Where to move

[Alphaville]

Alphaville, don’t you live in New Orleans? Runner up to very few cities imo.

new orleans? not yet!

but i will make my move eventually...

[Alphaville]

I don’t have a huge experience, I admit, I’ve only been to Utah for maybe 120 or so days in my life.
Still, I found it to offer something for (almost) everyone.

i spent only a week there (park city, plus other stops), good enough for me. do not miss.

Salt Lake City is nice and green and close to some beautiful nature. It is also a relatively big city and it offers a decent convenience.

yeah i guess so

Then across the rest of the state there’s some of the most beautiful nature in the world.
I could live in Moab for example.

moab is a nice semi-boho town, but it’s so not like the rest of utah

I have to admit I’m not really a club and party kinda person so I probably don’t feel the lack of action.

neither am i, dance clubs are a horror to me, but i like live theater and innovative bands and good art museums/galleries and people watching and experimental music and lots of migrants and that sort of scene.

plus being irreligious might get me lynched in utah

[JamesR]

I think the hardest thing will probably be making and seeing friends. However, we’ve been in Chicago 1 year now and still don’t have any local friends... outside of work and football.

In my experience from moving to a new city for work and being all alone, my social life didn't really kick in until about 1.5 years later, and it started getting pretty good by year 3. I'm an introvert though so that slowed things down. My social life definitely came through my coworkers which kinda slowed things down I'm sure.

P.S. My gut reaction is that if you want to live in a small town you'd 100% need a vehicle. I suppose it might be possible to find a town that has the right mix of public transportation, bicyclability, walkability, etc.. maybe town up in the hills somewhere rather than on the flat plains, where the geography encourages a bit more density..

[brdsl]

Internet access will probably be an issue. The small towns you are talking about are lower income, low-cost housing and not many internet access options. Many of them do not have internet access available. The other issue is a vehicle...it is a must have. Cheap food, etc is only available via a long drive. No traffic, but plenty of miles. I have lived in your type of area my whole life. I would rent a small place first, see if it your cup of tea, and then look for a purchase. I am closer to the opposite end of the state from you.

[JamesR]

How about considering farming, like permaculture or pasture raised livestock.. That could influence where you want to be. For example Paul Wheaton prefers west Montana to many other states because it has 4 seasons and that's a benefit to his farming.

[Scott 2]

Expensive locations cost more for a reason. I've only visited small town america, but my experience matches what Alphaville describes. It's like stepping back in time 30 years, to a very specific and homogeneous culture. It's hard for me to imagine an international traveler happily settling there, especially a young immigrant from China.

[Riggerjack]

This thread needs a voice of dissent, good news, I am here!

The experiences with rural America expressed here must be true. But having lived in a variety of rural areas, I haven't seen anything like this. I rather suspect neither has anyone else, recently.

Yes, if you are the type of person who likes cities, boredom could be an issue.

"Like, OMG, I moved to the sticks, and I can't believe there isn't a well trained professional cadre of thespians to entertain me - whatever shall I do!?!"

If this is your fear, it's absolutely real. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Stay in your city.

Because out here, if one wishes to live an interesting life, one is forced to be interesting, or at least be interested. Relationships tend to last longer, both good and bad. This doesn't play out well I for the kinds of people who have a curated list of memes, instead of thoughts. Ticket stubs and souvenirs instead of birdsong. Walking commutes past a park with more people than trees, instead of real forests.

But if the OP is not so inclined, as he has indicated, boredom isn't likely an issue.
............

Since I work in telecom, and slow internet came up, I have a different experience.

Right now, the second round of the connect America funding is being claimed. To claim this money, an ISP must provide 10meg service to a previously unconnected address. Here in Western Washington, we have to go pretty deep into the hills to find these customers. They are way outside paved roads, in clusters of a few houses here, and a few there. A dozen in one place? Haven't seen that in years.

Maybe somebody in the Midwest has a different experience with internet. But I don't know why they would. Flat farmland is easy to wire up cheaply, mountain passes, not so much.
.........

What I do know, is that the Midwest was pioneered by farmers, and that industrial farming has meant that farming communities often have more housing than housing need. So that farm, 2 miles out of town is now part of a huge agribusiness. But the farmhouse, isn't. And many of those houses can be found for a song. A friend bought a 3/2 farmhouse in Rembrandt, Iowa, for $6k, back in the '90's. For quite a while, there was a booming business in buying and moving these houses, might still be, for all I know.

So, if you aren't afraid of the dark, come on out to the sticks. The people and the internet are fine.

Unless you are the kind of person who doesn't like this sort of thing, in which case, your internet will suck, and we will pretend that we are living in the 80's until you go away.

[Alphaville]

i have a cabin in the far west, not the midwest, and this was my internet provider:

https://internet.hughesnet.com/

(i lived at the end of a long mud road so i don’t know about anything else.)

i can see they now offer free standard installation instead of the $700 they were charging when gen5 was launched. bastards.

and sure we made our own fun but i do appreciate the hard work and dedication on good thespians. yes, old vhs tapes of laurence olivier from the library work in a pinch, but it’s not the same.

i do miss jazz clubs however, i really do, improvised music happens right before your eyes in a way that just can’t be reproduced. extra plus when eating a huge slice of greasy pizza at 3am.

i don’t meant to diss the boonies but i just can’t plug all my circuits to it.

my wife grew up there and once figured there was a rattlesnake in the grass because she heard the birds go bananas. so i went outside and had to dispatch it, with regrets, as it was threatening our domestic animals.

but i’d rather live in the city and vacation in the country than live in the country and vacation in the city. humans need both, the issue is what measure of each.

people, as much as they can annoy me, are ultimately more interesting that trees for me. it’s the way i’m wired. also, i hate cows, shitting everywhere and followed by swarms of biting flies.

(this is why i recommend rabbits for meat. you can have a nice organized operation with minimal investment)

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT BACKYARD

https://travel.usnews.com/Chicago_IL/Things_To_Do/

https://www.timeout.com/chicago

[Frita]

Like cities, towns each have their own vibe. The difference is that cities are large enough to have a variety of people one may not encounter in less populated areas elsewhere. You won’t ever really know what a place is like until you live there. (Some towns seem friendly while you’re visiting but are insular to outsiders, especially if you are competing for work and the economy is bad!) Consider a lease-option where a portion of the rent would go toward the price should you decide to buy when the lease is up.

[mooretrees]

I lived in Portland Oregon for about16 years before moving to a small town of around 13k. It was a transition for sure, but we were tired of the big city.

I think a small town is awesome! I’m okay living without the arts and I went to a lot of live music in my younger years. I haven’t had a problem meeting people, but I’m an extrovert and was very proactive about meeting people. I volunteered at the farmers market and DH has joined a few chill mountain bike rides a local club organizes. I think we have a good mix of beautiful scenery, tons of hiking/biking/skiing to keep someone outside all the time.
If I was to look at a new town, I’d look for a small university, see if they had a farmers market and any kinds of outdoor clubs for potential friends.
Our experience with meeting people has been we were welcomed with open arms. People here were friendly and ready to make new friends. The downside to this town, and maybe others, is the large amount of religious people. Now, I’m sure in some ways they are really good resources, lots of canning and gardening with the Pentecostals, but it’s weird to be around people who don’t believe in science (but have a cell phone and drive a car?).
I can’t speak for the night life, but in a college town there will always be bars and the like.

[classical_Liberal]

My preferences are virtually identical to OP. I want to be near nature, but still enjoy at least some diversity of culture, and be able to take in some of the entertainment options city's offer. Also have a huge issue committing to staying in one place, so buying is out unless the ultimate goal is to turn it into a rental and have a management company run it for me.

The compromise here is smaller college cities. They are usually far enough away from the regional population centers to avoid most city problems, yet still offer most of the diversity, and less, but manageable levels of local entertainment. Cheaper housing because of the college population, look for stuff a nonUS grad student might get. If you pick correctly, you can literally be surrounded by outdoors activities a few miles out of town. It's very possible to live in these places day-to-day car free (transit for college kids despite car culture), however, having one is a huge plus for any kind of travel out of the area. And you'll likely will want to leave occasionally, because, well, it's a smaller town.

I've been surprised, both at how happy I am in these smaller towns, and how little I miss big cities.

[Alphaville]

I lived in Portland Oregon for about16 years ...

I think a small town is ... I went to a lot of live music in my younger years.... gardening with the Pentecostals, but it’s weird to be around people who don’t believe in science (but have a cell phone and drive a car?). ...
I can’t speak for the night life, but in a college town there will always be bars and the like.

The compromise here is smaller college cities. They are usually far enough away from the regional population centers to avoid most city problems, yet still offer most of the diversity, and less, but manageable levels of local entertainment.

that is indeed a great option but my sense is he’s sort of fresh out of college and at the point of starting a career, just like his girlfriend.

my advice for the op is build your career, build your network, enjoy the attractions, “make memories” as they say, then once you’re in the position to make a pile of money you can buy your compound anywhere you want.

if you retire too soon, withdrawing from the world before you get your fill, you’re going to miss out on a lot of experiences, opportunities, and connections.

then again everyone’s internal clock is different. maybe he IS ready to withdraw already.

one of the things that got on my nerves in a rural setting was indeed the overabundance of religious types. the fastest way to a social network was the church.

we could always manage to find 3 or 4 weirdo refugees though, but it was difficult.

and the problem with going to a bar in a college town is you’re going to be drinking with a bunch of kids.

in cities there are cultural attractions for grown-ass people.

but again—everyone’s needs are different. some people are ok with tv, some with books, some with npr.

[Scott 2]

10meg service... That kind of makes the point. Gigabit is fast internet. I think my dorm room was offering more than 10meg in 1999.

Actually, in the dorm next to me was a guy from small town Minnesota, at least until he got kicked out for making racist jokes to the dorm email list. No malice, it just didn't seem like a big deal, having never met a black person before.

I kid you not, my last small town trip, I had to wait for a group of jazzercise students to clear out from the church. I saw the VCR. It reminded me of childhood, waiting for my mom at the gym day care, in 1986. There might have been a rotary phone.

On the way home, we didn't have time for a 20 mile detour to the nearest Applebee's, so lunch was in a gas station parking lot. We chose poorly, there was no subway. We should have stocked up at the Walmart, but didn't think it'd be the only grocery store.

I did stay at a best Western with two waffle makers at the continental breakfast. I didn't get a turn, but the family with six kids really seemed to enjoy them. Dad looked proud in his john deer hat. I overheard something about a tractor.

If you love church, football, hunting and guns - small town America is fantastic. I'm not a real man though, so it's not for me.

[Riggerjack]

10meg service... That kind of makes the point. Gigabit is fast internet. I think my dorm room was offering more than 10meg in 1999.

Uh huh.

At the risk of derailing, let's talk about internet speeds for a few minutes. Gigabit is FAST! And 10 Meg isn't. But this speed your ISP is offering is from the Central Office (where the signal processing equipment is) to you. This is an upper limit, and not a guaranteed speed. It's mainly just a marketing number. If you want more speed, I am sure they will be happy to sell it to you.

If you wanted to communicate with the central office, this is the number that would matter to you, and you should buy whatever you like. But most people don't get on the internet so they can communicate with their local CO tech. Most people want to connect with distant places. How fast the connection from their home to the CO is, matters only if that is the limiting factor. Hint, unless you are measuring in kilobits, (remember 56k?) This probably isn't the limiting factor.

Now we have to talk about a industry secret. It's called aggregating. If I sell everyone in town a gigabit circuit, at any given time, most of them are not going to be using anything like their gigabit throughput. If I put all of their circuits through a switch, I could maybe get away with feeding that switch with a single gigabit circuit.

By this magic, if any end user wants to connect up and actually use that gigabit throughput, he's going to find that even though the speed tests say gigabit, that one gigabyte file he wants to download still takes ten minutes.

Actual speed is limited by the smallest pipe. Often, this is the upload speed of the source. The uploader doesn't pay for enough bandwidth. Sometimes it's the path between the source's CO, and my CO (AT&T aggregating too much). And sometimes, it's because I am feeding an entire neighborhood of gigabit services, with far less than a single gigabit to the switch... (i.e. it is never possible to get actual gigabit throughput beyond the CO.

When VZ sold territory to FTR, back in 2011, I was looking through the planning maps, and found some interesting details. At that time, FTR was buying the territory from North Seattle to Canada in the Puget Sound, plus a bunch of small towns on the dry side of the state. More than 150k customers. All of the traffic from all of those customers, uploading and downloading, was going through 2 20 gig circuits to Chicago, and a 10 and a 20 gig circuits to San Francisco.

70 gigs, split between 150k customers, ah, the magic of aggregating!

Now that was the very, very minimum. VZ had spent a year pulling spare parts, tools, and anything else that wasn't nailed down out of the sold territory. They stripped circuits, and equipment. Hell, they even tried to take gym equipment donated by employees for a company gym. They closed down expansion in many areas, rather than expand to get more customers.

It took some time, but those feeder circuits were expanded by a lot. It wasn't cheap, but it was necessary. And in many places, the speeds we sold to customers never changed. Because they could always get good speeds to the CO, regardless of how narrow the bandwidth beyond there.

This is the business. Every ISP: cable, DSL or Fiber optic, everyone aggregates. And nobody will ever tell you how much they aggregate. It's a number that gets passed between planning and the bean counters, very few people in an ISP would even know what you are asking for if you asked. It varies by location and time within the ISP.

So, yeah, gigabit is FAST. If that's what matters to you. But I bet you could go on eBay, search 10baseT, buy a crusty old 1993 10 Meg hub from a recycler, run your gigabit service through it, and not notice the difference. (This would be a very similar, but smaller version of the 10 Meg service available in the dorms, in the 90's, possibly with the exact same hub... )

Ain't regulated monopolies awesome?

[Alphaville]

my satellite internet was capped

[Scott 2]

My first modem was a 14.4. I couldn't convince my parents to spend the extra money for 28.8. I went back to dial up after I moved off campus. It was good enough at the time.

I don't disagree with you on the speed, just having some fun. I am on the cheapest plan offered by my ISP, currently testing at 120 down, 6 up. I do wonder about latency in distant towns, especially for online gaming. I've got a friend who lives in Hong Kong and loves first person shooters. He picked his apartment based on ping times.

[Mister Imperceptible]

I guess must-haves:
* low pop. density
* access to nature, preferably hiking trails, mountains, forests
* low crime
* nearby grocer or preferably Amazon Prime delivery available
* Reasonable drive and/or public transportation to nearby international airport (this is assuming pandemic/s aren't a new fact of life and travel is advisable again)

smaller college cities

Raleigh-Durham NC

[Alphaville]

Raleigh-Durham NC

i have a friend who loves nature and went to grad school there, but was not crazy about the city’s culture in general. not saying that this applies to everyone, otherwise the place would be deserted, but as @Frita says, every city has its own vibe, and OP’s checklist maybe doesn’t take “vibe” into account.

eta: wait, no! it was winston-salem not raleigh-durham that my friend disliked

(i confuse both. compound names, same state, not too far away from each other.)

anyway, vibes... vibes count a lot

[Mister Imperceptible]

William Faulkner many decades ago referred to Los Angeles as the plastic asshole of the world. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill has a lot of newcomers and is in many places plastic but at least it is not an asshole. Not trendy like Austin or Portland or Nashville but you have to pay for trendy. At this point every place with marketable vibe seems to have that priced in. And the local economy is robust. I prefer up and coming to downward and decaying but maybe I am shallow.

I read online it’s bad for singles compared to other cities but I was slaying down there.

[Peanut]

Well, Faulkner lived his whole life in Mississippi. I question his credibility on the city of angels. Personally I think if you can’t be happy there, you can’t be happy anywhere. In my imaginary other life I am still living there.

What kind of nature exists in small town or rural Illinois? Is it worth the isolation? It just seems far less scenic than other parts of the underpopulated country.