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Hi all! I'm trying to create a shortlist of cities to visit to see if I'd like to possibly move.
I like (in no specific order):
1. Good food
2. Craft beer (particularly stouts and NEIPAs)
3. Live music (small venues over arenas)
4. Friendly people
5. Beautiful hikes (the more dramatic views, the better!)
6. Easy weekend trips (e.g. can drive a couple of hours to somewhere else interesting)
7. Canoeing
My current city has #1-4 (not bad), but I'm looking for places that may have all 7. Would be great if there were a number of outdoors clubs/groups.
My demographic: 35, female, single, no kids
Bonus points for within 1 hour of a decent airport.
Pretty much any mid-sized city in the South. Birmingham, Chattanooga, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Durham, and Raleigh. Hard to go wrong with any of these.
10 Kansas City, MO
9 Salt Lake City, UT
8 Greenville, SC
7 Portland, ME
6 Nashville, TN
5 Burlington, VT
4 Chattanooga, TN
3 San Diego, CA
2 Austin, TX
1) Asheville, NC
To answer:
Austin area scenery/natural beauty: 5 to 6 out of 10. Still relatively impressive, considering I'd rank huge chunks of Texas at about 1.5 to 4 out of 10. (The nicest part of Texas, IMO, is way out around Marfa, Big Bend, El Paso, and the Guadalupe Mountains, which all almost might as well be New Mexico. The deep, hilly, piney woods of northeast Texas can also be very pleasing.)
Of course, many Texans would rank most places in their state like 18 out of 10. Because Texas pride and all that...
Most places with just hills anywhere in the East are as pretty as or prettier than central Texas. Examples: central Arkansas, western Kentucky and southern Indiana. All ho-hum by eastern standards.
Easily, places like the Ozarks, Appalachian range (Alabama to eastern Canada), and deep forests of the Great Lakes states are prettier than almost anywhere in Texas.
Of course, I'm drawn to big chunks of the West.
Lol at the Texas pride comment
I'm assuming those relatively ho-hum places you mentioned are preferable to central Texas because of the greenery/greater tree coverage, correct? Since the topographic differences aren't major. I'm so used to Eastern scenery that I sometimes take the lushness for granted.
Ultimately, where would you say are the absolute cream of the crop places for natural scenery out West, in your opinion? Most of my travels there have been in the Southwest, which I've loved, but I definitely want to visit more extensively across the entire West, especially states like Montana, Idaho, etc. Thanks-
Edit: Oh and also, how do you feel about Florida scenery (around the various major areas or elsewhere)? Lol, I think the state is either a love it or hate it kind of place.
To answer:
Austin area scenery/natural beauty: 5 to 6 out of 10. Still relatively impressive, considering I'd rank huge chunks of Texas at about 1.5 to 4 out of 10. (The nicest part of Texas, IMO, is way out around Marfa, Big Bend, El Paso, and the Guadalupe Mountains, which all almost might as well be New Mexico. The deep, hilly, piney woods of northeast Texas can also be very pleasing.)
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Have to laugh at El Paso being more visually appealing than Austin. That's giving a hell of a lot of credit to the Franklin Mountains.
But I also wouldn't call Houston a "friendly" city. Just the driving and road-rage antics there daily are sufficient to demonstrate that (and that's not just the city, but a giant "sphere of influence" bounded by roughly Huntsville, Navasota, Columbus, Lake Jackson, Beaumont, and Livingston).
Great cuisine, though, if you know where to look. The city has the potential to compete with the SFs, LAs, Chicagos, and NYCs of the world in that regard. River Oaks, Rice Village, Montrose and the Heights are also interesting core neighborhoods, but, even in those places, the walkability can be very poor.
I agree. But are any of these liberal hipster cities we are talking about “friendly”? Nor are most of these cities particularly walkable.
Maybe, but I like the Franklin Mountains. I like desert-y/semi-arid/arid mountain scapes. Austin is probably the prettiest major city in Texas, as an actual city; I like the Hill Country region okay, it just doesn't "wow!" me. And, it certainly wasn't enough to keep me living in Texas (though maybe the fact that I lived in the Houston area had something to do with all that).
El Paso is extremely... brown colored. Personal preference of course, but I can't imagine many would prefer the scenery there over Austin.
Big Bend is beautiful, yes, but that's more than a 4 hour drive away from El Paso. Even Marfa (still 100 miles from Big Bend), while it does have very cool and unique scenery, I don't know that I'd call it more scenic than the Hill Country, personally.
I don't even disagree with your premise that "best scenery in Texas" is a low bar, it's just funny to me that you prop up El Paso of all places.
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