Portsmouth is a shit show. It costs a million bucks to live there and they're constantly tearing the town down to put up more faceless luxury property that nobody lives in. It's so bad that it's starting to creep out into the surrounding towns. It's also full of fucking obnoxious yuppies and there's no parking in the downtown area even with the new garage. Avoid at all costs.

Exeter is nice, however. The surrounding towns are, as well, and significantly cheaper to live in. Epping/Brentwood/Kingston are all suitably rural while no more than 30 minutes away from anything else you might want to see or do. They're also connected to I-95 so getting down to Boston is a breeze. You'll spend more time in traffic on the Tobin or Storrow than you will driving to the city.