For me, since I’ve been 100% remote for 8 years now, I can live pretty much anywhere I want, as long as there’s decent Internet. As my kids all grew up and moved out to live their own lives, I asked myself where I really wanted to live. One was Ecuador, specifically because of the tropical climate combined with high altitude rain forests. The other was the PNW. My partner and I came up to Eugene, OR and did a massive three day tour of Oregon and southern Washington looking for a place to live and finally settled on Eugene, at least to start. Now we live in northern Salem, OR and we absolutely love it here. The climate (bring on the rain!), the overall feeling of the people, the forests and beaches, just all of it really. To be fair, there are definitely still a number of hateful angry people who live in rural areas, which can be problematic, but overall it’s lovely.
What made you move?
was born in aberdeen wa but my folks moved when I was 2 weeks old back in '79, moved back to WA in 2004 - some guys I grew up with lived here so I came to visit and ended up living in WA again.
been thinking about leaving soon though, the taxes, raising rent, and rampant crime have made me feel less than welcome recently. last year or so I’ve been building an RV, using a 1987 Ford Grumman (Kabmaster) base vehicle, go do the vanlfe thing away from cities - drive the path less traveled, etc. one lesson of the pandemic is that remote work is possible anywhere you can get an internet connection, and I do IT work so… time to gtfo. thinking SD or NV to get residency/plates, then live on the road.
there are some really beautiful places in the PNW but you have to have a fair bit of money to live here.