati.  We were particularly pleased with our experience that day.  The food was outstanding, the atmosphere was wonderful and the people were friendly.

After the Taste, we headed back to Nashua to do some more research and get another big night of sleep.

Monday, November 10 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua, Lebanon

We planned our Monday around the idea that we would do our last big 'tour' and save Tuesday for any last minute visits we needed to do and/or just relaxation.  That turned out to be a good plan since we had a little accident on Monday night.  We put together a list of properties in and near Lebanon and hit the road in the morning.  After a stop for breakfast (Denny's again), we got a late morning start up I-93.  It took just over an hour from Manchester to Lebanon.  We decided to drive beyond Lebanon (across the river) to Vermont since Edi had never been there before.  We came back into Lebanon (what they call West Lebanon) and drove around the 'commercial' area.  Lebanon has pretty much everything Keene has plus a Denny's and a Best Buy.  The town itself probably isn't quite as nice, but it's not bad.  We went up to Hanover which is much nicer (and much more expensive) and is home to Dartmouth. 

We looked at a couple of houses in Lebanon and West Lebanon and went to Enfield to look at both houses and land.  Enfield is about 15 minutes from the shopping (depending on where you are in Enfield) and land prices there are very reasonable.  It's primarily a Shaker community.  Details about the land and area are included with the Lebanon section.  We had attempted to make some phone calls on the way to Lebanon but discovered that T-Mobile's service ends shortly after leaving Concord on I-89 and doesn't pick up again... ever. 

After we finished our Lebanon and area tour we headed back to Nashua.  The drive was easy and quick.  We went briefly to the hotel and then went out to dinner at Bickfords.  This was our second trip to Bickfords and though the food was generally decent, both times what we got wasn't exactly what we expected.  I guess they just do things a little differently there than we anticipated.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel.

When we arrived at the hotel we had an unfortunate accident.  As Edi and Edison were getting out of the car, Edison got his finger (the middle one on his right hand) caught in the car door as Edi was closing it.  He apparently reached in quickly at the last second, probably not realizing the door was closing.  Fortunately, only the tip of his finger was caught in the door.  Unfortunately, the small area of his finger tip that was injured was injured very badly.  We quickly went in, got paper towels from the very helpful and nice lady at the desk and I got directions to the Emergency Room.  We got back in the car and rushed to the ER at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua.  I took Edison in while Edi parked and got Erin out.  Because he was screaming and there was blood all over his hand (and mine), the staff figured out there was a pretty serious problem.  After a very brief wait (it seemed like 10 minutes so it must have only been one or two), we were taken in to a room.  I'll spare all of the details of the care, but we're extremely pleased with the quality of the care we got.  They re-wrapped his injury after a doctor examined it.  They gave him some Tylenol with Codine, took and x-ray, determined that the bone at the tip of his finger was broken (and the nail was missing), and ultimately came and gave him four stitches. 

Edison had calmed down substantially prior to the local, but that made him very unhappy again.  Then, a few minutes later, the doctor and a nurse came back to stitch up his fingertip (what was left of it, which I think was most of it).  Edison was a trooper but he screamed quite a bit throughout that procedure.  I'm not 100% sure the local completely numbed the pain, though I'm confident the Tylenol/Codine was helping substantially by that time.  They wrapped it up with tube gauze, gave us some instructions and we headed out.  I think we were there something like 3 1/2 hours.  The whole time, Erin was as well behaved as I've ever seen her.  It was obvious she knew something was wrong and she did just exactly what we told her the whole time.  That was particularly amazing considering we didn't get out of there until after 11:00 p.m.

Having gone through that experience, we knew we would want to just take the next day off.

Tuesday, November 11 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua

We slept later on Tuesday than we did any other day of the trip, mainly because Edison wasn't interested in getting up before 8 a.m. as he had been every other morning.  He was obviously feeling substantially better but was very tired and occasionally still in a little bit of pain (we'd have to ask him about it to find that out though).  We mostly slept, did research, and got ready to go home the next day.  We took advantage of kids-eat-free-night at Denny's and called it a day.

Wednesday, November 12 - location details here:  Statewide, Nashua

We got up early Wednesday and checked out of the hotel.  There's lots of construction on 3 between Nashua and I-95.  As a result, the drive time from the hotel to the Boston airport was about an hour and a half instead of the hour we planned.  Fortunately we had left enough time to make our flight.  We returned our rental car (loved it) and headed to the America West ticket counter.  We discovered upon check in that there would be a tech stop for fuel on the way back in Denver.  That caused us to miss our connection in Phoenix, but they were able to accommodate us on a flight three hours later. 


Copyright 2003 Varrin Swearingen - to reproduce in any way (in whole or in part), please contact the author at: varrin at varrin dot com.