Half year "home" base in Southern Illinois?

[MrJim]

I've recently been thinking we have too much house for our needs back home in northern IL, if we're going to be wintering away from it, but also thinking there are tax advantages to remaining an Illinois resident (no state income tax on retirement income.) So my new idea is to find a small inexpensive and easy maintenance place in southern IL that we can use as our official residence, but safely be away from much of the year without a lot of ongoing expenses or fears about what's happening to it. Extra points if it's a place we'd enjoy being in for spring, summer and fall, with recreation, churches, shopping and health care nearby.

So far, I've come up with the option of a small unit in a retirement community or condo, plus a storage location for the Airstream, or a small house with a covered parking space for our 23' AS Safari.

My question is, has anyone done something like this, in Illinois?