A good residential area between Tyngsborough, MA and Boston?

Consider Nashua, NH or Manchester, NH. Both are cities and have more to offer, IMO, than Burlington, Andover, or Woburn, MA. Rush hour traffic is very light going north on route 3 (from Burlington and Woburn) but 495 south (from Andover) can be heavier. Lowell, MA is also a city right next to Tyngsborough which may be an option but I really have no advice there.

NH has a lower cost of living however real estate taxes are higher due to no NH income tax. In addition, if you work in MA you'll still have to pay MA income tax on top of that so consider those details. Nashua is closer but has a smaller downtown than Manchester however both seem to have more going on than any of the cities in MA near Tyngsborough.

You are doing a reverse commute and it is not that bad. Check out Somerville, Cambridge. Most of the suburbs are too quiet and all families. A commute would be worth have a fun place to be on weekends.

Check out areas in Malden, Medford, Somerville and the eastern part of Cambridge.

There are a few great places. There is Woburn, and also andover. There is also stoneham which is a great place to live.

I grew up here in Somervill and normally you don't encounter much traffic going out of Boston its mainly going into boston in the morning.

Burlington has all the shopping malls and stuff
though I do like Waltham, it has a cool downtown area, and not far from malls - it has everything but it's own shopping mall (unless you count the strip mall crap)

Burlington might work for you. Not a hopping metropolis, but they have a nice mall and there is lots of restaurants and shopping. I used to live not too far away from Burlington and I frequently went there for some of their restaurants.