Rolling Hills and Room to Breathe: How Kevin and Deborah Made the Move to Switzerland County

For Kevin and Deborah, the move to Switzerland County, Indiana, had been simmering for years, so when they came across MakeMyMove’s Switzerland County relocation program last August, they suddenly had a timeline.

The couple relocated from Fairfield Township, Ohio, with their four-year-old twins and three dogs. They now live on a property in southeastern Indiana with rolling hills, a private lake and five acres - a long way from the suburban life they left behind.

The Draw of the Land

The seeds of the move were planted long before last August. Kevin had family in Switzerland County and had visited the area over the years.

“My lifelong dream was to live on a larger property where I could have ATVs and room to roam,” Kevin said. “We have four-year-old twins and a 17-year-old daughter and this is an ideal place to raise a family.”

The original plan had been to wait a couple of years so the Romers could save up but when the opportunity emerged, they moved on it.

“When some of our family property became available in the area, we decided to jump on it,” Kevin said. “And now we’re getting settled in.”

Simple by Design

Around the same time the property opportunity materialized, Kevin and Deborah heard about MakeMyMove - a relocation platform that connects remote workers with communities that want to welcome new residents. Switzerland County is one of those communities and the timing felt like more than a coincidence.

They applied and Kevin says the application and approval process was refreshingly painless, especially when compared to the months of legal back-and-forth involved in buying out a family trust.

“After all the things we’ve dealt with on the legal side of things, it was quite simple,” he said. “The approval process didn’t take long at all.”

Country Living, Relearned

Trading a home in a subdivision for one with acreage comes with a learning curve, and Kevin and Deborah have leaned into it with good humor.

The house itself is smaller on paper at roughly 1,000 square feet, not counting the basement but the property more than makes up for it. There's a barn, two garage options and a slide they're planning to hook up to their private lake once their boys are old enough to swim. A kitchen expansion is already in the works.

The land, though, has required some recalibration. Five acres of Indiana hillside is a different animal than the half-acre lot their previous home sat on.

"The mower that we used on our old property didn't cut it, literally," Kevin said, laughing. "It only made it about an hour and a half one day and then it died. So we had to get something new quickly."

He now counts this among the best pieces of advice he can offer anyone making a similar jump. "If you're going to a larger property from a smaller one, make sure that you pre-plan all of the logistics," he said. "There's just a lot of things that we needed as soon as we moved here that just cascaded."

For Deborah, the biggest shift has been grocery shopping. The nearest large store is 35 minutes away but luckily she says that stores like Kroger deliver to their home. After growing up in Ripley County, Indiana, just outside of Batesville, she's found that the return to a slower lifestyle has made the trade-off well worth it. "I just like the quietness of it down here. Everyone seems friendly and waves when we pass by," she said.

A Soft Landing for the Whole Family

As a remote worker, Kevin works from home, which made reliable internet a non-negotiable. What he found when he got to Switzerland County wasn’t what he expected.

“I have a higher speed out here in the country than I did in the city,” he said. “We have fiber internet that’s about a half gig, which is way more than we need.”

He said that he connected with MakeMyMove’s mover support team for guidance on internet providers in the area, just one of the small but useful ways the program supported the transition beyond the logistics of the move itself.

Meanwhile, the twins are thriving. They had been attending a special needs preschool in Ohio and the transition into a comparable program in Switzerland County happened quickly and smoothly. They are also pleasantly surprised that their children’s school bus stops right in front of their home.

“The schooling here has been great for the boys,” Kevin said.

Their 17-year-old daughter is finishing her senior year back in Ohio while staying with family and has her sights set on Ohio State for college.

As for their dogs, all three of them have adjusted just fine, even if they’re still working out their feelings about the local deer.

“We saw deer in the backyard two days ago,” Kevin said. “The dogs ran to the door and were barking but the deer didn’t even move,” Kevin says, amusingly.

What Most People Get Wrong About Switzerland County

Switzerland County sits in the far southeastern corner of Indiana, where the landscape has almost nothing in common with the flat farmland most people picture when they think of the state. The terrain is hilly, wooded and secluded and it’s one of the first things Kevin wants anyone considering a move here to understand.

“I think one of the big things people don’t know about Switzerland County, if they’ve never been here, is that they assume it’s flat,” he added. “That’s why so many people move to Kentucky, they like the privacy and the hills but that’s what we also have here.”

The family has already started finding their footing in the community. They took the boys to a local Easter egg hunt and a detour led them to one of Switzerland County's most talked-about local landmarks - a sprawling field of black tulips grown by none other than tattoo artist Kat Von D, who traded Los Angeles for southeastern Indiana and brought her green thumb with her.

"We were able to get our picture with her," Kevin said. "It was a fun surprise."

This summer, they’re looking forward to attending the annual Swiss Wine Festival in nearby Vevay and they’re still learning what else the area has to offer, which Kevin says is part of the appeal.

The Life They Were Looking For

For Kevin, the move has delivered nearly everything he’d imagined.

“We were two minutes away from anything and everything that we had access to before,” he said. “Now we’re about 35 minutes away from several things and about an hour away from everything. But that’s fine - because that’s what we’re looking for.”

Working remotely from home, Kevin says he’s more productive than ever. The quiet, the space and the absence of constant suburban noise add up in ways he didn’t fully anticipate.

“Working from home makes it a whole lot easier,” he said. “I can get more things done.”

For anyone considering relocating to Switzerland County, Kevin has one thing he wants them to know: "There's a lot of different properties right in the area," he said. "Whether it's acreage with a lake, a hillside retreat, or something in between - the inventory might surprise you, and so could the price point compared to where you're coming from.

The hills are green, the internet is fast and the deer are unfazed by the dogs, and Kevin and Deborah are exactly where they want to be.