If you had $300k to start your REI career, where would you start?

[Wyatt King]

I’ll be leaving my current job in about 7 months and will be wanting to focus on real estate investing. Based on savings and an upcoming sale of my house here on Hawaii, I’ll have about $300k to try and get my real estate investing off the ground. 

I've been looking at getting a STR in the smoky mountain area. I did STR for my house on Oahu a few years ago before the law changed and loved the cash flow it made. I have minor experience being a STR host and think the potential cash flow of a large beautiful house is extremely enticing and I can do it remotely.

I'll also be moving to the central New Jersey area with my fiancé and wanting to buy a house there using VA. Wanting to house hack but not seeing many decent options so looking at buying and renovating and using sort of a delayed BRRRR.
My ultimate goal is to be financially free to be a small high school coach and not worry about the crappy pay. And be able to travel wherever I want whenever I want. Whether that takes 3 awesome STRs or commercial properties or 25 LTRs, I’m not sure.

Using your experience, if you can go back and start your investing career with $300k then where would you start and why?

THANKS!