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If you find this amazing mythical place, please let me know!
Have you though of Hawaii? It's expensive, far away and crowded, maybe not your thing.
I've got it. Let's teleport Vermont to the tropics, and then we are set. Paradise. I'm a Vermonter living in the south and longing to go home, but it's too cold! Sadly VT is getting warmer, but not in a good way...
I would give my left leg to find the culture you are looking for in a warmer climate, that's not a little island of blue in a sea of red (read: Austin TX / Asheville NC).
Fist off let start out by saying I know your struggle, growing up & spending most of my life in super rural/right wing eastern MT, ND, WY & as someone who does not enjoy the hustle & bustle or expensivness of large liberal city's (Seatle, Portland, most of CA etc.) I have had a tuff time finding the best fit for me. Now I know it's not super liberal (about 40 lib-60 Con) but Carson City NV seems not to bad to me the weather is usually sunny & great, winters are mild, 25min from the Sierra Mountains & Lake Tahoe 35 min from Reno, 2.5 hrs from Sacramento & 4 hrs from Bay Area. You do have the usual old white & red neck conservatives but also lots of hippies & San Fran transplants. Reno has some alright restaurants & a Whole Foods. And another suggestion might be Missoula MT although the weather does leave a bit to be desired be prepared for long gray winters.
I don't think there are very many hippies or liberals in Carson City, there are more in Reno, but neither is known for being a sanctuary for liberals. And the weather in both Reno and Carson "might" be mild one year and the next you will have a very long cold, snowy winter -not to mention the wind, which Mark Twain called "the Zephyr"
Parts of Sacramento are liberal, Davis in Yolo County is definitely liberal - outside of that you'd have to go to the bay area which is just too darned expensive.
FYI it is NOT the case that I expect to live "only surrounded by like-minded people" - that would entail living in an intentional community which is definitely not my style. I just don't want to live somewhere where it's extremely difficult to find ANY like-minded people. Sure, I could find them in the limits of pretty much any city. But I am a country girl in the sense of loving nature, privacy and wide sprawls of undeveloped land, so city life is not for me. I'm just trying to bridge the gap more than what I have now - to be able to live on acreage and not be completely surrounded by ultra-conservative Trump-tooting bible-thumping gun-toting hicks with small minds. Not to offend any said 'hicks' here, but why oh why does it seem like these are the only kind of people that live in rural areas, except in Connecticut and Vermont?
So just because someone is conservative means they have a small mind? Please.
FYI it is NOT the case that I expect to live "only surrounded by like-minded people" - that would entail living in an intentional community which is definitely not my style. I just don't want to live somewhere where it's extremely difficult to find ANY like-minded people. Sure, I could find them in the limits of pretty much any city. But I am a country girl in the sense of loving nature, privacy and wide sprawls of undeveloped land, so city life is not for me. I'm just trying to bridge the gap more than what I have now - to be able to live on acreage and not be completely surrounded by ultra-conservative Trump-tooting bible-thumping gun-toting hicks with small minds. Not to offend any said 'hicks' here, but why oh why does it seem like these are the only kind of people that live in rural areas, except in Connecticut and Vermont?
Bibles and guns make a grotesque combination.
Here are a few possibilities, all are at least mildly liberal; some are very liberal:
It definitely would not check all your boxes, but you might consider SE Arizona: the outskirts of Tucson if you want to be not-too-far from a big city; Bisbee if you'd rather go for small-town (and remote). The landscape is not woodsy, but the desert around Tucson has more vegetation than you might expect. And even within the city, sometimes at night you can hear coyote calls. The weather is HOT, of course.
OR:
Flagstaff, AZ Beautiful ponderosa-pine forests (it's northern Arizona), the Grand Canyon nearby, lots of sun, but coldy and snow winters owing to the high elevation.
OR:
Humboldt County, CA Eureka and Arcata are the main towns in this land of beaches and redwood forests. Mild temperatures year-round, lots of rain. Pot culture is pervasive, in case that bothers you. Five hours to the nearest big city! (San Fran)
Fayetteville, Arkansas. I'm not liberal, but have family out there who are. They love it. We have visited and it is very nice. Tons to do, charming, and super liberal.
I would also love to find such a place, although I don't mind a warm, dry climate. I love smaller cities, I don't care much for rural living, or cities bigger than, say, 150K population. I am stilllooking at some cities in AZ & NM, but job prospects are not great. I have my doubt that such a place exists in the USA.
IF, I was retired or had a monthly income coming in, places I would consider, based on my travels, would be:
Otavalo, Ecuador. Just north of the equator, with an elevation of over 8,000 feet, it has a year round, spring like climate, very friendly people, and an amazing Saturday market.
Galle, Sri Lanka. Yes, it can get downright hot at times, but you will never have to worry about winter, plenty of beautiful beaches nearby, big enough to have the amenities you want, without being overcrowded. Again, people are very friendly and lots of cheap, tasty food available.
Granada, Nicaragua. The hottest of the three, but it's a beautiful city, very affordable, nice people, a lovely lake to cool off in, again, big enough to have amenities, but by no means overcrowded. This city claims to be the oldest in North America, dating back almost 500 years.
FYI it is NOT the case that I expect to live "only surrounded by like-minded people" - that would entail living in an intentional community which is definitely not my style. I just don't want to live somewhere where it's extremely difficult to find ANY like-minded people. Sure, I could find them in the limits of pretty much any city. But I am a country girl in the sense of loving nature, privacy and wide sprawls of undeveloped land, so city life is not for me. I'm just trying to bridge the gap more than what I have now - to be able to live on acreage and not be completely surrounded by ultra-conservative Trump-tooting bible-thumping gun-toting hicks with small minds. Not to offend any said 'hicks' here, but why oh why does it seem like these are the only kind of people that live in rural areas, except in Connecticut and Vermont?
I didn't vote for Trump. I can't imagine a situation where I would.
No one would ever accuse me of being ultraconservative.
I'm not a Bible thumper.
I don't own a gun, nor would I care to.
And I'm pretty certain that I don't have a small mind.
Yet, everything you've just written in that sentence offends the hell out of me.
Congratulations. You are embracing the very small-mindedness you detest. The crowning irony of your statement is that, in your evident desire to be seen as some exemplar of progressive and open-minded thinking (Holy smokes, it's even in your account name for crying out loud), you're not above the lazy stereotyping of others. It seems your entire understanding of people who believe differently from you derives from old reruns of Dukes of Hazzard on Nick at Nite. Yet small-mindedness isn't about political leanings, but about lack of receptiveness to others with whom you don't necessarily agree. With that in mind, the only difference between you and the stereotype you deplore is your vote on Election Day.
Here's the deal. Despite your desire to segregate the world into binary political camps, people are not voting blocs. They are individuals who are interesting, have value, and likely have a thing or two to teach you if you can manage to get past your preconceived opinions. Politics, in truth, is a pretty limited way to describe oneself or others. It is one-dimensional. It is more about striking a pose rather than being a living, breathing person. I have friends with political opinions diametrically opposed to my own, yet we still enjoy our time together. Because 99% of a person is not ideology, but how they function in the world on a daily basis. And those people have a way of surprising those who take the time to listen and converse.
"When we lump people into groups, quickly label them, and assume we know everything about them and their life based on a perceived world view, how they look, where they come from, etc., we are not behaving as full human beings. When we truly believe that some people are monsters, that they fundamentally are less human than we are, and that they deserve to have less than we do, we ourselves become the monsters. When we allow our emotions to be hypnotized by the excitement of petty bickering about seemingly important topics, we drift further and further away from the fragile and crucial human bond holding everything together. When we anticipate with ferocious glee the next chance we have to prove someone “wrong” and ourselves “right,” all the while disregarding the vast complexity of almost every subject — not to mention the universe as a whole — we are reducing the beauty and magic of life to a “side” or a “type,” or worst of all, an “answer.” This is the power of politics at it’s most sinister."
These threads come up every once in a while, and they can be roughly translated as follows: "Hi, there. I don't like the place I live, so I want to live somewhere with different values and priorities, yet I want everyone to think precisely the way they did in the city I want to leave."
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 01-15-2018 at 07:49 AM..
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