Where to live?

For the past 7+ years I have been married to The Man and his career. The military has moved us where they needed us to be and it wasn't much of a choice to us. We have lived in military housing for most of this as well. We are faced with the real possibility that his career could end as early as next year. It could also extend out for about 5 more years if things fall into place and he is able to retire. Retirement from the military has always our plan. That was our plan til they changed the rules.

We are now in the discussions of where to live. He has been in the military almost 15 years and prior to that always lived in California. I on the other hand was raised a in a military family and moved every couple years til I was going into junior high school when my dad retired and we moved to Washington. When I as a senior in high school my mom's job moved her to Arizona. I never wanted to live in Arizona. It was hot most of the year and nothing to do. I did end up living in Arizona for almost 10 years. That is where The Man and I met and married.

We keep looking at our possibilities. Almost anything is possible but we don't really want to pick something and make a huge mistake. I would love to be able to have a house on several acres so that we can have a large garden and raise a few chickens and possibly goats or a cow. The Man seems to like this idea. We know that depending on where we choose to live this will not be a possibility due to finances. We would ideally like to be close to some friends or family as living here in the UK for three years so far with no friends or family around has been very hard on me. The problem is that when we look at places near family and friends there are a lot of negatives about the places except for the people themselves. We have looked at more ideal places that would be a day or two drive from these people and some of these places seem to be more in the ideal of costs and options that we would like.

How do you pick a place to live and settle down? Do you live near family? Do you like where you live? I really wish I had a magic crystal ball right now. We are both so confused as what to do and will have to make some concrete decisions sooner or later.