does my idea of Utopia exist? where to live?
 

say i get to retire at 55, and my wife keeps working for 9 more years after that. i need moderate weather. i dont mind four real seasons, but maybe a four week blizzard would suck. i dont need to fully retire for the same 9 years. maybe teach calculus 1 to high school over achievers?

i would need culture in the form of theater, ballet/opera (ahem! for the wife), great restaurant options. no olive gardens as my only option for my italian fix. panda express? forget it. i love a good grocery store/butcher..so a foodie city would be great. i need hunting options, and fishing is a must. so outdoorsy.

it cannot be prone to major natural disasters. i think that would be detrimental to retired people. housing needs to be affordable. bonus if i could sell a california property for the entire amount. i would love to design a green home, with solar, radiant heating...kumbaya.

some ideas? boise, bozeman? denver? maybe tuscon?

oh, i would love some land, so i dont have to see my neighbors.

Detroit?:p

So what you're looking for is a rural metropolitan area. Or a metropolitan rural area. Hmmmm, I'm thinking.

Missoula MT

Reno foothills is your placeSmileWavy That's where I'm going, 11 plus acres in the Virginia Rangehttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/wat6.gif

There's a little touristy town call Player Del Carman an hour outside of Cancun. Plenty of sand many Americans and Europeans live there. If you get away from the main drag where the beach front homes are, you can get something for a great price. Plenty of fishing and the jungle is right in your back yard. Right across the hwy. I don't know about the Theather, because I have never looked into tht stuff. That's where I like to go when I am done. May be get a job as a tour guide and compete with the locals.

I really like the Bend, Oregon, area. Great for outdoor activities and Bend is a cool town. Good weather, hunting, fishing, skiing, golf, rock climbing.

Asheville NC is a good east coast option.

Or Knoxville, TN!!

Passed through there when we went to Cancun/Cozumel. I thought we could have spent our whole time there, instead, and I would have been perfectly happy.

Utopia without a beach doesn't exist, IMO.

Portland, OR, or possibly Seattle.

Both do have the potential for disasters though (volcanoes, earthquakes). And they can get depressing. Like "shoot yourself in the face with a shotgun" depressing. But both have awesome culture.

I liked living in Portland for the time I was there. Great city, great culture, great feel, just depressing and absolutely MISERABLE in a recession (no jobs at all up there, very little in the way of local economy).

Wichita :p:p

Does Utopia exist? Uh... no... sorry. :p

Compared to Detroit.......yes.:D

I thought Asheville, NC pretty quick, too. Or Chattanooga, Knoxville, etc. You'd totally hate Denver, nothing to see here. :)

On the upside, pretty much everywhere is cheaper than CA, so you're set there.

(crickets chirping) :)

I don't really like the town, but there must be fifty gazzilion deer in the area and great rivers and streams. Does it have a ballet?

+1. I'm pretty sure I'll go back there eventually. But yeah, there's NO jobs.

It's gotta be an isolated large town, small city, i.e., not part of a metropolis. Ain't no good huntin' otherwise and Vashy might as well stay in the Bay Area.

I don't think that is one of Vash's main concerns.



Portland did just win the honor of America's unhappiest citiy.

They shot a black bear in the mall parking lot here last year. Plus, a metropolitan area population of around 650k ensures lots of restaurants, symphonies, etc. Views of the Smoky Mountains are astounding and we're less than an hour from the Great Smoky Mt National Park. Plus, there are four large lakes within 30 minutes of my house.

And no state income tax!! :)

Galts Gulch, CO

Austin TX or one of the surrounding towns.

No state income tax? What is wrong with you people.

San Diego


40 years ago

Greenland

I've lived in all the West Coast states. The Puget Sound area is crowded and gray. It can be beautiful. Its were I grew up. It calls to me sometimes. I just don't know if I can handle the wet.

Oregon has some great areas, Portland not being one of them. Its crowded, wet, but there is a great Porsche resource there in Steve Weiner and Rennsport Systems. I found it really difficult to find the great outdoors in Portland. It seemed everyone else was trying to also and the roads outa there were always packed.

Southern Oregon has a great climate but literally no jobs. Culture? Not much but there might be something called culture in Ashland.

California? You know all about the strengths and weaknesses.

My universal complaint about all three is that they don't manage their fish and wildlife well. It is difficult to have a good hunt anymore. Its been going that way for twenty years...

Good luck,
Troy

The requirement of opera, theatre and ballet seems to disqualify most all of the bucolic small towns mentioned above.

Vash is talking about 20-30 years down the road. It will all be a gray wasteland by then anyway.

austin texas...hmmm. humid during the summer...decent the rest of the time.

strong contender.

lol!

I can assure you that Asheville, NC (although a neat place imo), doesn't qualify :)

Find a town that has a college/university with a respected arts program.

Nothing Could Beat SO CA 40 Years Ago
 

If money were NO OBJECT...the best place in the world I can imagine living in is Moncetio, CA..which is on the South side of Santa Barbara. All the amenities you could want and close enought to a large metro area to be convient. Absolutely beautiful inthose hills over looking the Pacific. Ophra spent 50M for a house over looking the Pacific there about 10 years ago.

San Luis Obispo CA and the Central Coast would also qualify...just less close to the metro area, and a bit more rural.

That said...

Tucson is very nice, small town feel with amenities and clsoe enough to Phoenix, AZ However it is desert and gets warm

I need to check out Prescott, AZ..cooler in summer but not too cold in winter.

Saint George, Utah is another nice destination.

I hear NZ is nice...

Bingo.

Bend is great...my Dad lived there for five years. The only problem was transportation out: He was consulting in those days and, in the winter, his choice of airlines was either "Panic in a Can" commuter airlines out of Redmond over the Cascades, or driving through the Cascades in the snow to Portland, hours away.

He drove through a lot of snow.

Perhaps he thought I was piloting the commuter plane.

I love S.L.O. and the surrounding areas (Pismo Beach, etc.) but the biggest problem is they're in CA. For someone into the outdoors it's okay - not so much if you're into guns or actually having civil liberties.

To the question.

If you care to move to the east coast, there are utopias. Me, I'm moving west when the kiddies get in college.

I'm not sharing:)

I would recommend the outskirts of Göteborg.