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I was pretty set for a while on heading to New Hampshire but that was before i met my current love interest. Needless to say, she hates the cold and going north is probably a no go for her. We're in Ct currently and need to leave. Everything here is falling apart. It boggles my mind that people are actually looking to move here. Anyway... that's a different thread....
We have some basic requirements:
What we both want:
"Red" state on the east coast-ish.
gun/carry friendly
Access to an Asian market/grocery store
within 15 min of a hospital/er with 911/ambulance service (we're considering the future/starting a family/getting old and needing help)
within driving distance to jobs. I'm in IT and am pretty marketable anywhere. She's in a medical field that is also in demand just about everywhere so i'm not too worried about finding jobs.
What she wants:
summer all the time
within an hour or two of the ocean
within 30 min of a decent sized city
What I want:
4 seasons
less people / more mountains, lakes, back country roads, farms
a big plot of land for hobby farming
Good water (ie, not piped in form another area... and not in a drought prone area)
no state income tax preferred
less disaster prone (ie, hurricanes)
as a bedroom musician, i would love it if there was a 'metal' scene in the area as I'm a metal guitarist and enjoy jamming and going to shows. concerts like Warped tour, mayhemfest, etc are 'important' to me so i would like to be near a city that has a venue that has these tours stop in.
So, as you can see, we both want different things, but there's room to compromise on everything. Perhaps i'm reaching for what doesn't exist.
A house on some land on a side road 30min outside of the city in a low tax zone is probably the best compromise.
FWIW, there is no mainland state with year-round summer. Even *winter* in Florida starts to feel like actual winter after a while when you become acclimated to the long, hot, humid summers.
And if you stay on the East Coast or nearby, you're not going to find an area with *real* mountains and *less* people that's *less* disaster-prone--you'll only really find *less* people, *lots* of open space/isolation, and *very few* natural disasters in the interior West, which is why I recommend the two of you look into states like Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Those states are various shades of red, with Colorado being the most liberal and Utah the most conservative. Western Washington is also another option--breathtaking natural scenery, fairly conservative, moderate-to-low COL, no one cares what religion you are, etc.
Avoid the South--you'll only end up moving out after a few years and onto someplace new or back to CT anyway. It's too religious for most New Englanders, even those who want a *conservative* area, plus they *hate* "Yankees," esp. in the non-coastal areas.
We are NOT religious, at all. I'm atheist...she's agnostic. We're not conservatives so to speak.... we're just tired of paying 50,000 a year so the welfare moms can hang out in their pajamas on the front porch all summer. We want to be in an area with less services and with it, less cost.
Colorado is far too liberal for me.
as a mixed race couple, (im white, shes thai) it is important to be accepted where ever we go.
We are NOT religious, at all. I'm atheist...she's agnostic. We're not conservatives so to speak.... we're just tired of paying 50,000 a year so the welfare moms can hang out in their pajamas on the front porch all summer. We want to be in an area with less services and with it, less cost.
Colorado is far too liberal for me.
as a mixed race couple, (im white, shes thai) it is important to be accepted where ever we go.
I see, so you want an area with no highways, no government funded infrastructure, no military, no agriculture... because all of these things require more federal dollars than "welfare moms".
i think spending 700 billion a year to fight other country's problems is stupid. yes.
i think the fact that all of our bridges are rated D's and F's is absurd when i pay $.25 a gallon for transportation taxes
i could go on.... but that's not the point of this thread.
If she wants "summer all the time", then you are pretty much limited to an area within 50 miles of the Mexican border, or Florida. Those are the only areas that count as "tropical" in the US.
That one detail is in direct conflict with nearly everything else on your list. By definition, tropical areas will have periods of drought, and this is especially true in the area to which you are limiting yourself.
Clearly, points that she wants are conflicting on a basic, fundamental level with points that you want. Hurricanes are a possibility anywhere within 100 miles of a coastline - particularly in the Gulf Coast and East Coast - because of how hurricanes form and the geographic proximity to these areas near where these storms form (the Caribbean and Africa).
Pick the details that you absolutely can't live without and start with that. Limit the list to three items. Otherwise, you just create a wish list that, by definition, cannot be fulfilled by any location anywhere and the exercise becomes pointless.
You better lose the attitude because I can assure you of one thing--regardless of where you move to outside of CT, you will have *no*--and I repeat, *no*--friends. That aloof, pretentious, elitist CT attitude is tolerated virtually no where.
In the southeast it is impossible to be near the mountains and 1-2 hours from the ocean. Columbia SC is your closest compromise. Greenville/ Spartanburg if mountains are a priority.
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