Summers that arent too hot or humid, winters without snow or ice.
I’ve lived my whole life in Upstate New York. I find the notion that SoCal is cold half the year incomprehensible. San Diego: “On average, 344 days a year are hotter than 60 °F (16 °C).” Rochester has eight months where the daily mean never reaches 60°F. People up here would kill to have that kind of “cold.” Those few who haven’t left for the warmer states, that is.
Well, there is only a sliver of the US that fit those requirements, and it is crammed with people, who have driven up real the estate prices. You may wish to look at mediterranean-type climates abroad, because that is what you are describing, and in the US, only coastal California has that climate. Inland California is too hot for you (although it is arid).
Mediterranean climates include much of the Mediterranean, the cape of South Africa, central Chile, and California. Parts of southern Australia. That’s it. Warm but not hot, dryish summers, cool rainy winters.
Has nobody mentioned the Canary Islands yet? Check it out then. Civilized, with very affordable bits, English mostly spoken, good food.
Well, not in the US, but Costa Rica is a welcoming country.
Yeah, this. Where I’m from, 16-20C is “Nice spring weather”, and is the time of the year I’m most comfortable. Get that year round? Sign me up!
A high of 60F ( for 3 minutes) might indeed be warmer than e.g. Rochester. But that doesn’t mean it’s warm in any absolute sense.
I’m an outlier the other way.
I want an overnight low around 80, a daily high around 90, maybe 95, and a palpable amount of humidity to deliver the perception of enveloping coziness. But not so much that I feel sodden.
And not too much cloudiness so I can, iguana-like, absorb the bountiful and warming direct unobstructed solar energy I so greatly need.
As noted, in California the better the climate, the more expensive the area. I think the San Jose area has great climate, having lived there for a number of years - it has the perfect combination of warmth without too much hot, dry without being desiccated, wet without too much rain, and cool without too much gloom. It used to be called “The Valley of the Heart’s Delight” when it was covered in orchards, but now it’s paved over and one of the most expensive areas in the country - the climate is still nice, tho. For outside California…
My picks from what was suggested in the article are Medford, OR, Bend, OR, or Prescott, AZ.
You might want to check out Albuquerque, NM. The winters aren’t bad and the summers don’t usually get above 90. I hear the humidity is fairly low.
Crazy humid on the coasts, though.
This is horrifying. And the most horrifying part of it is that you are not an outlier. This is seemingly a common preference.
I came here to recommend Albuquerque. I’ve never lived there, but whenever I visited, the temperatures were comfortable, and the humidity was low.
Be careful about sun exposure until you’ve built up a tan (or unless you have sunscreen on). The mile-high elevation makes the sun deceptively brutal.
I’ve got a terrarium that might suit you. Kind of cramped though, it’s only twenty gallons. Lots of moss and ferns. You could grow orchids.
Concur.
Plus this:
Clearly, the “LSL” stands for “Lizard-like? So lizard-like!”
Cape Town, South Africa, has the same climate as SoCal and a fraction of the cost of living. Better still would be the Garden Route, which is not the same climate - it’s better. Less extremes.
Another place like Cape Town would be Western Australia, can’t speak to the cost of living in Perth, though. Then there’s the other Med places where English isn’t the language like Oz and here.
I’d argue that Durban (or maybe a bit more north where the scenery is nicer) has a better climate than Cape Town. Also has more crime but that wasn’t part of the criteria 
Nope. Constantly hot and very humid, with occasional tropical storms, is not better than here. But more importantly, nothing like SoCal.
Just when you think you’ve read every single possible opinion there is on the internet, someone calls San Diego’s weather “dismal.”
“Where should we live when we get tired of DC?” is a recurring topic in my household. Your post is helpful for combining snowfall maps (I’m not moving to Erie) that I already know with what had been a too-vague “cooler than DC” criterion.