CANAAN VALLEY, W.Va. — When Ashley Eklin received a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2022, her outlook on life changed forever.
"That was my pivotal moment," says Eklin, who was living in the Chicago area at the time. "I decided to take a huge leap of faith and just chase some dreams."
Those dreams included a change of geography. A work colleague knew that Eklin had always wanted to live out East and suggested she look into Ascend West Virginia. If Eklin was willing to relocate to the Mountain State, the program would give her cash and other incentives to build a life there. She was game — and after a lengthy application process, she was accepted.
"I literally had never been to West Virginia. I hadn't even visited, and I bought a house. I didn't even see my house until the day I moved here," she says.
That was three years ago. Eklin moved with her two "fur babies" to Inwood: population 3,400. Located in the state's eastern panhandle, the region offers affordability within reach of the D.C. metropolitan area. Four months ago, her fiancé, also from Illinois, joined her.
It's been the perfect move, she says. "I am developing my kayaking skills and taking some incredible photography on my hikes," and — far from the light pollution of a big city — "learning about astrophotography."
An uphill battle for the Mountain State
Ascend West Virginia is one of dozens of relocation initiatives across the country that emerged around the time of the pandemic, when millions of Americans shifted to remote work and began looking for a change of scenery. Programs in states including Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky have offered these workers financial incentives to relocate to places where they'll have a lower cost of living in the long run. Many of the largest are still operating.
In return, the thinking went, new residents could boost sagging local economies.
West Virginia, in particular, has long struggled. Its population has fallen by more than 4% over the past decade alone, making it the only U.S. state with fewer people today than in 1950. It ranks among the nation's highest in poverty. But the state offers a substantially lower cost of living than nearby Washington, D.C. It also has rugged mountains, whitewater rivers and extensive forests — a combination that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere.
Ascend West Virginia launched in 2021, the 50th anniversary of John Denver's rural anthem "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The iconic song was already being used to anchor the state tourism department's award-winning "Almost Heaven" promotions.
"What we recognized is that West Virginia has some of the highest density and highest caliber of outdoor recreation in the entire country," says Danny Twilley, an assistant vice president of economic and community development at West Virginia University who was instrumental in creating Ascend West Virginia. "We've seen what that's done in other parts of the country. So we're like, how do we replicate that?"
One way is with cash. West Virginia began offering successful applicants $12,000 paid out over two years. There is no specific income requirement, but participants must demonstrate an ability to sustain themselves in the state.
Evan Starr, a professor at the University of Maryland, says the money is really about marketing. "It gets you to say, 'Hey, I've never thought about living in Cumberland, Maryland,' or 'I've never thought about living in West Virginia.'"
Unlike many programs that rely at least in part on taxpayer funding, Ascend West Virginia's initial $25 million budget came from the private Wing 2 Wing Foundation created by former Intuit CEO Brad D. Smith and his wife, Alys. "Where the state leaned in, it was natural because the tourism department was already advertising West Virginia," Smith says.
A native son, Smith built a career over more than three decades in 10 different states and four industries before returning to West Virginia, where he now serves as president of his alma mater, Marshall University. "When I graduated, I didn't have a choice. I had to leave," he says, because of a lack of economic opportunity in the state at the time. He wanted to make sure other West Virginians had the option — and an incentive — to stay.
The success of Ascend West Virginia has already spawned a collection of spinoffs aimed at luring out-of-staters and retaining local talent. First Ascent is designed to keep West Virginia college graduates from leaving the state; Teachers Ascend seeks to recruit classroom teachers; and Ascend Heroes is meant to attract military veterans.
For Abby Snyder and her husband, Colin Scott, the financial incentive was appealing, but their decision-making was more complex than that. After several years of working and living abroad as digital nomads, most recently in Portugal, the couple was looking for a place to put down roots while continuing their global work. Snyder, who grew up in the Western Maryland portion of Appalachia, had founded an environmental nonprofit focused on biocultural reforestation. Scott, originally from Utah, is an independent filmmaker. They first heard about Ascend West Virginia a few years ago when Scott's mother sent them a newspaper article about it.
With so much discussion about some people wanting to flee the U.S. in the wake of the 2024 presidential election, Snyder says she and her husband had the opposite reaction. They decided to return, thinking, "We need to be part of this fight for our democracy and fight for environmentalism and art and people."
She acknowledges that West Virginia is a deeply red state, but says she has found people to be welcoming, despite political differences. "What digital nomads are often missing is … the opportunity to build community and close friendships," Snyder observes. In Lewisburg, a town of fewer than 4,000 people in southern West Virginia known for its local arts scene and architecture, she and her husband found exactly that. Right now, they are renting while beginning construction on a new home near the Cranberry Wilderness — among the largest backpacking areas in the eastern United States.
Take me home to West Virginia
Despite early skepticism that programs like Ascend West Virginia couldn't produce long-term gains, many have reported high retention rates and lasting economic benefits. A remarkable 96% of West Virginia's participants remain in the state after the program's two-year commitment ends, according to program officials. "Ascenders," as they are called, also receive access to coworking spaces with private offices, internet and conference rooms, as well as two years of free outdoor recreation and gear rentals, including kayaks and mountain bikes.
That was a huge pull for Chipper Thurber, who edits promotional videos for megachurches across the country and loves the outdoors. He and his wife, Jessica, and young son, Bowen, were already living in a small town in Pennsylvania, but the family decided to switch states. When Thurber first heard of the relocation incentives on offer, "I thought it was a scam because it seemed too good to be true [and] we always wanted to live in West Virginia," he says.
The Thurbers landed in Fairmont, about 20 miles southwest of Morgantown, home to West Virginia University. He says the extra cash helped, "but honestly, I was mostly in it for the outdoor stuff."
Those outdoor possibilities were also enticements for Kimberly and Andrew Ayers to return to West Virginia. She grew up in Charleston; he in Martinsburg. They met as students on WVU's ski race team. But after graduation, the couple moved away, ending up in Pennsylvania.
She has her own engineering consultancy, and he is a massage therapist, life coach and personal trainer.
"We've always been huge into the outdoors," Kimberly says.
They're both big on trail running — an off-road sport over rough terrain — something they have plenty of now.
They are also fans of the coworking space, or in the program's parlance, "base camp." There's one in Morgantown that they frequently use, but others are scattered around the state in communities featured as part of the Ascend West Virginia program.
"Sometimes we see too much of each other at home, so this space is actually great. So she can get out of the house, and I can have the office at home," Andrew admits.
An outsized economic boost
Ascend West Virginia was originally designed to welcome 1,000 remote workers. Now, plans are being put in place to bring on the next thousand. Since its launch, it has received roughly 88,000 applications and brought more than 700 participants to the state, with an average income of around $100,000 — nearly three times West Virginia's per capita average. Including family members, more than 1,500 new residents have arrived.
While those numbers may seem trivial compared to the state's approximately 1.7 million people, the economic impact has been outsized. A 2023 West Virginia University study estimated that participants had contributed about $580 million to the economy, factoring in money spent on housing, purchases from local businesses and state income taxes. Updated estimates place the figure closer to $750 million, program officials say.
The program has reinforced the success of a strategy borrowed from Oklahoma. That state's program, Tulsa Remote, launched in late 2018 and has surpassed 4,000 participants. It offers remote workers a $10,000 incentive to relocate. Although other programs popped up about the same time around the country, Tulsa's is recognized as a model and has been widely emulated.
Conor Godfrey and his wife, Mica, moved from Washington, D.C., to Tulsa, Okla., in 2021, taking advantage of the program.
"I'll take $10,000 any day, and we put it immediately to moving costs. So, it certainly did its job," says Godfrey. But, he says, "I don't think we would have moved across the country for $10,000."
At the time, Godfrey worked in national security but was looking for a way to "shuffle the deck" after a career that kept him on the road in far-flung places. His wife had roots in Oklahoma and when visiting family there, they began to see Tulsa as a place they could build the next chapter in their lives.
"I felt like the city was a startup," he says. "It had hit bottom 20 or 30 years before and had finally been making strides. There was a lot of good energy there."
Since arriving, Godfrey has founded his own startup, Dockware. The company, with 20 employees — all but three based in Tulsa — uses artificial intelligence to automate the inspection and tracking of freight shipments in warehouses and loading docks.
Other programs include Remote Shoals, promoting The Shoals area along the Tennessee River in Northwest Alabama, as well as ones in Arkansas, Vermont and Topeka, Kan.
But Remote Shoals and Vermont's program have since wound down — not because they weren't successful, but because funding ran dry.
Adam Himber, vice president of the Shoals Economic Development Authority, says even though the Alabama program has been discontinued, its positive effects continue to be felt. "We marketed our community through this program. It put a spotlight on us," he says. That exposure helped broaden its appeal. New arrivals to the area would tell him, "We didn't get accepted, but we just fell in love with the community because of our research. We came and visited and we moved here anyway," Himber says.
Vermont Treasurer Mike Pieciak was commissioner of the state's Department of Financial Regulation in 2021 when his office published a detailed look at its since-shuttered Worker Relocation Incentive Program.
He says the state felt the need to do something to address its shrinking and aging workforce. "We want people to move here," Pieciak says. "We need more taxpayers to shoulder the burden of running a state, and everybody benefits from that."
But with a limited state-approved budget of just a few million dollars, it couldn't be done at scale. The program was only bringing in hundreds of people, but the state needs tens of thousands to make a real difference, he says. Vermont also doesn't have the kind of lopsided cost-of-living metrics that make such initiatives in Oklahoma, Alabama or West Virginia attractive.
And now, employers are increasingly insisting on hybrid schedules or even a full-time return to the office. That's affecting people like Eklin, who moved from Chicago to West Virginia. Suddenly, she finds herself no longer fully remote; she has to commute three times a week into the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.
"I sit in traffic for two hours each way," she grumbles. But she insists she has no plans to move. The commute "stinks," she says. "But at the end of the day, you're going home to a sanctuary."
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