|
Washington. Or Oregon.
1) I love the West coast laid-back attitude.
2) The PacNW is one of those last surviving outposts of the polite and friendly.
3) The PacNW is the most beautiful area of the country, in my opinion, and I've seen most of the United States.
4) Cost of living has yet to skyrocket here. Housing in most areas is still affordable.
5) Washington is better than Oregon simply because education has not gone down the tubes there. WA schools are relatively well-funded and suffering fewer cuts.
6) Washington has the most restrictive public smoking laws in the nation, which you're probably used to by now in California--and moving somewhere else where people smoke would be a shock. Oregon's laws are patchy--a lot of municipalities and counties have passed smoking bans, but Oregon's workplace smoking law does not cover bars and taverns.
7) People recycle here.
8) If you like the outdoors, there's no better place to go--where I live, the mountains are an hour one way and the beach is an hour the other. Washington is dominated by the beautiful Puget Sound.
Downsides:
1) Seattle traffic is horrible, so look at somewhere like Olympia or Bellingham if you want to live on the Sound.
2) It rains.
If you're interested in the Pacific Northwest, remember it's a diverse place--from the Rogue River Valley in the south of Oregon to the Inland Empire around Spokane, WA, there are all kinds of climates, attitudes, and people.
I wouldn't live anywhere else.
__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
|