Favorite Major Cities For Access to Nature (beach, rated)

[Bos2014]

Please list your top 3-5 major cities for access to nature. If possible, please include some color about why you like these cities.

[masssachoicetts]

Seattle- obvious reasons
Boston- city has beaches and parks. Within 90 minutes you have the Whites, Coastal Maine, Newport, Cape Cod, skiing, hiking, cliffs etc
SF- mountains beaches ans everything

[Corey the Otter]

DC is actually a pretty good city for nature. Plenty of wildlife around the area (I saw a fox from my window the other night). Plenty of wetlands and water and large parks plus only 90 minutes from the mountains and 1 hour from the Chesapeake Bay.

[fluffydelusions]

For major cities which I've been to, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco come to mind.

[BasicWater15]

Seattle, Salt Lake, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego.

Majotity of western metros have great access to nature.

[FL_Expert]

Seattle, San Francisco, Denver.

I’m sure Portland is good too but I haven’t visited yet.

[nadnerb]

Seattle and Portland have access to pretty much everything including large mountains, the ocean, lakes, rainforests, deserts, wetlands, and gorges.

San Francisco has redwood trees, rugged coastline, mountains, and Mediterranean forests.

I'd say these are by far my top 3 with LA and San Diego as 4th and 5th.

[SunGrins]

You can access nature faster in smaller cities and there are a bunch to choose from. Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, Tucson come to mind in the west. Maybe Sacramento and Portland (Oregon or Maine). Any number of smaller coastal cities would work for access to beach or coastal environments -- maybe Corpus Christi or Mobile or Charleston.

[elchevere]

San Francisco/Marin…Marin is in nature; would have deer come up to me during my morning runs. Amazing, just a few miles outside a major city along with mountains/forest-woods/bay, ocean, etc.

[Mezter]

Pretty much all the major Western cities I’ve visited. I think Atlanta’s a pretty underrated one