What are the top factors determining where you live?

[NCTrees]

Roots mainly. Family more or less dust bowl Okies moved to CA for a better life and pretty much found it. I’m way, way north. Very red county w/ more cattle than people. Come to grips that my vote doesn’t matter nationally or in state elections, so we get by minding our own up here and hope for better. Fishing still more or less world class. Hunting sucks on average, some opportunities around when the state doesn’t mess up the water situation, which is becoming more typical. Professional skill set doesn’t translate to other states so it’ll be status quo till family passes on / kids move out then we’ll see. It’s a real shame, my backyard is a potential paradise for an outdoorsman. It was when I was a kid. Just messed up by people who wear expensive suits and too much gel in their hair.

 

[9.1]

Are we all going to let @Doc Holliday get away with this?

 

[fngTony]

Jobs for the wife and I, we’re both in some unique rolls so no real lateral moves out there. It’s just not much cheaper to live somewhere else without major compromises. Don’t know where I would want to move to.

 

[DKBronco]

Work and proximity to family. Son will go to college in a few years, then I’ll start looking seriously at other options.

 

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

Family on both sides. I would like to be in the west but there is no mountain range that could replace what family means to my family.

 

[sconnieVLP]

Wherever the assignments team says I’m going next. Definitely not living in the National Capital Region by choice.

Figure I’ll go back to WI when I retire depending on what kind of second career I can swing.

 

[Scoot]

#1 reason for location- where spouse was born.
#2 reason- where you were born.
#3 reason- current job

I'd bet the 3 reasons above are the top 3 reasons for location.

 

[grmunky]

When the kids are finally grown and put, been thinking more of a semi nomad lifestyle. Rent my house out as air bnb, live out of a van as we travel, contracting the cleanup of the rental. Always have a place to come back to when want, just by disabling rentals when we plan on staying at the house.

 

[hiker270]

Wife says we are staying close to the grandkids.

 

[mlgc20]

I'm fortunate that I can live wherever I want. We choose the suburbs of DFW as just a great place to raise kids. Good schools. Generally good people. Used to be a very low cost of living, but that's changing. Wanted to be near a major airport to allow for travel. I will go to Wyoming twice a year for fishing and backpacking. And my daughter is in competitive high school lacrosse, so we are traveling all over the country. And no family within 1,000 miles, so we needed the airport to facilitate getting to see them easily.

 

[Poser]

Decided to move to Durango, CO a few years back as I wanted to live in the San Juans and spend as much time out in these mountains as I reasonably could.

Job etc we’re all details I figured out after talking the moving plunge. Turns out to have been a good decision for me in almost every way, but it was certainly a bold and risky wager on my part.

 

[Lkellogg]

How did you settle on living where you do?

I have been working for the same company, so I have stayed in roughly the same place to keep working here. It’s close to family, and near where I grew up. It’s close to some pretty decent hunting, but not as close as I’d like to be to some areas.

Some points in life more of happened, rather then went according to plan. We bought this house 5 years ago, and it’s been good for us. But I can’t help but think about living in places more open, less crowded.

Obviously money, work, family situation, can be a major factors in location.

I’m young…recent college grad actually, so take my words with a grain of salt as I still have a lot to learn about life. But what I will say is I have made some difficult decisions already regarding where I call home and find myself very happy in life because of those decisions. Had good opportunity to move back home after college and work in family business have land and sort of had it made, but was far from the mountains. Everything i love is in the mountains. So i went ahead with the philosophy that you can find work and make money pretty much anywhere, to me, it is a priority to live where I can do the things I love without the extended travel/time off. You have to weigh the pros/cons specific to your life situation but I have had zero regrets picking up and moving to a place I am happiest outside of work and chances are it won’t be hard to find work wherever that is, especially in a world where no one wants to work and almost everywhere is hiring. Pick the place you wanna be, find the job second.

 

[Crusader]

Primary reason is wife and I were born and raised in the area, most of both of our families are here. Other things that keep us here are:

Low cost of living
Conservative politics, incl. firearms freedom
Excellent hunting and fishing as well as other outdoors activities
Lots of public land
Four seasons
Being in the Midwest, much of the rest of the continental US is not that far away

 

[Mojave]

I grew up in Wyoming and Montana.

This was one of those years that a hard winter will cause a bit of an exodus. When you still are getting snow dumped on you in April and May it starts to grind a little bit.

Snow any time past Jan 10th is getting iffy for some people.

The other aspect is that everyone thinks because there are OTC tags that life is easy. You will still compete for wildlife.

There are drawbacks to living everywhere.

That and a lot of young families cannot afford to live in Wyoming and Montana now.

Giving up a 2500 square foot house with a 3 car garage to live in a 1000 square foot manufactured home in Casper that cost the same is a hard draw for a lot of people. Someplace like Cody, Lander or Sheridan and it's twice as as expensive.

For what? An extra 3 months of winter.

A friend of ours died in a hospital in Lander this past month waiting on the road to clear or lifeflight to be able to get to Casper. What if that was your kid?

 

[trophyhill]

Long story on how i ended up in NM when i was a young man. My job, Mule Deer, Elk and most of all the Rocky Mountains are why i love where I'm at! Although you couldn't pay me to live in Albuquerque, Santa Fe or Las Cruces........

 

[WyoKid]

I grew up in Wyoming and Montana.

This was one of those years that a hard winter will cause a bit of an exodus. When you still are getting snow dumped on you in April and May it starts to grind a little bit.

Snow any time past Jan 10th is getting iffy for some people.

The other aspect is that everyone thinks because there are OTC tags that life is easy. You will still compete for wildlife.

There are drawbacks to living everywhere.

That and a lot of young families cannot afford to live in Wyoming and Montana now.

Giving up a 2500 square foot house with a 3 car garage to live in a 1000 square foot manufactured home in Casper that cost the same is a hard draw for a lot of people. Someplace like Cody, Lander or Sheridan and it's twice as as expensive.

For what? An extra 3 months of winter.

A friend of ours died in a hospital in Lander this past month waiting on the road to clear or lifeflight to be able to get to Casper. What if that was your kid?

I grew up in Wyoming and wish I could have stayed. But you are right. My son went a few years with hearing loss due to an undiagnosed brain tumor. Wyoming doctors continually said he was within normal hearing limits and just needed to stop listening to loud music - ironically, doctors could not understand that he was listening to loud music because of the hearing loss. When we moved to Denver, the doctor said his hearing was within normal limits for the general population but not for my son's age group. He immediately recommended an MRI of the head to see if there was something he could not see through a physical exam. That doctor and MRI saved my son's life as it led to a successful tumor identification removal.

I love small town life but there are certain amenities you do have to give up, like top quality healthcare, easy access to medical technology and specialists, diverse restaurant and shopping options for the wife, etc.

So, taking care of my family dictated where we live as opposed to my hunting desires. Besides, I can travel to hunt, which ends up being a total of 3-4 weeks out of the year anyway.

 

[Mojave]

Long story on how i ended up in NM when i was a young man. My job, Mule Deer, Elk and most of all the Rocky Mountains are why i love where I'm at! Although you couldn't pay me to live in Albuquerque, Santa Fe or Las Cruces........

I live in Las Cruces and I actually like it but I don’t love it. I am not Hispanic, but normal European, whatever that’s called. We have crime we have drugs we have the border. Compared to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. We are heaven on earth.

 

[Oregon]

Everything fun is no more than 20 miles from my house. Elk, deer, bear, waterfowl, quail, grouse, pigeon, steelhead, salmon, lingcod, rockfish, tuna, clams, crab and mushrooms.
After bouncing around the country for 30 years in the service, I wanted simplicity in retired life. I wanted be close to everything fun. I wanted to put my drift boat in and have my wife come shuttle me at lunch or after work.
She would prefer to live elsewhere, we have no box stores or shopping within 1.5 hours.
Our weather in winter is tough on her. 100" of rain. She shouldn't complain though, I cleaned out the garage so she can park inside.

 

[PurpleDriver]

20 years ago I would have said a high girl to guy ratio…

Now it’s my wife, like I already said…

 

[thedutchtouch]

Moved here because of my wife/job opportunity. Now divorcing, staying here because I have kids/joint custody and don't want to give that up. Once they are grown and go off to college or something else I may move. Or maybe things will change before then and I'll re-evaluate. Gotta admit that I am somewhat jealous of the small minority of guys that can choose to live somewhere because of sporting/big game opportunities, but I'll make the best of it while I'm here, whitetail and blue crabs isn't bad.