Move to MT?

[Peaks&Creeks]

We have just over 1 million people in the 4th largest state (Montana), I’m not too worried about the Californians, there’s plenty of space here. Most are moving to Missoula, Bozeman or the Flathead valley anyways. Once they realize how cloudy and cold it is here most of the year, they’ll be gone in short order, if the grizzly bears don’t get them first. We also don’t have massive cities here like the Front Range CO, Salt Lake City or Boise. We just have Billings, and well, it’s Billings. Oh and there’s casinos on every corner and meth heads that’ll steal the wind chimes off your front porch, Montana just sucks, Boise is a much better place.


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[swMontanaHunter]

9 months of winter and 3 months of company summarizes SW Montana.

 

[peterk123]

I just stumbled onto this thread. I have been out here with my wife for just over a year and a half. We are from Massachusetts. Let's just say I did not fit in well in that state. We live in Livingston. Summers are just hot. Winter is long and the wind is next level. We absolutely love it. I just wish summers were colder, winters longer, snowier, colder and way more windier. Need to keep the people away

Seriously though, you better like being outdoors. I mean, like all the time. Otherwise, your only option is to drink, a lot and often. And you need to embrace winter. You need to be willing to ski, ice fish, and just get out and hike. I even fish the Yellowstone when the ice recedes enough. Some of my best fishing has been from February to April.

 

[eddielasvegas]

I just stumbled onto this thread. I have been out here with my wife for just over a year and a half. We are from Massachusetts. Let's just say I did not fit in well in that state. We live in Livingston. Summers are just hot. Winter is long and the wind is next level. We absolutely love it. I just wish summers were colder, winters longer, snowier, colder and way more windier. Need to keep the people away

Seriously though, you better like being outdoors. I mean, like all the time. Otherwise, your only option is to drink, a lot and often. And you need to embrace winter. You need to be willing to ski, ice fish, and just get out and hike. I even fish the Yellowstone when the ice recedes enough. Some of my best fishing has been from February to April.

Ah, another recovering Masshole I see. You are wicked smaht to get out.

While not born there, I lived in greater Boston for 20 years. Many ties to the area (met my wife at BU and married at Marsh Chapel; daughter was born at Mt. Auburn in Cambridge, owned a home in Sudbury, etc.) and it is fantastic on some levels, but I am glad we left People's Republic of Mass. in '06.

MT has been on my short list for many years and sure as heck is appealing for so many reasons.


Eddie

 

[Will_m]

Let’s not forget to throw in the outrageous home prices with limited high paying jobs. If you’re not stressed enough to quit after trying to make ends meet, the wind and cold should push you over the edge.

 

[Kenai_dtracker]

I just stumbled onto this thread. I have been out here with my wife for just over a year and a half. We are from Massachusetts. Let's just say I did not fit in well in that state. We live in Livingston. Summers are just hot. Winter is long and the wind is next level. We absolutely love it. I just wish summers were colder, winters longer, snowier, colder and way more windier. Need to keep the people away

Seriously though, you better like being outdoors. I mean, like all the time. Otherwise, your only option is to drink, a lot and often. And you need to embrace winter. You need to be willing to ski, ice fish, and just get out and hike. I even fish the Yellowstone when the ice recedes enough. Some of my best fishing has been from February to April.

I’ve been on Cape Cod for 20 years and seem to hate Mass more and more every year that I am here. I’m a Vermonter originally, so I can handle the boring winters, however, my wife won’t move and has never lived in another state except MA. Think I’m doomed..

 

[peterk123]

I’ve been on Cape Cod for 20 years and seem to hate Mass more and more every year that I am here. I’m a Vermonter originally, so I can handle the boring winters, however, my wife won’t move and has never lived in another state except MA. Think I’m doomed..

I just came back yesterday from Massachusetts. Was visiting my parents. I was stressed out every time I had to get in a car. Nevermind Boston. How the heck people do that drive every day is beyond me. Everyone that was driving looked like a zombie. I will take the windy long winters, and friendly people all day long over that crap. I got back yesterday. This is what we did today so I could recover from the trauma ....



It's not life on the Dutton Ranch, but I like it.

 

[Nosferatu]

**** all the selfish naysayers. MT is awesome! If you have the means an opportunity, take it!

 

[Kenai_dtracker]

I just came back yesterday from Massachusetts. Was visiting my parents. I was stressed out every time I had to get in a car. Nevermind Boston. How the heck people do that drive every day is beyond me. Everyone that was driving looked like a zombie. I will take the windy long winters, and friendly people all day long over that crap. I got back yesterday. This is what we did today so I could recover from the trauma ....


View attachment 486360
It's not life on the Dutton Ranch, but I like it.

Yep, Boston driving is a special kind of hell. Looks like a beautiful day in the snow! I have a cabin up in the VT mountains and that is about the only thing that’s kept me sane over years.

 

[HighUintas]

If only I could get my wife to move to a place like the Henry lake area.

 

[Outlaw99]

Great response and thank you. We're 30 miles from a clinic/regional hospital and Walmart today and an hour from a bigger city (Des Moines). As a result, we're used to some travel for necessities and a night out.

Winters suck a$$ here too and we don't shop much other than groceries.

We're both Iowa natives and have 13 acres here we've spent the last 20 years on, and its 3 miles from the farm I manage and hunt for whitetails and pheasants. However, every year we get older, the smell of hog/cattle $hit every single day and muddy/polluted waterways gets less and less tenable. We're lucky to be able to open our windows a few days in the spring and fall if the wind is just right.

Now that the beans are out the hog confinements are racing to get their under/above ground manure tanks emptied before winter. Thousands upon thousands of gallons getting knifed in to the ground in every direction from our place. Just sick of it after dealing with it my whole life. The ag lobby in this state reigns supreme, and it doesn't matter who's in charge in the state house, hog and cattle production increases every year.

Don't get me started about the dumb a$$ wind farms that have destroyed what scenery and skyline this state used to have.

Sounds like you need to move. You and your 13 acres wanting a state who’s economy has always centered around agriculture to change its ways to suit you and your 13 acres should get out asap. This reminds me a lot of how Montanans must feel about Californians moving in and wanting change. Hopefully the smell of cow shit and diesel exhaust from those ranchers pickups don’t find its way into your new windows at night out there.

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Sounds like you need to move. You and your 13 acres wanting a state who’s economy has always centered around agriculture to change its ways to suit you and your 13 acres should get out asap. This reminds me a lot of how Montanans must feel about Californians moving in and wanting change. Hopefully the smell of cow shit and diesel exhaust from those ranchers pickups don’t find its way into your new windows at night out there.

I never said I wanted the economy to change. I've known from dang near birth that it won't change. My point is that Iowa is an environmental mess. Both sides understand it, but are beholdent to the ag lobbies to maintain the status quo. As production inreases on fewer acres every year (hundreds of the most productive land in the world are lost every year in central IA due to sprawl) it adds stress to an already stressed situation.

Regarding transplants, we're getting our share from the southern border to work in the packing plants and manufacturing. We're also seing an influx of people fleeing the rampant crime and murder in Chicago. They jump on Hwy 30 or I80, head west a few hours and land in IA, sometimes with plenty of "baggage" from the city.

Just watched Newberg's latest video last night on the NR tag situation out west. Based on his worst case scenarios, in the next few years NR may as well just quit buying points all together and apply in the random every season. That is unless you're willing to move out West and become a resident, and this becomes more attractive every year.

I've owned diesel trucks and worked cattle for a number of years. Both of these pale in comparison to the industrial hog farms in this part of the world. I don't know where you're from, but you're talking apples and oranges.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I just stumbled onto this thread. I have been out here with my wife for just over a year and a half. We are from Massachusetts. Let's just say I did not fit in well in that state. We live in Livingston. Summers are just hot. Winter is long and the wind is next level. We absolutely love it. I just wish summers were colder, winters longer, snowier, colder and way more windier. Need to keep the people away

Seriously though, you better like being outdoors. I mean, like all the time. Otherwise, your only option is to drink, a lot and often. And you need to embrace winter. You need to be willing to ski, ice fish, and just get out and hike. I even fish the Yellowstone when the ice recedes enough. Some of my best fishing has been from February to April.

We came to Pray back in Sept to run the 30K race on Emigrant Peak, and got our supplies in Livingston on the way. We went to Gardiner and then Yellowstone for a day, Chico Hot springs, dinner and drinks at Old Saloon, even had dinner one night at Sage. I definitely was looking at land for sale and could see myself living there for sure. Seems like a pretty tight knit community

 

[jjohnsonElknewbie]

Let’s not forget to throw in the outrageous home prices with limited high paying jobs. If you’re not stressed enough to quit after trying to make ends meet, the wind and cold should push you over the edge.

I've worked remotely from home for the last 10 years. I was WFH before COVID made it cool. Obviously, just kidding...

Everybody mentions the wind in MT and WY. Iowa is consistently in the top 3 for wind turbine installations and power output. Hell, I've considered getting a home turbine to run some things.

Regarding winter, we obviously don't get the snow that mountainous places endure out west, but we get more than our fair share of cold and windchill. Conversely, in the summer we get high 90s and crack 100 several times every year with 80-90% humidity, especially in July and August when the crops are grown and sweating hard at night.

 

[Pony Soldier]

One side of my family immigrated to Cedar Rapids in the very early 1900s from Scotland. Some of them stayed while my grandfather chose a life on the railroad and was part of buiding the Milwaukee RR west. Guess he saw a reason to leave Iowa by 1906.

I drove through a portion of western Iowa on my way to Souix Falls a few years ago. I felt a little naked and exposed out there on the prarie. However I dated a Minnesota girl in my youth that felt claustiphobic in western Montana being hemmed in by the mountains. My only view is from the top of the mountains and it only gets me to the next range.

Choices might depend on some time visiting.

 

[Rick M.]

The greater Bozeman area is a meme market when it comes to housing prices. It's becoming Jackson Hole v2. Newberg mentioned in a podcast that the area is experiencing explosive growth and being loved to death, even going on to say that in a few years they may need to start requiring permits for activities like mountain biking because the foothills are being beaten to death with people recreating. Not sure how much of that was frustration / hyperbole though. Bozeman was pretty high on our list for a while, but ultimately we decided not to play the meme market game. Aside from that, many residents of these areas (Boise, Bozeman, Denver, etc.) are just hostile to people moving into the area from out of state. Just count the amount of "Montana is full" responses you see across the internet.

I did the opposite of what you're considering. We lived in a few western states, and ultimately came back to the midwest. It's affordable here, great for families, and life is simple. I can hunt deer and grouse, trout fish, catch smallmouth / walleye, etc. and we make trips to Colorado every year (my wife's family are in Denver). Living out west is a pay to play game, and I can save way more money living in the midwest and end up playing in the west whenever I get the itch for it, without dealing with the masses and stress and high cost of living.

Every time we fly to Denver and navigate traffic and deal with the people / pollution, we're always so relieved to fly back home.

 

[HighUintas]

The greater Bozeman area is a meme market when it comes to housing prices. It's becoming Jackson Hole v2. Newberg mentioned in a podcast that the area is experiencing explosive growth and being loved to death, even going on to say that in a few years they may need to start requiring permits for activities like mountain biking because the foothills are being beaten to death with people recreating. Not sure how much of that was frustration / hyperbole though. Bozeman was pretty high on our list for a while, but ultimately we decided not to play the meme market game. Aside from that, many residents of these areas (Boise, Bozeman, Denver, etc.) are just hostile to people moving into the area from out of state. Just count the amount of "Montana is full" responses you see across the internet.

I did the opposite of what you're considering. We lived in a few western states, and ultimately came back to the midwest. It's affordable here, great for families, and life is simple. I can hunt deer and grouse, trout fish, catch smallmouth / walleye, etc. and we make trips to Colorado every year (my wife's family are in Denver). Living out west is a pay to play game, and I can save way more money living in the midwest and end up playing in the west whenever I get the itch for it, without dealing with the masses and stress and high cost of living.

Every time we fly to Denver and navigate traffic and deal with the people / pollution, we're always so relieved to fly back home.

Agree. I wish I could move back to the midwest , but don't think I could ever convince my wife to do so.

The mountain west is awesome, but is quickly becoming completely spoiled

 

[Billinsd]

The ENTIRE state is being overrun by people who watch Yellowstone/Big Sky and think that life in Montana is even remotely like those two shows.

It's like that in Bozeman

 

[Billinsd]

ultimately came back to the midwest. It's affordable here, great for families, and life is simple. I can hunt deer and grouse, trout fish, catch smallmouth / walleye, etc.

SHHHHH!!

 

[Billinsd]

The mountain west is awesome, but is quickly becoming completely spoiled

I say the Mountain West has become Sullied and Soiled. The prairie is where it's at, except for winter. I'd never live in one house in a place that gets 20 below, second house, absolutely.