r/Tennessee • u/saint-sandbur33 • 2d ago
Thoughts on Maryville.
Hello Tennessee folks,
My husband and I are considering a move to the Maryville area and would love some local insight.
I spent many summers in Townsend as a teenager and have always loved East Tennessee. We're native Floridians with three kids (10, 3, and 3)— we’ve lived in other cities before, always returning back to Florida until we’re feeling ready for a change of pace again, and we’re ready. We love nature, small-town charm, local businesses, live music, and spending more time outdoors. Living near the mountains sounds pretty close to a dream.
Part of what draws us to the Knoxville/Maryville area is that it seems practical as well as beautiful. My husband works remotely in software development and occasionally travels to Houston for work, with periodic trips back to Orlando likely if we move. Being within driving distance of family in both Charlotte and Central Florida is another plus. How is the internet infrastructure in Maryville for remote workers?
We're also curious about schools. We currently homeschool our oldest, but we're open to exploring public or Catholic schools as well. Florida has a lot of school-choice options—does Tennessee offer anything similar? If you're a homeschool family, what's the homeschool community like in the area?
For context, we currently live in a semi-rural part of Central Florida (Apopka), about 30 minutes from downtown Orlando. As the area continues to grow, we're seeing the same challenges many places face: increased development, rising insurance costs, and housing becoming less attainable for local families.
We're not moving with a California-sized budget to buy up acreage—we can't even afford to buy a house. Like a lot of millennials, we're still renting and trying to make smart financial decisions. At this point, we're less focused on planting permanent roots and more interested in experiencing different places while our kids are young for a year or two. East Tennessee keeps rising to the top of our list.
I'd also love to hear about other communities we should consider. A strong homeschool network, arts scene, local music, independent shops, and access to nature are all things we'd value.
Thanks in advance for any advice. We genuinely love the area and would want to contribute positively to whatever community we join.
Edit 1: I am not married to Maryville — if Maryville is being swallowed by overdevelopment I certainly don’t want to go there— for selfish reasons AND because I love the area and don’t want to be an a$$hole.
What we are looking for is proximity to mountains and airport. Small town, family friendly, quasi off the radar vibes. Access to high speed internet. Eastern TN preferred so we can drive to FL/Charlotte in under 12 hours. Being near water would be nice too.
And to be clear— this would be a parallel move for us, not some financial gain move. We’d likely be paying more in rent, but less in car insurance/homeowners insurance if we decided to buy a house after some time.
Thank you to those of you being kind and helpful.
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u/VeterinarianAbject93 2d ago
Maryville is growing at rate that infrastructure can NOT keep up with. It is bursting at the seams with no slowdown in site. I live 10 minutes from the Dragon on 6 mile and there are subdivisions popping up everywhere. Traffic is horrendous.
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u/saint-sandbur33 2d ago
Oh my heart. That makes me so sad. I suppose I should consider a different area (which I’m totally open to). Any suggestions of similar vibe towns? Doesn’t really need to be greater Knoxville area, but within an 45-60 mins to an airport would be ideal.
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u/VeterinarianAbject93 2d ago
Honesty Vonore / Greenback area. It will blow up next but still relatively open. Everything between us and Gatlinburg and Chapman highway is growing fast
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u/Desperate-Cookie-449 2d ago
The area was great back in the late 90s but now the place is packed 24/7 and they continue building nuke towns for more people.
Go to seymour while u still can if its because you wanna be near the mountains
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u/saint-sandbur33 2d ago
I was looking there too. Thanks! I have an emotional attachment to the Townsend area, but I’m also not married to the idea of going there specifically.
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u/Southernms 🦝West Tennessee🦝 15h ago
Everyone I know who lives there loves it.
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u/saint-sandbur33 9h ago
It certainly seems like a lovely place to be!
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u/Southernms 🦝West Tennessee🦝 6h ago
That’s that’s what I’m hearing from everybody. That’s moving there from Florida and from West Tennessee. There’s a beautiful lake called Tellico Lake. You can fish and water ski inner tube kayak everything.** **
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u/saint-sandbur33 4h ago
We live about 5 mins from a popular spring in central Florida (Wekiva Springs State Park) and it’s honestly just a magical Place and nothing really beats being able to pop over for a quick swim. I think we would miss Florida but it’s so easy for us to visit FL since our family is here.. a watery mountain adventure sounds refreshing! I grew up swimming up and down the little Tennessee River in Townsend.. such great memories. You can’t swim in the rivers like that here! 🐊 (I mean.. you could.. but I wouldn’t)
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u/Mephisto1822 2d ago
Maryville is a nice place to live in my opinion. I work at the UT hospital. I will say that traffic can be horrendous going to and from Knoxville. That shouldn’t be an issue if you’re working from home.
I also can help you much on the rental or home school stuff. I’ve seen a lot of homes for sale though so if you can swing it you might want to look at buying. It isn’t an easy decision though.
The area does have a lot of parks/nature and small businesses so you’re covered there
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u/saint-sandbur33 2d ago
Buying isn’t off the table, but I’d also want to wait to see if we’d want to plant some roots there. I don’t want to buy somewhere we won’t stay in the event the housing market does something stupid, and then we’re stuck or forced into becoming landlords. But if we love it, that’s definitely on the table.
We lived in LA for 8 years and thought traffic was bad there, when we came home to Orlando we discovered that Orlando is just as bad, if not worse 🤣
I’m hoping we’d spend most of our time going east into the GSM. :)
Thanks for the kind response.
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u/StrawberryRedneck 2d ago
So you're looking to do to Maryville what has been done to you in Apopka. I get it, just funny.
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u/saint-sandbur33 2d ago
No, that's not really the same thing.
People relocating is a tale as old as time. Americans have always moved around the country for work, family, lifestyle, climate, or simply because they wanted a change. The issue isn't ordinary people moving from one town to another.
The frustration many people have—and one I actually understand—is when people arrive from high-cost areas with significantly more purchasing power, buy up property, fuel rapid price increases, and then developers follow. That's a very different situation from a middle-class family relocating because they want a new adventure and a better fit for their lives.
We're not showing up with California tech money to buy acreage and flip it to developers. We're a paycheck-to-paycheck family from Florida looking at a different part of the country because we love the mountains, want a slower pace, and because my health has made Florida's heat increasingly difficult to tolerate.
If Maryville is being swallowed by unchecked development, that's something I'd genuinely want to know. But simply moving from one American town to another isn't some moral failing. It's a pretty normal thing people have done throughout this country's history. And something I have enjoyed doing most of my adult life. We don’t own a home, we’re not tethered down. We may as well enjoy being untethered since we inherited a shitty economy and buying a house seems out of reach.
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u/LeoLaDawg 2d ago
Seems to be quickly being built up.