Thanks for the info!

I think of pretty much every town in VT as “rural” with the excepted of Burlington and Montpelier, and maybe Waterbury/Stowe…so maybe I’m biased in my answer here.

But Randolph actually feels weirdly…metropolitan?…for a small town. And I say that as a former resident of both actual cities (NYC, ATL) and big towns/small cities with great cultural resources (Asheville, Chattanooga). We have a James Beard Award-winning restaurant in addition to two amazing breakfast spots, two pizza places, a great coffeehouse, a Filipino-American fusion restaurant with amazing cocktails, a Mexican restaurant, a great bakery, an ice cream spot, and a steak/pub type place. We also have a dispensary, a yoga studio, a recording studio/music venue, a boutique florist, a community pottery studio, an awesome library, a gourmet grocery, an epic performing arts hall, and an art supply store. Like, Randolph is kinda the bee’s knees. If we could make this house work for our weirdly-specific wants or find something else affordable around here, we’d definitely stay. But Randolph has gotten so rad that it’s just not affordable anymore. :/

All of that said, as much as we deeply appreciate all of these things, we don’t need them. So being a little far-flung from those amenities isn’t a big deal to us. We need a couple of acres, a big garage, good food access for what we can’t grow/raise, and good internet (or at least the promise of good internet coming soon). So Eden doesn’t sound too shabby, nor does Newbury. Still not sure about the other places we’re looking, tho!