The Star Trek universe is tempting, but I’d have to say the Lexx universe would be pretty cool too (before the series began, and the dark universe). I mean, the body count tends to be sort of high anywhere in that series, but as long as Water was still there to go to after you died, I’d be all over that one. I mean, I hope I’d end up on Water.
Have to put me down as another vote for the culture. Might be a bit depressing having all those Minds around being so much better than me at anything they care to name, but I’m sure we could figure something out.
It’s just a pig modified for size and aggression. It most likely tastes like wild boar.
I definitely have to put myself down for Edenism. Zero poverty, built-in telepathy, a life expectancy of 140 years and when your body dies you go on living as long as you want in the habitat personality.
Another for Futurama. 3000 A.D. will be great. I also would enjoy being in Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead time.
Keiko may have been a Starfleet brat and unused to the idea that people actually still cook. Even with replicators, I don’t see humans as a whole just throwing the skill away.
I would choose Trek as well. Anyone who reads my posts in CS shouldn’t be surprised. 
It’s the Culture for me, too. Essentially, everybody in the Culture is an idle rich person. You think up fun things to do and then do them. What’s not to like?
Put me down for the post-Kzin wars Known Space of Niven.
'course I would be an outlaw since I would have to find a black market martial arts instructor…
Another vote here for Tertius - or pretty much anywhere in the Future History Universe.
the bathing customs alone would be worth it…and the redheads wouldn’t hurt either… 
I wouldn’t mind vacactioning in Niven’s Smoke Ring, but living there might be a little to interesting.
Having recently re-watched the Battlestar Galactica movie, I think I would like to live in that universe, but only as some person on the Galactica. It seems to me that a person with a normal amount of common sense would become a very important person there, since he (or she) would invariably see right through most of the (to the natives) impenitrable complexities of life in that universe.
Starbuck (or nearly anyone else): “Hey! We’re in a remote colony/gambling casino where everybody wins at the tables! I haven’t seen so-and-so in three days, but I don’t think that’s suspicious at all. I think I’ll go gamble some more.”
Me: “Screw that! I’m taking a big gun and exploring the bowels of this place and you’re going with me!”
Starbuck: “No way! I’m goint to go have some fun!”
Me: “Coward! 50 credits (or whatever the medium of exchange is there) says you’re too yellow to go with me.”
Starbuck: “50 (whatevers)? Man, you got yourself a deal! Where’s my horribly inaccurate turbopistol?”
Me: “Bring your turboradio/communicator/whateverthehellyoucallit.”
See what I mean?
Of course, they’d see you as psychotically paranoid, but eventually they might start thinking it was “hunches”, and they really respect those. :rolleyes:
–SSgtBaloo
Apart from HHGTTG
The Universe from Peter F Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series would be my choice. I’d probably go with the Edenist/Biotech culture, though the Adamist society would be fun at times.
In original Galactica? I think it was gold cubits.
Even though it’s not very sciencey (or very well written), I’d go with Piers Anthony’s Kirlian books. It’d be great fun to hop across the galaxy to inhabit the minds of whatever person or creature seemed like good fun at the time.
Failing that, it’d be fun to hang out on Well World and push bad guys into the ill-explained psychotransmogrifiporter and watch what they come out as.
Somewhere between “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and The Martian Way? I might agree, on some days. 
But, I would need to be off-Earth. Especially in a Heinlein universe, and this goes double if it’s the kind of Earth in “Stranger in a Strange Land”. A twisted parody of the Reagan 80s (written decades before it happened, no less) would be too much for me.
Asimov’s works are more palatable, in terms of living on Earth. But Asimov was more of an optimist, even when he describes a somewhat troubled situation on Terra.
Mainly, this thread is showing me how much really good SF I’ve not read yet. I’m getting there, people. I’d love to live in something like Roddenberry’s Star Trek world, preferably on a space station or some other advance post. Even DS9 had a large contingent of non-Starfleet residents, a good fraction of them not even Ferengi. 
If not Roddenberry’s world, then inside Greg Bear’s huge dimension-bending asteroid in “Eon”. Hell, n-dimensional engineering and nanotech! What’s not to love? (Although, of course, that would probably violate the OP’s “average life” intent.)
Or, to be rather obscure and weird, I’d like to live in the post-colonial decadance of Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Genetic engineering run wild, bizarre semi-human clones, and a vibe like something between William Faulkner and Rudyard Kipling’s Indian stories? I’m there!
I’ve had time to think about this and I believe that living in a “pond” near the “Intergral Trees” would be cool.
Mmm… since the cartoon genre seems to have been generally ignored throughout this thread, I’ll cast my vote for The Jetsons universe.
Regardless of all the technological mishaps that happen in the show, I’d imagine that most of the time everything works all right.
Also, I’d love to be a smuggler in the Firefly universe, though I have to admit it’s only cause the show is damn cool, since living that way would be pretty harsh (considering how many brushes with death Mal has had).
As for literature, I’ll cast my vote for Brave New World. While it would suck for anyone tossed into the world, people born into it (at least those who have a high enough ranking) live pretty good lives, with many drug-induced orgies.
Is there no one else who wuld like to live as an ambassador among the hominids in Larry Niven’ss Ringworld? Traveling across the huge world and indulging in rishathra would be the life.
I’d like the Trek universe, except that there are so many hostile aliens that want Earth people dead. (Sorta like it is with Americans these days in respect to the rest of the world.)
The near future worlds of Pohl’s Gateway series would be fun to live in. I’d like to try my hand as a Gateway prospector.
Culture, definitely. Probably the best realized utopia in all of science fiction.
Post-Shrike Hyperion universe might not be bad as a second choice though.
Yet another vote for Tertius and Heinlein.
Alternatively Anne McCaffrey’s Pern sounds kinda cool but only if I could be dragonrider.
I’m still surprised that nobody yet has signed up to be a Norstrilian or one of the Daimoni. I could go for either one, though the latter would probably be more interesting.
Quoth Steelerphan:
That’s what I was thinking. Plus, you’d have all the variety of a galaxy’s worth of worlds, all in walking distance! Well, walking distance if you have a large enough supply of immortality drug, at least. Maybe a City Builder, at the height of their empire.
For something a little closer to home, you could do worse than the Luna Free State, of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Sure, you have to pay your way, but there’s nothing wrong with that. And intellectuals and techs seem to be in somewhat short supply, so my skills would be in demand. I’m not sure if I’d want to live through the Revolution, but it might be worth it, to get to meet Mycroft.