I am looking for a location that makes it convenient to lead an active life (distance to venues, price, opening hours, weather).
By active life I mean stuff like:
[ul]
[li]nature (water and green, not flat) nearby[/li][li]golf[/li][li]QUALITY go carts (not the shit that doesn’t respond)[/li][li]air guns available[/li][li]real car racing[/li][li]flying lessons[/li][li]horses[/li][li]they have fun weird activities[/li][li]etc[/li][/ul]
Las Vegas seems like an obvious answer
Since the OP is apparently looking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
From what I’ve read, you’re describing Boulder, Colorado.
Actually, I think where the OP really wants to live is the Mulligan Family Fun Center.
Green?
Charles Town, WV. Oodles of hiking and hunting. Two golf clubs in the area (not a ton but enough). Summit Point Motorsports Park offers three road courses, a rally cross stage, and shifter carts. I’m pretty sure they hand out air guns to elementary school students. Several tiny airports at least one of which must offer instruction. Horses galore. There’s even a Hollywood Casino so I’m guessing they have shows from time to time.
I wouldn’t want to live there but to each his own.
Finger Lakes, NY?
I mean, I don’t do most of that stuff, but it is around. I’ve no idea of the quality of the go carts, however.
And it depends on whether you’re trying to find all of that within walking or public transport distance; or just within, say, an hour’s drive. Public transport we have mostly not got.
That is pretty much every major city in the Southeastern states. As a bonus if you look at Alabama / Georgia / eastern Tennessee then you have both the Atlantic and Gulf close enough for feasible weekend trips, which also means natural area ranging from mountains to, well, ocean.
Assumptions:
Sorry. No such magical place exists.
Santa Fe or Durango might be worth considering.
No offense, but this is a a quirky list for an ‘active life’
I mean, golf isn’t very active. Driving, riding and flying things is basically active sitting. And ‘air guns’ is an odd requirement.
Anyway, best of luck finding all these things. I agree with Grave that the SE has a lot of this stuff.
Reno might be a good choice. It’s right next to Lake Tahoe, which has lots of mountains, skiing, and hiking. And Reno has lots of the fun stuff found in a gambling city.
I’m amused that “quality go carts” are a must. How does one judge the quality of a go cart?
The Phoenix area has all of these, and more, but pretty much any decent-sized city in a mountainous area will have them, too.
Never lived there but Colorado does seem the place for those with an “active lifestyle”, hiking, mountain climbing, skiing, etc. Utah might fit as well. (Although when the OP mentioned “real car racing” do you mean you want a NASCAR track nearby so you can watch races, or do you want to do it yourself? If the latter, perhaps near the Bonneville Salt Flats?)
By the seat of your pants, you won’t really know until you’re driving it. The OP really should consider a BYOGC track.
Boulder is the classic place for “active” when that has a more conventional definition - hiking, climbing, running, biking etc. And with Denver nearby, no doubt most of the other stuff is available. But Boulder is very crowded and very expensive now. If you’re on any hiking trail with 25 miles of Boulder on a Saturday morning, you probably won’t be out of sight of another human being. And road traffic is awful - if you’re faced with driving back and forth to Denver for things you want to do, it’s not a good choice.
Boulder, Durango & Santa Fe were the three places I narrowed things down to, and settled on Santa Fe. But my priorities were hiking, trail running, mountains etc. For the other stuff OP is looking for, Durango is not a good choice at all - it’s a fairly small place, in restrictive mountainous terrain, a long way from any major city. I doubt is has much of what the OP is looking for, and of the things I do know about - it certainly isn’t a good place to learn to fly.
Santa Fe has a lot more to offer, and Albuquerque is not far away. But I’m not sure even Santa Fe is really suitable. There’s golf here, but it’s hardly a golfing mecca - you can’t grow grass without massive and abusive irrigation. Some of the other stuff I don’t know. The weather’s great for flying, but it’s at 7000’, so less forgiving for a beginner. No idea about go carts or motor racing.
Sounds to me like OP needs to be in or near a big city somewhere that grass grows, with access to nature nearby.