Looking to retire/relocate in a beautiful area with access to nature

[LakeMan45]

This is Glassy Mountain in Pickens. It is 20 minutes from the Easley suburb west of Greenville. It is an easy 1.5 mile hike from the lower trailhead to the bald area. You can also park at the radio towers and do a short 5 minute walk down to the bald. The bald does have some graffiti but it doesn't bother me. I've done hikes all over the country and I would put this in my top 5 easy short hikes especially in the fall.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cH7sD8hMqI

Here's the Table Rock hike. Table Rock State Park is 40 minutes from downtown Greenville, half hour from Easley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjjMxpnzHsI I would probably rank this a top 3 hike with views in the southeast. It is strenuous. I did this hike back in the fall and met an Asian couple from Washington state. They were blown away by it.

[LakeMan45]

Falls Park and the Swamp Rabbit Trail are featured in USA Today's 10 best city park and urban trails.

https://www.10best.com/awards/travel...ational-trail/

https://www.10best.com/awards/travel...ity-park-2023/

[LakeMan45]

Lizap,

This isn't something I really care about but I think Haywood Mall, Greenridge, Magnolia Park, Augusta Road, Pelham Road shopping / restaurant areas in Greenville generally look nicer than the commercial areas in Hendersonville and Asheville.

You describe Greenville as urban sprawl but Hendersonville is considered a suburb of Asheville. It takes 30 minutes to get from the Flat Rock neighborhood to the Asheville outlet mall and you travel on a busy interstate with essentially constant construction work to get there. If a resident of Hendersonville / FLat Rock are still working, they likely would have to commute up to Asheville. If you are using an interstate on a regular basis, you live in everywhere USA, in my view. I don't see that as a bad thing although I do prefer areas that are away from interstates, especially as I get older.

I would say the Travelers Rest area is more scenic than Flat Rock / Hville area and tied with Asheville city / Tunnel Road area. You can see the Blue Ridge and Paris Mountain from various points in the Greenville metro including I-385 driving into downtown and the Pelham Road area near Haywood Mall.

If you are retired in Greenville, you are not going to have to deal with the worst traffic during rush hour unless you choose to. You can also live out in rural areas like Travelers Rest that are not far from downtown.

I took at a look at parks in Asheville's urban area and they look sketchy and unappealing to me to include the ones on the French Broad River. One of the river parks used to be a race track and the track is still there. It is pretty weird. Columbia SC has better river trails with some whitewater and Spanish moss hanging from the trees.

I've looked at various top things to do in Asheville websites and no city park is mentioned. That's kind of surprising given Asheville is supposed to be an outdoors oriented city. I saw an Asheville resident making this same observation on a forum similar to this one.

The nicest one is the grounds at the Biltmore Estate but it costs $65 - 85 just to walk the grounds without entry to the mansion. I think the lake area at Furman University in Greenville is similar to the Biltmore grounds. I prefer the way Furman looks with Paris Mountain looming in the background and the lack of tourists. And it's free. You can get on the Swamp Rabbit trail in Traveler's Rest's little downtown area and bike down to Furman or go all the way to downtown Greenville.

Hendersonville's downtown is nice but something about the streetscape seems off for a town in the Blue Ridge. Those brick crosswalks and brick soil containers for the plants kind of bug me. They are going for a college town look but there's no college. Feels like it needs a college quad next to it like the one at Presbyterian College in Clinton SC. Clinton has the opposite problem, it doesn't have a downtown that matches the college.

If a Blue Ridge city is gonna go for a cutesy kind of look, I prefer something like Highlands.

[LakeMan45]

After doing more research, I think living in Hendersonville is the right call if a person is set on the Asheville area. It has the only downtown area in the Asheville metro that has a Hallmark vibe similar to Greenville. Hendersonville not having a downtown park is disappointing but the parks in the Hendersonville area look nicer and safer than around Asheville.

I had forgot how gritty downtown Asheville is. Jumps out at me after spending so much time in downtown Greenville. It seems like Asheville would have a posh looking downtown given the old money families that have lived there. It does have an extensive greenway by the river but the path runs through some industrial areas and looks like some homeless tent camps as well.

According to a Youtube video I watched, Asheville's Carrier Park is the most visited one. This is the park that was built on the old Nascar track. It is surprising Asheville's signature and most popular park is on a NASCAR track and a NASCAR track was located that close to downtown Asheville. It doesn't seem to fit the image they are going for. They are going for quirky but not this kind of quirky. I assume that's why the city doesn't hype it as a destination. It is unique for a park to be located on a NASCAR track and have a sand volleyball court and roller hockey rink in the middle of it. It could be cool experience to ride a bike on a NASCAR track. A town like Darlington and Talladega would hype this park like crazy if they had it.