This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with McKenna Shamburg, 25, who moved from Utah to Indiana to be closer to her family to help raise her children. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve lived in eight states now.
I was born and raised mostly in South Carolina. I left when I was 12 years old to go to Louisville, Kentucky, for two years. Then we moved to Austin for a year, and then we moved back to South Carolina when I was 15. That’s where I met my husband in high school.
Then we moved to Norfolk, Virginia, and then to Hot Springs, North Carolina. Then I graduated from high school, joined the military, and went to Knoxville, Tennessee, for college at the University of Tennessee. Then my husband and I moved to Washington Terrace, Utah, which is about 45 minutes north of Salt Lake City.
I was only applying to jobs in Utah because of the nature. I’m an outdoorsy person, and I was super excited about the mountains.
Utah wasn’t for us
We lived in Utah for a little under two years. We really tried to have a community in Utah, and it just didn’t work out.
I like to think I’m a friendly person. I like to wave at people when I’m walking or running. It’s a small thing, and I don’t get butt-hurt about if people wave back or not, but nobody would in Utah. People weren’t as friendly there as they are out East or in the Midwest.
Courtesy of McKenna Shamburg
So when we had twins in July 2025, it was just really hard.
Also, there’s a big drought in Utah, and it’s pretty bad. A lot of the water Utah gets is from snowfall, and it barely snowed.
The month we left, the city had enacted water conservation rules where they were fining people for using too much water. With twins, I do one million loads of laundry all the time — and that’s not including baths and all that jazz. So it was a good thing we were getting out of there.
In this phase of life, being that far from family and friends wasn’t great for us.
Also, financially, buying a house in Utah is just a lot more expensive. And with the water situation, I wouldn’t really want to invest in a property — even if we had funds to do so — if there’s no water.
We missed living near family, so we came up with a unique solution
One of the biggest reasons we wanted to move was that we had twins, and in Utah, we didn’t have any family nearby. When everybody says it’s hard to do it on your own, and it takes a village, they aren’t lying.
I was locked in my house in Utah. Even though I would get outside and we’d go to the park, it was just us. I was lonely.
My family and I have always been close. We just haven’t been nearby.
My brother was living in South Dakota, and he, similarly, wanted to be closer to family — or at least to the East.
My parents wanted to open a pizza place, Vinyl Pies, and that’s what brought us all together. We all decided to move to Vincennes, Indiana, at the same time to collaborate on the pizza place.
Now, we’re all in Indiana as of two months ago.
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Buying a home was definitely the goal for us, but it seemed unattainable in Utah.
We moved to Indiana in April 2026 and closed on our home for $273,000. The house we have here would probably go for three times as much in Utah, which is kind of crazy. And we want more kids, so trying to fit them in a smaller house than what we have here in Indiana would be a pain.
Getting the house was a bit of a roller coaster because we were still living in Utah and we didn’t have the time or the money to fly out. The twins were maybe six or seven months old at the time, and it would have been a mess to try to bring them.
My parents had to come look at it for us. Our real estate agent also did video tours.
Our real estate agent sent an incentive program to us. I also heard about it from other folks — people in Vincennes were eager to share it.
The city gave us $5,000 — half of it upfront, and then half of it after a year — to move there. So we’ve received half so far.
One of the big perks — aside from them giving you a bundle of money, which you can always take as a young couple buying a home — is that they also gave us a year membership to the YMCA, which has been amazing because I can go work out and they watch the kids. I can’t explain how much of a blessing that is.
As a current stay-at-home mom, my sanity rides on getting out of the house.
Even though there are certainly no mountains here, the parks they have are actually really nice.
And they do a lot of events here in town — almost every weekend, even though it’s a small Midwestern town. I think they do a really good job keeping everybody occupied, especially kids.
Having family nearby to help raise my kids is invaluable
It was bittersweet leaving Utah, but I was excited to have support again. It was a pretty rough nine months there with just me, the husband, and the kids.
Being close to family has been so amazing. My brother hadn’t met our kids until they were nine months old. Not because he didn’t want to, but because we were so far away. And now he sees them almost every other day.
Courtesy of McKenna Shamburg
My brother has two kids, too, and another on the way. So I’ve not been close to my niece or nephew at all, but now I see them almost every other day, too.
I love the mountains, and I was pretty sad to leave Utah for that reason — Indiana is literally one of the flattest states. But coming here, people have been so nice. There’s a sense of pride here, in a good way.