Do you like living where you currently live? Why or why not?
And of not, where would you rather live, and why don’t you just move there?
I live on the Isle of Man.
I like it very much, but it’s not as good as when I merely came here on holiday. A lot of the novelty has worn off.
I know that if I can get off my lazy ass there is great potential to enjoy where I live a great deal more.
There are places in the world I’d rather live (or at least sample) but they require such a drastic upheval that I am satisfied to stay with a well-paying job on a beautiful island.
DC Metro area. VA, Tysons Corners to be exact.
Nope. Came here for a 3 year contract and have stayed for 7 years now.
Recently marriage failed but can’t leave because ex has custody of kids and I won’t leave without my children.
If I could go anywhere… Burlington, VT or San Francisco, CA. In that order.
But tank you verry much for bringin’ up that painful fact. Next time, vy don’t you just give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it. 
Although North Carolina is a very nice place to live, I have lived here for more then 8 years and it is becoming tiresome. Too little to do, too much time to do it. I would really like to live anywhere other then here, with Pittsburgh being my most idealized destination. Pittsburgh has nothing to offer me, really, I just personally find it the best place I have ever visited for extended periods of time.
(With any luck, in the next year or two, I’ll be living in Providence, Cambridge, or Atlanta, with the very unlikely chance of being accepted into some certain colleges there.)
Wanna swap Zebra? I am in Pittsburgh, where it is freezing half the year and hot/humid the other half. We normally have a day or two each spring and fall that are pleasant. But my kids are here, so I guess I’ll stay. But if I could, North or South Carolina is where i’d be.
I live in Oregon and like it as it’s one of the more progressive and secular areas of the country and has weather much more to my liking than what I was used to in Tennessee.
Unless you really can’t stand snow, Greensboro and Pittsburgh share about the same weather climate. Unless you move to the mountains, spring and fall move without mention here. Just really hot, slightly hot, warmer, cold, colder, warm, coldest, warmer, bitter cold, warm, cold, cold, cold, warm, cold, and then the summer starts which is of course muggy and hot. Allegheny County just has more snowfall, which I really enjoy. We haven’t had, and probably won’t have, any snowfall this winter, despite maybe a few inches here and there. Youins markedly match up temprature wise throughout the year, even, with probably more than 60% of the time there being little than 10 degrees of variation.
Living on the North Carolina coast, however, is something I don’t think you will find in many other places. The Outer Banks are their own. I would swap with you them, but you would have to fight me for it first.
Palm Springs, CA. - need I say more? Although we are having a wet winter, which is not very common. The hills around us are as green as Kauai. Pretty soon we’ll be swamped with wildflowers.
Ask me again in August, when it’s 120 degrees out. Right now, I’m happy, but that changes in PS the first time your remote control garage door opener melts if you leave it in the car too long.
Right now I live in Arkansas.
I’d rather live anywhere north from here. Back to NJ would be nice, or possibly VA though now that I have to pay my own bills and such, I don’t think I could ever handle the cost of living in NJ.
And it’s not so simple to just move. You need a job and a place to live. If you have pets it’s even harder to find a place that will accept them.
Bah.
I live in Decatur, Georgia. Decatur is just outside of Atlanta, but inside ‘the Perimeter’ - which really matters. Inside=cool, outside=not. I’m trying to get over the fact that I really, really hate living here. And it’s not even summer yet, when it will be hot and muggy AND I’ll hate being here.
But I moved to Atlanta to do a fellowship, and it’s a really terrific job, and a fantastic opportunity, and I’m lucky to be doing work that I love.
I just wish I could be doing it back home in Seattle. Sigh.
Eastern CT, because the Navy sent us here. It can fall off the face of the earth as far as I am concerned.
I loved living in tidewater virginia, I wouldnt mind going back.
In utter honesty? Gaertringen, Baden-Wurtemburg Germany. 2 train stops ffrom a good grocery store, the people in the village are very nice, there is a killer butchers shop and a great green grocer there. My friend has a flat about 5 minutes slow walk from the train station and the month I spent there last spring was about the happiest time I have had in the past 15 years.
In the US, we have 30 companies making 10 different types of soup. In germany you have 10 companies making 30 types of soup…I can buy a single chicken thigh, or half a duck, or weisswurst that was made less than an hour before. I can ride a train and get pretty much anywhere I need to without having to drive a car, and it is clean and the people nice [and they didnt laugh at my horrid accent …at least not to my face=)] I really need to go back soon, I am in withdrawl…maybe for octoberfest this september=)
Amador County, California. Small rural county in the gold country. Very friendly people, strong community spirit. Even liberals & fundies get along well if we don’t discuss Certain Subjects. Whatever civilization may be lacking locally is only an hour away in Sacramento. Unlike much of California, we get four actual seasons. I can’t imagine leaving this area.
My immediate home in Pine Grove, however, has far too many new homes close by, and another 100 acres almost next door to me is about to be covered with houses. As soon as my recently started self-employment has enough of a track record that I can get a mortgatge, I need to move to a farther corner of the county.
Chicago, IL, specifically Hyde Park.
Tonight at a get-together another grad student remarked that Hyde Park will eat your soul if you don’t get out every once in a while. I really liked it here for about the first week of my stay, but it’s been about five months now and I agree. I want gone.
If I quit my grad program at the end of the year (and it looks like I will, for various reasons unrelated to the yuckiness of Hyde Park), I will undoubtedly be returning to central Maryland, where I grew up. Aside from the fact that it’s where the majority of the people I care about reside, it just feels like home. I know where things are, it’s comforting to have an ocean a little ways to the East even if I almost never go to the beach, things aren’t so goddamn flat…everything just feels right. Oddly enough, when I was younger I was sure that I’d probably move to San Francisco and never return. I suppose I wouldn’t mind, still, except that the cost of living is so high and I really have no reason to uproot myself to go out there.
The Jewel of The Valley – Historic and beautiful Pasadena, California.
'S nice–it’s about the only place in SunSoCal that you can actually walk around (not including the beach) and not be considered a mental defective or terminally destitute. Also, although we have rock stars and movie mavens around, they tend to keep a low profile. 15 minutes to the mountains, 1/2 hour to the beach in good traffic, and since we’re at the north side of LA County, we don’t see that bad of traffic.
Oh, and some beautiful architecture. The Orange Grove Millionaire Row, the Pasadena City Hall, Castle Green, the Arroyo Seco Bridge, CalTech…very nice. However, it is a bit of a vanilla area, 'specially since they’ve cleaned up Old Town. The 35er is a nice bar now, but it ain’t the old 35er. Actually, there isn’t much of a bar scene in town, if that’s your thing, but there are quite a few decent resturants.
The climate (it should go without saying) is Mediterranean, never too hot, never too cold, never too humid, never too dry.
It’s as expensive as a root canal, though. But so is everywhere else I’m considering for the next move (SF, Portland, Seattle).
Stranger
Bangkok, Thailand. Moved here from Philly in October.
I have this conversation with expats almost daily.
Getting a cultural experience was an extra reason to move here. I like cities but hate working in them in the US and it’s too expensive. I’m a teacher and there are lots of jobs here and living is cheap and teachers are actually respected here (gasp!) It’s also very safe as far as crime goes.
The city itself has some great architecture, some awful. It’s really dirty in some respects and beautifully cared for in others. A garden of the most manicured topiaries and birds of paradise will be ten feet from a pile of litter and dog crap. I just choose to look at the nice things. And I’m learning a language that is virtually useless elsewhere. But its great fun. I may end up living here forever.
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QuickSilver, aside from the traffic, what don’t you like about that area? I’m moving there in June and looking forward to it.
Right now I’m deployed, but my home is in Portland, Maine. The summers there are fantastic, but the winters are enough to make me want to get out permanently.
I spent a few years in Whidbey Island, Wa. and have always wanted to go back. I’d also like to spend more time in coastal Florida, where it won’t get cold. Other than that, I haven’t seen anywhere else in the US that makes me want to settle down. The good thing about the military is that you get to see a lot of places. The bad part is that you live where they want you to live, so I can’t just up and move where and when I want.
Is that the same Isle of Man that is hosting the British Chess Championships in August?
(At the Villa Marina, Douglas, from July 31 - Aug 13).
I usually play in them, so do you want to meet a fellow Doper?
I live in Lake Mary now which is part of the “Orlando Area” and have lived in and around Orlando since I was 7 years old. Anyone who’s lived here knows there’s just lots and lots of suburbia.
My husband and I are planning to move in a couple of years but we don’t know where yet. We’re musicians and we’d like to live in a city where there’s a pretty big jazz scene. The best bets are probably NY and Chicago. Right now Chicago looks interesting mostly because hubby is from NY and doesn’t really want to go back. Also living in NY is ridiculously expensive.
We’ve also talked about living in Italy, Oregon and California so this is very much undecided at the moment but one thing we know for sure is that we are desperate to get the hell out of this poor excuse for a city.
I live in Rutland.
It’s the smallest county in England and is right in the middle of the lovely English countryside. The best feature is Rutland Water, which was created by flooding an entire valley.
Fortunately my job is here and I walk to work.
3 cars in a row is defined as ‘heavy traffic’!
London certainly has its faults (particularly the expense and the weather, IMHO), but I’ve been here for more than eight years now and have no plans to relocate. Considering all the pro’s and con’s, I think it’s a great place to be provided one can afford it. I also enjoyed living in Brussels, same lousy weather but much less expensive and awe-inspiring food and beer.