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As Mike says I think a part of what drives some people is a desire for something different than their prior everyday experience. That certainly fits our situation, and is part of what makes it such a personal decision. There is no right or wrong here for sure.
You, and Mike, are spot on. The desire to experience life in a different environment than what one is used to. Unencumbered with a mortgage-paying job, the options are only limited by one's financial health.
What drew me to Idaho, other than the three generations of ancestors, is its physical beauty. So different than what I am used to, (well, most of southern Idaho is pretty similar). Idaho has lakes that are not necessarily man-made. Rivers with water in them . . . all year long. Trees not only in the high mountains, but everywhere.
In all honesty, I also investigated Montana and Wyoming; previous to looking at Idaho. Absolutely love Wyoming, and have spend much time there. But, there are no organized, competitive tennis leagues in the whole state. Very limited opportunities for sculling too. What closed the door for me was the cost of real estate. At least in the northwest quadrant of the state. Thermopolis isn't 'bad', but it's awfully far from everything. Montana does not have organized tennis leagues either, and even though they do not have a state sales tax, its overall tax structure isn't very retiree friendly.
NID, specifically the Rathdrum Prairie, has everything I could possibly want, (as far as I currently know). Close to colleges, shopping, kayaking and sculling opportunities, cross-country skiing, USTA tennis, and tons of cycling, both road and off-road. Haven't found a place for plinking, but I know that there are a handful of ranges in the area.
It is the cycling that totally convinced me that this is my new home. Unlike where I've spent most of my life, the attitude of motorists toward cyclists is only something that I could only imagine in my wildest dreams. More than once, when I've come to a four-way stop sign, and come to a stop myself, (like a good cyclist should), opposing traffic absolutely refused to proceed through the intersection until I did. I even waved them to go ahead of me; and they would not! "Okay. Thanks, I'll go ahead then."
Then again, on numerous occasions, passing cars would go at least half-way into the oncoming lane, across the double-yellow line, to pass me. If they could not . . . they patiently waited behind me until it was possible to cross over and pass me. Only once in the many miles I've ridden across the prairie has a vehicle 'buzzed' me. It was a pick-up on highway 41 between Rathdrum and Post Falls. He must have been in a big hurry, (or was a Californian transplant that hadn't 'decompressed' yet).
Everywhere! In all circumstances and situations! People in NID are happy. They smile a lot, say "hello", and are generally very kind, helpful, and considerate.
The physical beauty is what made me take a close look at Idaho . . . it is the people who made me want to stay.
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You got me beat on the travel bug. I've been to five continents too, but one of them only once, (South Africa, was stopped at the Zimbabwe border by the SA police out of concern for our safety), and just one country in another continent, (I just can't seem to get out of Italy every time I visit Europe). (I don't count a country as being visited if I only go into and out of one of their airport.) Only sixteen countries visited, most of them multiple times. I've even seriously considered part-time living in a southern European country, (Portugal, Spain, France, or Italy). Outside the major cities, into the countryside and a small town or village, real estate is very, very affordable. Due to the red tape, it would be for only five months or so each year.
States? I'm not sure. All the western ones, of course. Most of the south. Just a couple in the mid-Atlantic area. A quick count shows only 30. Just never had the desire to visit most of the northeast part of the country. With the wide open Western Landscape, the east just doesn't appeal to me.
Everywhere! In all circumstances and situations! People in NID are happy. They smile a lot, say "hello", and are generally very kind, helpful, and considerate.
The physical beauty is what made me take a close look at Idaho . . . it is the people who made me want to stay.
How true is this!
I've probably told this story before, but the first time my wife and I both visited NID (I had been there before) we were walking around Sandpoint exploring the town. We hadn't been in NID for more than 3 or 4 hours, and I turned to my wife and commented on how friendly people were. Complete strangers would look you in the eye, smile and say hello when you passed them on the street. Imagine!
We have a 6 mile walk around our neighborhood here in SoCal that we try to do most Sundays when we don't have anything else going on. To be sure there are regulars we have run across who have become friends, and we'll stop and chat for a while when we see them. But there are also a lot of people who I'm convinced would happily walk or jog right by us without even so much as acknowledging our presence, and only say "hello" after we take the initiative. And at that it's usually a furtive hello, a quick glance in your direction before they avert their eyes again. You almost feel like you have interrupted them. It's just a small thing, but I think it's an indicator. And to my earlier point I think this sort of behavior is an example of the sort of virtual isolation that some people tend to build around themselves when the live in densely populated areas.
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Regarding travel, I also don't count passing through airports. Had a friend who did a lot of work related traveling years ago and the standard we developed was you had to spend at least one night and have at least one dinner not at an airport restaurant to count a country as "visited." Obviously, even that is can be a very brief encounter with a country. Since my travel was work related it was usually driven by visiting customers. In my case those were airlines or aircraft manufacturers, and in most cases I made repeat visits to most of these destinations.
I have spent a lot of time in the south of France visiting Airbus in Toulouse, and I can see the appeal of living there. That area is on a short list of places that I sometimes thought would be fun places to live for a year or two, mostly for the experience. I even include Tokyo on that list despite my general distaste for large cities, but it's such a different experience to be a westerner there that to immerse myself in that culture for a period of time would be interesting. There would have to be a definite end date involved though.
I think you should give the northeast a try. Yes, it doesn't have the wide open vistas of the west, but there is a different sort of beauty there, and so much American history as well. Some great cycling in the rural areas as well. Think about visiting New England in the fall. Despite that brief commercial for the other side of our country I have to admit that while we considered a couple eastern destinations for our retirement (Maine, and western North Carolina), in the end we both decided we wanted to stay in the American west.
Idaho really is an outdoor person's paradise. Many say that about Colorado, but Idaho offers even more variety I think. The only caution I would give to people wanting to relocate here is to do your research and be realistic. Idaho is NOT for everyone and definitely has its negatives. One big negative is the weather. It is nice a few months out of the year but it can literally be crap the rest of the time. Cold, snowy, slushy, no sun, rainy, muddy. It's real, so don't fool yourself into thinking it is perfect.
After last summer I was looking forward to all of the "cold, snowy, slushy, no sun, rainy, muddy" weather. The only time I consider the weather in North Idaho to be bad is when I can't go for a walk, like the day of the wind storm in November or Ice Storm 1996.
My past situation is a little unusual. I grew up on an island off the upper peninsula of Michigan where mom and dad owned a remote hunting and fishing canp. Seventeen miles to the ferry to get off the island. Since then I have lived in over 20 places including three other countries. After i got married, my wife and I moved 19 times mostly due to my military service. We had to live in metro areas. My wife was a city kid who has learned to love living on a few acres 35 miles from her work. Here she has horses, can see deer, ducks, hawks and lot of other critters almost daily and peace and quite. The statement about remote area folks being more friendly and helpful is fact.
Our hunt now is for the place that meets our desire to keep horses as long as we can, have acreage and not have to put up with as much garbage as you do living in any kind of metro area. We believe that spot will be found somewhere between Sagle and the Spirit Lake - Athol area. When we travel we try to stay in B&B's where the owners are almost always willing to discuss the areas they live in, it's a great source of information.
We enjoy reading all of you posts and are thankful for the help we have received and look forward to visiting NID starting tomorrow.
Brian
Good luck to all you property hunters! It's a wonderfully positive thing to be doing. Paradoxically, I kind of missed not having to hunt for the perfect place after we found our perfect place!
Still on my smartphone. Sigh...
PS Skold, is the Front Porch thread hot enough for you now?
My past situation is a little unusual. I grew up on an island off the upper peninsula of Michigan where mom and dad owned a remote hunting and fishing canp. Seventeen miles to the ferry to get off the island. Since then I have lived in over 20 places including three other countries. After i got married, my wife and I moved 19 times mostly due to my military service. We had to live in metro areas. My wife was a city kid who has learned to love living on a few acres 35 miles from her work. Here she has horses, can see deer, ducks, hawks and lot of other critters almost daily and peace and quite. The statement about remote area folks being more friendly and helpful is fact.
Our hunt now is for the place that meets our desire to keep horses as long as we can, have acreage and not have to put up with as much garbage as you do living in any kind of metro area. We believe that spot will be found somewhere between Sagle and the Spirit Lake - Athol area. When we travel we try to stay in B&B's where the owners are almost always willing to discuss the areas they live in, it's a great source of information.
We enjoy reading all of you posts and are thankful for the help we have received and look forward to visiting NID starting tomorrow.
Brian
Idaho is a big horse state. You won't have any trouble keeping keeping horses anywhere here. Your income will be your only limiting factor, I'm sure.
And you sure won't be as remote as on an island in the UP!
Good luck to all you property hunters! It's a wonderfully positive thing to be doing. Paradoxically, I kind of missed not having to hunt for the perfect place after we found our perfect place!
This is so funny, my husband and I are sad about not going out to look at houses too......so you can imagine we were positively giddy when our friends asked us to house hunt for them.
I'll add my quick story to the stack: Born in Palm Beach, FL, my parents came west so my dad could work on the Apollo program at Edwards Air Force Base circa 1963. I was 6mos old and I have been in this brown, dry Lancaster ever since. Used to be a great small town atmosphere to grow up in, but it has become ridiculously crowded and hostile. Hubby's dad worked for CBS and so he lived in many large cities growing up: San Fran, Chicago, NYC, and ended up in L.A. (at least he knows what he's in for as far as NID winters. I've been to Germany, Spain, Canada, Mexico, and Tahiti. We travel to a lot of states together, and Idaho is for sure our favorite non-beach place to be.
So true that everyone needs to find their own slice of Heaven in NID. We originally were going to build, then found a house on 20 acres in Priest River we fell in love with, but that fell thru. A year later we found a house we were over the moon about in Sagle, and we realize now, that patience paid off. Looking back, we merely "liked" the others, but we LOVED the house we bought. We are in an area of 5 acre lots but we literally cannot see our neighbors the way the terrain is. We feel like we are on 20 acres, and that makes hubby happy, but if I need coffee with a friend, I'm a teeny walk up the street from neighbors, and that makes me happy. We can "hike from the front door"(love that saying), have a lake 5 mins away, Sandpoint is 12 mins, and if I'm craving big-box shopping, Hayden is 35 mins. Our friends are all in Priest River, and I wish we were closer to them, but the drive there on Dufort is absolutely gorgeous. Good Luck to all those house hunting for their NID dream!
Last edited by sfrancis; 03-11-2016 at 05:43 PM..
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