we have two small children and we homeschool as well. NH is very supportive of this; if you end up looking into public schools, many of the schools here are fantastic, but you really have to do your homework on this as every town runs its own schools so it varies dramatically from one town to the next. for most NH towns, paying for schooling is ½ to ¾ of the town costs on a yearly basis, so it's not a small item!

We didn't want to live in the Boston-commuter-belt that is the swath from Wilton all the way over to the seacoast... it's expensive and I have zero need to go to Boston for anything, so the proximity is not worth any expense (for us.) Your mileage may vary.

We live in the Connecticut river valley and we love the proximity to mountains, Vermont, easy transit down the 91 corridor, actual local farms for food, and a sense of being very separated from things while being reasonably close. Keene is our nearest town and it has most of the things we need for shopping within a reasonably short drive.

for the more rural/distant areas bear in mind that some services will be hard to come by - like dentists, accountants, pediatricians, any kind of contractor, etc. for SW NH the Cheshire medical center in Keene is the regional hospital and Dartmouth Hitchcock up in Lebanon/Hanover is the main "big" hospital for the broader region, with lots of specialists and whatnot.

If you'd like to chat more I'm happy to discuss with you via DM or on the phone or whatever, we're super glad we moved here and NH needs more young families with kids to relocate here to help replace all the aging folks :)

(and the old people in our town LOVE seeing our kids around town - I was thinking they might be cranky retirees - nope! it's like being a in town full of surrogate grandparents. fantastic!)