Where to move to be rural?

I live on the east coast in a suburb. We have 41,000 people in a city of 15 sq. miles. It's AWFUL. Everything is very expensive here. Hubby works 5 minutes from the house and I'm able to be at home.

I haven't been down town in 3 months - I go shopping every six weeks and and try to do errands less often.

On a positive note, we do have a lot of "services" here - hospital 4 minutes away, good schools, local Y and the ocean. But hubby's money comes in and goes out.

I have a veggie garden and am going to expand that next year and I'm baking everything and working on not buying any processed food. I'm also thinking before I buy things that have been "marketed" to me.

We have a plan to pay the mortgage down and save until we figure out where we want to move rural and also what we can do to earn money. I'm thinking of starting a soap business - art soap. Hubby is still trying to figure out what he wants to do, he'd like to do something different. Because we have kids, we do want to be rural, but within a reasonable distance to a hospital. I know I have to have electricity(hubby's interested in solar) and a flush toilet. I don't want to live in a development - NOT! I don't want a "fancy" house just one in a quiet area with lots of land.

If anyone knows anything about the following areas, I would love to hear:

Mountains of North Carolina
Blue Ridge area of Virginia
Montana

We want to live in a climate that is slightly warmer than the northeast at winter, but NOT hot, not lots and lots of people. We like to kayak, so water would be nice - lake o.k.

We will be taking our first family vacation next year and have thought about going to montana - not sure - have to check cost. We decided that where ever we go we wanted it to be a place we are considering moving.