We are currently investigating/looking into moving to Tennessee from Florida. My husband is a Dallas boy and I am Nottingham/Cambridge girl. Nashville albeit a place we love but looking for a not so busy place for 2 seniors who like to eat out at good restaurants and I of course like my shopping malls and outlets. Anyone want to recommend their city or town?....if so would love to hear from you.
Florida, in particular the Tampa area is getting way too busy and the summers too hot!!

Have you looked at Austin or SoCal?

Why not Dallas?
Although I love Nashville, I find it a bit too small for me, may be the right for you.

North Georgia mountains would offer a similar slow pace of living without so many people - you would also have quick access to TN if you needed too for family or some such reason.

If you want to check out our area my wife and I would be happy to show you around. We are in Tullahoma, Lynchburg, Winchester area near TimsFord lake. It’s a easy drive to spend day in Nashville, Huntsville Al or Chattanooga. My wife is from Jacksonville, FL and now likes it here better. Even Atlanta is driveable for the day but a long day.

I have not lived there but I was going to suggest Chattanooga based on it's proximity in both directions to Nashville and Atlanta, which would enable a drive to either easily enough. The area around it seems quite pretty as well.

I have friends that lived in Dallas for 30 years and moved to Crossville, TN about 4 years ago. They love it. The husband loves golf and Crossville has many excellent golf courses. The wife loves eating out and finds plenty of good local places. She loves shopping and finds plenty of large malls within an hour or less drive. We have visited and found it to be a lovely area.

Dallas is way too big and getting too crowded.....friends have just moved out!!

Every time I go through Spring Hill I think it would make a pretty decent place to live, it's about 40 minutes outside of Nashville but doesn't seem too busy and Franklin is even closer. There's Cool Springs Galleria mall near by but honestly I think most malls are dying now so not sure how good it is any more.

A lot depends on what type of housing you want. Small 1/4 acre lot residential or a yard with a couple acres or more. My neighborhood is 7 miles from Lynchburg, about 50 miles from Huntsville,Al and 60 miles from Chattanooga. Nashville is about 75. Anywhere within a easy commute to Nashville will be harder to find any larger properties for a reasonable cost. My neighborhood has more deer that people and if I need to visit a large city it’s close enough for a day outing.
We have a Jack Nicklaus designed golf course 7 miles away and plenty of water sport activities on the 11000 acre lake.

Just took this picture 5 minutes ago from our back porch.

I can vouch for what you have to say about the Tampa area, having recently extracted ourselves from the area. We're not an unreasonable distance from GA, NC or TN, being in the NW corner of SC. While I haven't spent a lot of time in TN I can safely say that if you like varied good food then the further from the large metropolises that you go the harder it is to find fine dining - unless BBQ is your idea of a good meal.
I do like some of the smaller cities close to TN, so if you can live outside the state... Greenville SC is one of my more favoured urban haunts although I must say before I go much further that I can't stand big cities. Greenville is smaller than but probably on par with the Tampa area for development. Asheville NC is buzzing for a small city. I don't know how you lean politically but both are left friendly, Asheville noticeably so.

If you are into horses both towns are handy for Tryon, they're both great for outdoor pursuits and have easy access to big hills that call themselves mountains. Don't think that you can avoid the heat though, my game camera recorded 100F in our backyard this week and we've had plenty of humidity to go with it, but it is exciting to be able to look forward to a proper Fall...

Bowling Green, Ky. My wife and I are thinking of moving here from eastern Ky soon (I work here at the moment) and it's only 40 mins from Nashville. Small town feel but plenty going on but also not too busy that you forget yourself.

I can vouch for The Cookeville TN area which is near Crossville mentioned above. I lived in the area 6 years when I lived in the US and Cookeville and Crossville are great small towns with great shopping, great restuarants etc. Driving to Nashville or Knoxville both are located right near to I-40 is easy for when you want to do the big city things. You really should consider a smaller town or city if your looking at life in Tennessee.

A little off topic but I saw an interesting article about Crossville TN last week. During WW2 Tennessee had six German POW camps with the biggest in Crossville. A German officer captured in North Africa in 1943 spent two years there and later wrote a book about it. The prisoners had it better than most Europeans during the war. Paid to work on local farms and use the money to buy beer and other necessities, and order whatever from Sears catalog. Given three meals a day which they highly rated and teach classes and organize sports teams. This officer returned to Germany after the war and in 1953 emigrated to Tennessee and at the time of the article was a 92 year old resident of Crossville.