Joining Peterhead appealed to Gary MacKenzie professionally and personally.
The 34-year-old has joined the Blue Toon for the new season after leaving St Mirren this summer.
On the pitch, the defender is keen to use his experience to help shore up the Buchan side’s backline during their League One campaign.
Off the pitch MacKenzie, his wife and four children are planning to move to the north or north-east from their base in the Glasgow area in the next few years.
He said: “There are quite a few things that appealed to me about Peterhead.
“Jim McInally phoned me a couple of times and Simon Ferry got in touch with me as well to see what my thoughts were.
“As a family we’re planning on moving up north once my older daughters have finished school.
“They’ve got another couple of years and then we want to move before the younger ones have been at school too long. When Jim spoke about the club and what he felt I could bring to it, he thought I could make a big difference to the team with my experience, so it ticked a lot of boxes for me.
“It allows me to get my foot in the door with a team in the north, particularly if we want to move up and if I want to go down the coaching route in the future.”
MacKenzie has already looked at the likes of Inverness as a potential family destination and is also keen to explore the Moray coast.
The former Rangers, Dundee, MK Dons, Blackpool and Scotland squad player added: “We’ve looked at Inverness and beyond that, places like Rosemarkie, Fortrose and Dornoch.
“We’ve got a few different places we’ve looked at, but we haven’t looked at the Moray coast yet.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes with Peterhead.
“I had options in the central belt to play part-time, but the bigger picture is that I want to use playing in the north-east as a bit of a scouting mission as well for villages and towns we could move to.”
