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I'm looking for pros and cons opinions on living in on a few self-described outdoorsey cities. All 3 seem to have similarities but my question is in regard to the weather and culture of each place. I'm interested in finding the best Hiking, Bike trails, Kayaking, & Fly fishing in addition to good year round weather.
For the weather
Winter - Snow is OK as long as it is sunny after it snows. I'd like to avoid the dreary, gloomy cloud climate that hovers overhead for months on end.
Summer - low humidity and moderate heat
Character / culture : health nuts, yuppified cruchy granolas, hippies, punks & progressives are preferred. As are good beer & good sushi. Meatheads... not so much.
Responses from the natives of these places are welcome and appreciated!
I will give you the lo down on Ithaca. For a small city, it is sort of expensive. However, that is considerable to each owns income. I find Ithaca very bohemian (people still wear Tiva's and their are tons of hippies). Ithaca has the "gorges" which are gorgeous. Miles and miles of hiking gorges to explore as well as Buttermilkfalls. Ithaca has two premier colleges for a city of thirty thousand which balloons their population to about 75,000 during the school year, making the metro balloon to about 145,000-150/000. It is a pretty progressive city for being so small. Downtown is still intact and slowly growing, although room is limited. There are very few empty storefronts in Ithaca. The occupancy rate downtown is pretty remarkable. Many little coffee shops, restaurants, bars, etc in a small area. You also have the "colllege town" area up the hill where Cornell is. Ithaca college is more towards the "gorges" and right side of the city. For me perosnally the city seems too small. But I have a lot of friends who have moved their and love it. I personally (as a visitor) would find myself getting bored with Ithaca fast. Go visit, walk the commons, eat and leave. It's just not a real big city. You can walk most of their core areas within about an hour. After that if your into exploring, there won't be much left to look at outside of natures scenery. There really isn't that much to do there, however, it is my experience that every little city has these same drawbacks. Crime is fairly low. If your gay or lesbian you will most likely be more comfortable there. I am straight (ignore username,-was a joke) but have some friends who are gay who moved there. They seem to be happy. It's pretty liberal and progressive for such a small city. It's outskirts are growing in leaps in bounds. Just in ten years, I have seen it's population surpass other small cities in the state that were once more populated. It is about the only "city-big or small) in upstate that actually records gains every year. While the other cities are recording record lossess.
If your looking for a small city with lots of hills, scenery, etc- Ithaca will be good for you. If your looking for a metro with more than 100,000 people you might want to reconsider Ithaca. A little too small for my standards, but that can be a good thing depending on what it is you are looking for. The other added plus is that you have a lake right by. It can make it more bearable in the summer (although in all actuality you get little lake effect breeze downtown) yet can be colder in the winter. The lake gives some incredible views and the drive around it is very scenic. I'm sure some of those lake side homes go for alot of money. Ithaca is a good place to raise a family. It has one of the few downtowns that almost went completely unchanged from the malls of the late seventies and early eighties. You do not feel any drop in pedestrian population around the core of the city as a result of the mall. Hope this helps......
Supermanpansy and Dallas101 - thanks so much for your feedback. It sounds like an interesting place and I'll have to check it out soon. How is the humidity in the summer? Is the winter dreary?
Summers aren't very humid for Eastern U.S. standards. Upstate NY doesn't have the humidity of most places east of the Mississippi.
Winters can be somewhat grey, but not as grey as points west (Great Lakes area). But compared to, say, Denver, definitely more grey.
I really like Ithaca. For a small town, it's almost ideal. The only "bad" things I can think of is that it isn't very big, and it's kinda isolated. But those are good things to many folks.
And if you really need a city fix, NYC is a few hours away. There are frequent express buses to Manhattan.
My grandparents lived in Madras, a really small town north of Bend, and all through my childhood, we'd get down there to shop, get the car fixed, etc. It's the largest city in Central Oregon, at about 76k people. It's a beautiful little town with a drop-dead gorgeous high desert backdrop, and you could certainly do worse if you're looking for an outdoorsy area.
Bend is pretty isolated: three hours to Portland/Vancouver, two and a half to Eugene, or three and a half to Medford. Starting in the late 90's and continuing through the real estate boom and, to a somewhat more mellow degree into today, a lot of middle/upper-middle Portland and Seattle residents who have wanted a change have moved down there... through the last decade, I was there in 03, 04, 07, 08, and 09, and through those points, the character of the town reflected this - in a good way, IMHO. I guess you could say that it's kind of like Vail, just with more of its small-town atmosphere maintained (not too many millionaire/billionaire jetsetters coming through on vacation). It's got a Whole Foods, yoga studios, farmer's markets and co-ops (with awesome produce since the whole place is surrounded by farms), organic coffee places, etc. to pander to that whole set... there are diners and a Wal-Mart to pander to the other set... it's a pretty well-balanced town considering its isolation. A lot of the people who moved down there telecommute to work in Seattle or Portland and keep their urban salaries, so the overall standard of living there is pretty high.
Here are a few pics of the area around Bend from one of my trips a few years ago (attention mods: these are my pictures, I took them, please don't take em down):
Summers aren't very humid for Eastern U.S. standards. Upstate NY doesn't have the humidity of most places east of the Mississippi.
Winters can be somewhat grey, but not as grey as points west (Great Lakes area). But compared to, say, Denver, definitely more grey.
I really like Ithaca. For a small town, it's almost ideal. The only "bad" things I can think of is that it isn't very big, and it's kinda isolated. But those are good things to many folks.
And if you really need a city fix, NYC is a few hours away. There are frequent express buses to Manhattan.
I was not aware of the "express buses to Manhattan. About the humiditiy though. Ithaca does get very humid in the summer, just like every other city in the state. However, like Dallas101 said, there still more bearable than the summers in the south. However, this summer temps have reached mid 100's with a heat index of about 110. That is hot for any year. But that is misleading or a fluke. Last summer around the area had few days over 85. So overrall, the weather is not going to be a major factor. Plus, there are so many outdoor things to do to keep you out of the house or busy.
Actually, Ithaca cost of living is just above average, if not right on the national average. Interestingly, the small villages and towns might be more affordable except for Lansing and Cayuga Heights. Syracuse is an hour away and Rochester is about 2 hours away. It is in wine country, as the Finger Lakes has a bunch of wineries. If you are into car racing, Watkins Glen is in the next county over. There are plenty of other nice, small towns/cities close by like Skaneateles, Corning, Penn Yan, Owego, Seneca Falls, Geneva and Canandaigua.
I can give you some info on Fort Collins, aka "FoCo" to [some] locals Not a native but used to live nearby and have family in the area.
It's the "bicycles and beers" town - New Belgium brewery is very influential and very involved in the community, and they promote bicycle infrastructure, which is fantastic in FoCo, and beer drinking I personally think the two are a match made in heaven (in fact, I'm currently drinking a Stella after my 5-mi bike commute home )
Definitely have the outdoor options. World-class fly fishing I've heard from friends. Loads of options for biking and kayaking nearby, and of course you have all the options of the vast and beautiful Rockies a tad to the west - no biggie
Weather is great too - esp. the part about being sunny after it snows. You will get some snow, but it melts of fairly quickly and the winters have abundant sunshine. Humidity is a non-factor, and the summers are wonderful. I'd say the weather is mind and rarely do you have extreme cold or hot.
Like Ithaca, it's a college town, but not as liberal as say Boulder or as liberal as I'm guessing Ithaca is. Although it has a large young and very active, outdoorsy population, it's still a family oriented town and plenty of it is just plain ol' Anywhere USA.
My sister is a senior at CSU and adores the town. I love visiting. I had my heart set on going to grad school there, but ended up in Austin instead. It's an excellent town but I know Ithaca and Bend both will provide you with what you're looking for as well. Good luck!
Oh, as an addendum to the Bend area: although it's the high desert, it often snows during the winter. You haven't seen beautiful till you've seen a snowed-in desert
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Not a native but used to live nearby and have family in the area.
I personally think the two are a match made in heaven (in fact, I'm currently drinking a Stella after my 5-mi bike commute home 
) 
