Loving Where You Live

I hate it here as most of my Facebook friends know already LOL

We are moving just as soon as we find that ideal place

Just moved recently from a place I love with mountains, ocean, miles and miles of forests to explore, to another place I probably love even more which is less remote but still has loads of wildlife around which I see most every day. I still have the ocean nearby (and a way better huge sandy beach five blocks away), forests to explore, but more going on in the town. I used to live in a village where nothing much happened.

My only complaint is I keep getting stung by wasps and I really react to it! Oh, and one other complaint...I used to see black bears regularly but haven't seen a single one (or evidence of one) since moving here.

Oops, forgot to say where I live...Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. West coast, baby!

Pocono Mountains in NE Pennsylvania here John - and our daily wildlife visits are just like yours.
Milford PA is surrounded by thousands of acres of parklands - and we have a lovely selection of waterfalls to enjoy.

A herd of deer come for their daily stroll through - & the babies will now come up to investigate.
My husband assisted with a bear crossing the other night . As were walking in the parking lot of our local pizza parlor a bear came strolling through - so he helped wave traffic down until she passed over the main road. Many of the mommas have 3 and 4 cubs - as you know they are adorable roly polies , for a little while at least. Playful scamps.

Much of our time is spend at the lakes and rivers .

Being at the corner of the Tri-state area of NY - NJ - PA , we are not too far from our home base of the Hudson Valley. If necessary - NYC is not too far of a hike away.

Now winters here..... that's a whole other story. I would like to snowbird to NC eventually . Between your area and the coast would be delightful for a few months a year.

I love where I live in the midwest (Kenosha, Wisconsin). We are located in the S.East part of the state right between Milwaukee and Chicago (I always say between two big air ports,cause I like to travel).

We built a new home here a few years ago when my husband retired (we are both from the Mauston-Elroy area of Wisconsin, but never wanted to move back).

In Wisconsin we have the four distinct seasons, which I love! Also, live close to beautiful lake Michigan with all its gorgeous parks that are so well maintained.

I have been to Asheville, John, and it is beautiful, as well as having a vibrant cultural life
I live in São Paulo Brazil, a quiet street with little traffic, yet close to the centre. Everything within walking distance , including work.
An hours drive from beach and mountains. Suits me just fine.

I don't much like living in Eastern South Carolina. I'd rather live up in the mountains near you, John. I was raised in sight of the Blue Ridge and don't really like being down here in the swampy flat land. Maybe someday I'll make it back to the mountains. Can't afford to move anywhere right now. I know I'll never afford the Asheville area. Cost of living/housing is booming there. I might end up not too far from there though.

California's "bike town". Not too bad but better than most stuff around Sacramento area. I live here because I work in Cow Town Sacramento.

my guess is i'd get tired of where i live no matter where i went. around here suburban houses are boring. go outside the neigborhood take pictures of houses, get in trouble with police.

go out to the country and my allergies would go nuts and i'd have to know everyone because in those places everyone has to know everyone.

it would never be the city, too crowded, guns and thugs.

i would rather just visit those places. and preferably a place that has no bugs.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Kay, my mom and her family are from the Tomah metro area (LOL), so I have spent a good amount of time there. I also worked in Sparta and at Ft. McCoy. I grew up in La Crosse and live in Madison now. You forgot to mention that the fourth Wisconsin season is actually Road Construction. :D

I do like where I live, though it is rapidly being built up around us, much to my chagrin. I am no fan of our winters and would love to snowbird, sadly not a realistic option at this time. I just need to make sure I vacation in warm locales during those frigid months.

Live in Fair Oaks which is close to Sacramento. Like it quite a bit, life could be far worse! If I would move somewhere else it would probably be the central coast of California, I miss the ocean on an everyday basis. Alessandra, I think I may still have work up at Crepeville in Davis if you happen to eat there. Not sure as it was suppose to come down in June but as of two weeks ago was still up.

I have lived in Tucson, Arizona for two and a half years, after having spent my first 23 years growing up in Wyoming (a very different place, in a lot of ways). I feel like I have enough things to write a journal post - never really written on the topic so here goes! It may be really long, so excuse the rambling, but this is a very interesting topic to me.

Let's get all the bad out of the way. Things I don't like:

Traffic - it's not like LA freeway traffic, but Tucson only has 2 freeways and neither go through the middle of the city. Travelling across town is painfully slow since you have to take surface streets full of stop lights. I went to the store one night after work and it took 25 minutes to go 2.7 miles the traffic was so bad (getting stuck at lights for multiple cycles) etc. A lot of streets and roads are in disrepair and potholes abound.
Crime - again, it's not like huge cities but it does have some noticeable problems. Tucson has had the highest crime in AZ for years and is above the national average. A lot of it seems to be petty, and fortunately I haven't had anything happen to me so far, but very common to see the police helicopter out and about, there are plenty of gangs (which seem to be growing) in addition to regular reports of shootings, stolen cars, robberies, and break ins across large swaths of the city.
-Lack of city amenities - Tucson has everything you really need (Wal-Mart, Target, furniture outlets, malls, grocery stores, etc) so it's not like the tiny town I grew up in where you had to drive 70 miles to the closest Walmart of McDonalds, but, for being a metro of nearly 1 million, it lacks many of the things that you would think a city of that size would have. No minor league or major league sports, no real arcades, no aquarium, no amusement parks, no real walk able areas etc outside of downtown, dime a dozen stores like CVS and Walgreens are everywhere as opposed to a lot to local business
-Transiency - many people come and go from Tucson. It is hard to make friends here. One of the only truly good friends I made has moved across the country. A lot of people only live here seasonally (in the winter), or to go to school (University of Arizona), or just passing through on the way to greener pastures. It is a hard place to lay down roots and establish connections basically. Those who do stay usually spent their whole life here and already have their "cliques" etc. And there doesn't seem to be much interest for people my age to do much aside from go bars downtown.
-Heat - the worst part about Tucson, hands down. Not bad as Phoenix, but I find anything over 80'F to be too warm, so I am too hot most of the year (early March through October, into November). June, July, and August see daily temps almost always peak over 100, and this week it's been in the 110's. We did not get our normal annual monsoon season (usually, there are daily thunderstorms in July and August, but it did not happen here). It is absolutely relentless, and summer seems to last forever.

Now some things I do like:

-Sunsets: There is really nowhere else I have ever seen that has the sunsets of here. As long as a few clouds populate the skies, they are extraordinary beautiful. Nearly every evening, the light refracts through the atmosphere and lights the landscape and mountains up with a reddish, purple glow. A photographer's dream
-Mountains: Tucson is in a desert floor ringed by spectacular mountains. The Santa Catalinas to the north rise to 9,000+ feet, 7,000 higher than the city. Within an hour or two, you can drive to the top ,and it is a TOTALLY different world. Pine and aspen forest, up to 30 degrees cooler (deep snow in the winter, cool, misty breezes in the summer). The drive up in itself is absolutely incredible as you go from desert to alpine forest in a short amount of time. There are views on the way up where you can see the whole city and all the way into Mexico (80-90 miles away). The view at night is the most gorgeous cityscape I have ever seen. Especially when there are still sunset clouds left when the lights come on.
-Food and Culture: You can find anything from Sonoran street food to to fine Mexico City cuisine, and it is all incredible. The best Mexican food I've ever had by far has been in Tucson. But other things are really good as well - tons of delicious burgers, pizzas, sandwich shops, and delis. There are a lot of popular chains here - bother Whataburger and In & Out, for example. Since Tucson is kind of midway between the California Coast and Texas, it pulls unique influences from both regions. As well as Native American and Mexican tradition. Tucson is a unique hub of cultures unlike many other places.
-Winters: It is so amazing to lay by the pool in December and get a bit of a tan under the blue sky and palm trees while the mountains to the north and east are capped by snow. All the trees and plants in and around town stay green all year (except for the middle of summer) and it is not unusual to see some bushes (like the creosote) actually bloom - in December! Hiking in the desert is the winter is awesome too, because you're not really worried about snakes being out and getting heat stroke, and the low sunlight creates long shadows and interesting effects. I also enjoy not having to deal with snow. Period (in Wyoming it could snow any month of the year)
-Friendliness: Most people in Tucson are very friendly. Whether it is a server or cashier at the store, or someone holding the door, people around here are just friendlier and more polite than many other places I have been in the US. Even though it's hard to make friends, there is much less general rudeness here I've seen than other places. People seem to be more accepting of differences of opinions here and have a laid back, live/let live attitude.
-Artist/Photographer's dream: The dynamic southwest landscapes, mountains, skies, and sunsets offer endless inspiration for photography and painting. There is so much diversity to the landscape as well as the flora and fauna, you could never run out of things around here. And Tucson is unique in that it only has a few outlying suburbs - even through driving through town takes forever, once you are passed the perimeter, you are out IN the desert. It's not like other cities, where you just run into more and more cities. You can drive 45 minutes to the other side of the Tucson Mountains to the west and feel like you are in the middle of nowhere.
-Affordability: Tucson is very affordable compared to much of the US. Rent is less than half here where I came from.
-Monsoon season: (When it happens, as it did not this year) there are quick moving thunderstorms that are spectacular. Lighting strikes the whole landscape, the sky can turn black, it can rain while the sun is still out, the air can cool 30 degrees, the smell of desert rain is like nowhere else, and the rainbows and sunsets from them are amazing. Then, the rain cleans the air so good you can see so many stars just by going to the city's edge. Natural phenomena in the Tucson region is spectacular.

While on the topic, here things I miss and don't miss about Wyoming

Things I don't miss
-Weather - the winters in Wyoming are LONG and extremely brutal. The weather can change any minute. The wind is relentless. Highways can be closed for days due to drifts.. Summer is very short but can still get quite hot and unpleasant, due to the aridity and distance from oceans etc. Fall is the best season, but it is extremely short (like 6 weeks) and starts to get pretty cold by mid to late October. Spring is often the wildest weather wise - it can be 75 and sunny in the morning and drop to 25 and be snowing several inches by afternoon. I have had to cancel plans in late May due to blizzards.
-Isolation - Towns are spaced miles apart (hundreds, in some cases) due to the extremely low population. Cheyenne and Casper, the largest cities and barely scrape 60,000 a piece. The 3rd largest, Laramie, only has 30,000, and after that the populations go down significantly. It is not uncommon to make a day trip out of going to the nearest Walmart. The whole state only has a handful.
-Mental health/addiction: Depression, heavy drinking, and drug use are rampant. Knew several people killed drunk driving. The winter especially can be very depressing to many, because it is extreme and can make it hard to travel out of town, but there is also a bit of a stigma associated with mental health in Wyoming, as if being depressed means you're not "tough" enough. It is unfortunate. Many turn to drinking or hard drugs - meth being one of the worst (though the problem seemed to be getting better when I moved)
-Housing is actually quite expensive and there are essentially no jobs outside of physically demanding mining jobs that come and go pretty regularly.

Things I do miss:
-So much nature at your disposal. You could spend a whole day driving an interior mountain range on dirt roads and not see another soul all day. Here in Arizona, all the nature/scenic spots are crawling with dozens of other people at any given time. You could drive across the plains and see more antelope than cars on a quiet road. Being in Wyoming truly makes you feel like you are far, far away from the worries and problems of the rest of the country/world.
-Slower pace: the pace of life in Wyoming as a whole was MUCH slower; It felt like there was too much time in the day sometimes, and you get bored with it. But it is a nice feeling. Up there, when you were bored, you'd head to the local gas station and get a soda and drive around listening to music (often, country, lol). Maybe you'd even drive to the next town over an hour away just to get a sandwich. People drove around as a hobby - it was fun! Just exploring. Or stopping by the store and talking to your friend that you knew was working. These things would never happen here.
-Sense of community: Wyomingites are so proud of their state, flaws and all. Each town is very proud of their town as well. There are rivalries among towns, but everyone is proud to say they are from Wyoming - because they are so rare! (least populated state).
-Real lakes, real trees, grass, water, rivers, streams - hard to come by in the Tucson area.

If I could live anywhere, though, it would actually be far northern California along the coast by the Redwoods. But I am happy with Tucson for now.

When I was a kid I thought I lived in a pretty boring place (Milwaukee area). I got older, had a child and started vacationing in my own state. Tent camping mostly. Found some really amazing places in WI. Then we started going other places.

My father in law lived near LA so we got see a fair bit of California. Wonderful to visit, I would never want to live there though, maybe San Diego. Maybe. Seen many other places, rural and urban. I’ve been to a fair number of big cities. All that traveling has taught me that we’ve got a lot right in our own proverbial back yard. I’ve come to like the Milwaukee area, not sure I can say I love it, but I certainly don’t feel about it the way I felt 40 years ago. Not too hard to get around, all the modern conveniences one could want, and many we don’t want, although lots to do here. Also two major league sports teams, and one 2 hours away

I do love Wisconsin though. Within 4-5 hours I have so many beautiful and unique places to go. Kay, what’s funny is that I would love to live in the area you grew up in! The bike trails alone would keep us very busy.

Chuck, the other half of my family is from the MKE area! I only went to Door County for the first time this summer; I like your collection! Definitely check out the Coulee Region in the fall--the Mississippi plus the ridiculous colors of the bluffs are incredible!

I live in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. I love it here and have no desire to live elsewhere. Same as my parents, born and raised, my final resting place will be here as well. It's our roots. The majority of my images in my collections were taken not more than five minutes from my home.

It's not that I don't like change. Why leave when my hometown is idyllic. I also live and own my childhood home that is in old Plymouth.

Around 134 sq. miles, Plymouth is a the largest municipality in Massachusetts. We are less than an hour's ride to both Boston and Providence. We have our own hospital, BID-Plymouth, that is part of the Harvard Medical School-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

In 2020, we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower. In those 400 years, many Americans, who were descendants of the Mayflower passengers, branched out into other states across this nation. Millions have ties to Plymouth. Same applies to the immigrants who settled here. My husband is a Mayflower descendant. I am not. My lineage goes back to southern Italy and Sao Miguel in the Azores and am thankful they settled here.

I love history. I love the sea and its cool breezes. I love snow. I consider myself to be blessed.

Thanks Christi! We have a travel trailer and spend a fair amount of vacation time in Door County, about 17 nights total in spring, late summer, and fall. And usually get a room in February for a few nights. I wouldn't mind retiring up there if real estate wasn't so expensive.

Getting ready to move from NYC to Los Angeles, hopefully within the next 2 months or so. If I could afford a loft in Manhattan I'd stay, but I've never been a big fan of winter and 18 months in New Hampshire really emphasized that for me.

Ronald Walker we are practically neighbors. Fair Oaks not too far. Do you work at Crepeville or have art displayed there? I did not know it was supposed to close! Nothing lasts very long in Davis! And the summer is really hard on businesses because the students are out and there are very few residents who eat and shop in the little town.

David S., you found a place to live? I recall you were looking a while back.

I am fixin' to love where I live (that's Texas talk for getting ready to :) ) My husband and I are moving to practically the border of Texas and Oklahoma, way north Texas and have a little plot of land in the hills - yes there are hills in Texas, out a distance from the metro areas of Dallas. There are also deer all through our community up there and I am sure other critters which I am looking forward to photograph. I am so anxious to get there - just a few more weeks. The only downer for Texas is the HOT summer. The other seasons are great.

Janice, I descend from 11 Mayflower passengers, John Winthrop, and the matron of honor at King James I/VI wedding. I also descend from the Delano family that came over on the Ann after the Mayflower. And Stephen Hopkins, my ancestor, came on the ship that brought the first Virginia families as well as on the Mayflower.

I have been to Plymouth many times. I was born in Maine and descend from Rev. Robert Jordan who arrived in Cape Elizabeth in 1643.

I love New England. :)

I have lived here all my life. I really cannot imagine living any where else.

Our city is in two states. I grew up on the Virginia side and now live on the Tennessee side. Only about 2 hours from
the beautiful area John lives in, we also have mountains, bears, raccoon, deer, opossum, squirrels, eagles, etc. Pretty farmland, lakes, parks and area attractions.

Bristol is recognized as the Birthplace of Country Music, our train station was a major hub on the East coast for decades and one of the premiere tracks for
NASCAR is also here. In fact the race was just this past weekend, our cities population doubles on race weedend.

There is so much I love/hate about Miami!
There are so many events I enjoy! Art shows, the Everglades, Fairchild gardens! Miami Beach, diving, snorkeling, hiking, biking! Great shopping, beautiful weather! Then there is the hurricanes 😱, rising insurance rates, increasing traffic and congestion, cultural differences, and overall rising cost of living! I was born in Virginia but left when I was 13 so I got a good taste of small town living and culture! I am sometimes tempted to leave but kinda gotten used to life in the fast lane!

John,

Cape Elizabeth with its rocky coastline is beautiful too. I was up there two years ago getting some photographs of the lighthouse.

I recall from another post that you had ancestors going back to Plymouth. The town is heavy with construction this year. Mayflower II has been gone for three years. She will be returning next May 2020. All preparations for the anniversary.

Chuck

Haven't found a place yet, but I can't move until the house in NY is sold and the money is in the bank.

I was originally looking at less expensive places inland, but frankly rentals were not much less than areas in LA that have much more in the way of business opportunities. Looking around Culver City for starters, although I'll probably stay in an extended stay motel for a month or two so I can really look around.

I hae some friends and a relative in the film industry who are going to help me to do some networking and it turns out I'll have more money in the bank than I thought. I thought my sister and could only get $50,000 apiece upfront and have to wait 6 months for the balance of the estate. Turns out we just have to leave $50,000 in the estate account for 6 months.

So, I won't have to pinch pennies for a few years at least. ;-)

I need to live somewhere bigger than Bondock, South Carolina. It's hard as hell to live here without a car

Oh yeah, I like where I live, on the north side of Baltimore. It's a busy, lively city, full of new and old stuff, waterfront, country roads, greenery and urban density. From my house, I can walk a block, turn left to get on a train that goes downtown or right to walk out into a thousand acres of dense, tall woods with a lake at its center. Without using a car, I can get to trains to go to Washington, Philadelphia and New York or I can drive out country roads and enjoy the view of farm and forest.

The Chesapeake Bay is nearby and beach resorts a few hours to the east.

Weather is all over the spectrum so you don't have much of a chance to get bored, there's lots of water, hence lots of greenery and animals.

By being on the north side of the city, transportation is better than much of the area. By the way, the large contiguous metro area that stretches from my area south, including Baltimore, Washington and Northern Virginia ranks about 5th in size, after New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and I think Philadelphia, so we're not exactly in the boonies, but in my location, the boonies are just a couple miles away.

We have one of the highest mean incomes and levels of education.

What's not to like.

Love where I live but I do find other places where I think I'd love it too.

Here is my backyard -

Currently visiting the inlaws in Bozeman, MT - could see myself here too.

I love where me and my wife live in Northern California (San Carlos). San Carlos is a small city. It is in a center of Silicon Valley, between two freeways and half way to San Francisco and San Jose.

Weather is gold here - That is one of reasons why California is known as Gold State! Even more - our neighboring town Redwood City has a big billboard in a center of the city with this note "Climate the best by Government test".

We live on a hills. Across a road from our home is a canyon. Its name is Big Canyon. it is not Great Canyon but a really big canyon. There are plenty of wild life around - deer, raccoon, possums, coyotes, squirrels, skunks, wild turkeys.

in 20 minutes drive there is a opened to public great estate with botanical garden. The name of this place is Filoli. It is an acronym formed by combining the first two letters from the key words of William Bourn's credo: "Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life."

In half hour drive we have a lot of beaches on an ocean coast near Half Moon Bay city, where famous world surfing competition (Mavericks) takes place.

San Francisco with all its cultural life is within 45 min drive.

And last, but not least, our daughter with grand kids lives within 15 min drive.

Well - a famous San Andreas Fault line is within 15 min drive. That fault is a sliding boundary between tectonic plates (the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate). That is where a big earthquakes happen or could happen. But nothing in life is ideal, isn't it? ... We are happy to live here.

Here is what we have in our city in 5 min drive from our home.

Great topic. I remember posting something similar here. I live in a lovely little city by a lake (San Marcos, CA) but I am always missing NYC where I grew up. I lived in Honolulu for 9 years and do not miss it at all!

I've been doing a lot of back and forth to LA with my son lately and that's been fun. We always find something new and adventurous up there.

I think about "if I could live anywhere" quite a bit and then go on realtor.com and look at houses. But I think I'm pretty settled in here. Cozy house, good neighborhood, great schools, work close to home, mountains to the east, beaches to the west... can't complain.

Things I like about Mississippi-Ridgeland area: close but a suburb of capital city. Healthiest town in the state. Near the reservoir but not on it. The weather is good. Things I don't like: the trees in my yard keep falling.

In the early 1970s I had a wonderful career working for government in Washington DC as a photographer. I photographed every Senator and congressmen from Goldwater to Humphrey. I photographed two Presidents in the White House and traveled almost all the states on shoots. I was happy with my work, but very unhappy living in the Washington area. I knew that I didn’t want to raise kids in that cesspool. I didn’t have kids yet and knew I would be stuck there if I did, so I packed up and moved to Vermont. Vermont is a wonderful place to live, if you can stand -36FWinters and few jobs. It’s been a hell of a roller coaster ride, but if I had to do it over again I would and I’m from Southern California.
Here is one reason I live here.

Ditto your comment about DC. As impressive as the place is, everybody there IS government, works for government, tries to profiteer from government, tries to influence government or serves coffee to government. As much as I enjoy doing things in DC (I'm there about once a week for something), I would never give up my perch in north Baltimore for a view of the capitol. North Baltimore is just far enough to avoid the stink but still convenient. I'd rather have deer in my back yard than lobbyists down the alley.

I was born in Alberta, Canada as were my parents. I would never live anywhere else. Alberta has Banff, Jasper, lots of oil, arguably the best beef anywhere, the largest free roaming herds of Bison in the world, prairies, forests... and the spirit of the people here is wonderful.

Katy, Texas, used to be the little town in the country where we would buy antiques and try to picture that someday there would be homes on this land. Well, I built one of those homes in 2016 and love living here in the Prairies and Lakes section of the great state of Texas. It's quiet but has many amenities. It has also grown to be as large as Pittsburgh, Pa. Clint Black and Rene Zellweger grew up here--our claim to fame. Though it would be nice to have mountains and waterfalls and seashore, I'm very content in my little house on the prairie.

I grew up in northern NJ, then after college moved to Long Island, NY (Suffolk County) to marry my college sweetheart. I hated Long Island and wanted to move almost immediately but she wouldn’t. Finally, three years ago I moved to coastal Maine and couldn’t be happier. It’s been such a positive in so many ways. Things have fallen into place nicely.

I grew up in Brazil, in the Eastern Zone (Zona Leste) of São Paulo, and moved to Europe in 2000.

When I came to Austria for the first time in 2008, I realized that I was finally at Home. Been here ever since, and this is the country I want to live until the end of my days.

HI everyone,

I'd like to put a vote in for the UK, in particular North West England! I lived within 3 miles of city centre Manchester for the first 50 years of my life and now I live halfway between Manchester and Liverpool ( about 17 miles away from city centre Manchester).

I like living around this area, you can be in countryside within half an hour and at the coast within the hour - we have no particular extremes of weather, just mild the whole year round! Yes it can be wet but we can also have sun and warm weather lol!

Living around the northern end of England means you are accessible to most areas of the UK within a few hours, but we have a long drive before we can cross over to Europe.

From where I live I can be in the following ares:

North Wales - 2 hours
South Wales - 4 hours
London - 4/5 hours
England South Coast - 5 hours
Southern Scotland - 4 hours
Scottish Highland/Islands - 6/7 hours
France - 5 hours plus crossing by tunnel or ferry

We moved away from the city centre about 10 years ago and I love our new area, it is semi rural and I look on to open fields to the back of my house but housing to the front and retail developments etc within 3/5 miles. We have lots of horses around here and have two well known race courses Haydock and Aintree within a short distance.

The worse thing about Greater Manchester is the traffic, the same as any other developed area!

Bye for now!

Recently I moved to North Carolina where I am privileged to get onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is breath takingly beautiful and what better inspiration for an Artist could there be?

I love the cold, the snow, the ice on the mountains. I love the Spring, the Summer and the Fall on the mountains. I love the rain on the mountains.

I have a saying, "Even a bad day is a good day because I am in the mountains!"

I have seen birds I have never seen before. The wild life is phenomenal. Don't get me started on the skies here! I won't be able to stop. LOL!

I can sit in the rocking chair on the front porch of my log cabin and just enjoy nature.

Yes I love where I live.

A central location would be more practical, but I love where I live.

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A central location would be more practical, but I love where I live.

From after hurricane season to late spring, North Florida is a great place to be. In the summers, it is just freaking HOT and humid! That's the time to travel to northern high elevation parts unknown!

Dallas, TX is great. During this time of the year you can fry an egg on the sidewalk. What else could you ask for, ha....

I've lived in Florida since the mid 1970's first in Miami until 2004 and currently in Crystal River which is around the central west coast of the state and I love it. Lots of nature and wildlife and little traffic compared to the big city.

The weather is as Drew stated very hot and humid in the summer, I'm doing good this year beating the heat in the back yard pool. If I could just figure a way to evade the hurricanes it would be bliss. :-)

I like where I live. I guess.
There probably aren't a lot of people who can relate to this, but I miss Washington DC.
Mostly right now I live in an office with a view of the Rocky Mountains.

Mike Savad: If you want to live in a place that doesn't have a lot of insects, try Colorado. Or probably anything along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains or west. It's drier than the east coast, so almost no mosquitos.

Methinks Ann and I should meet for coffee one day

One of the great things about weather in the Mid-Atlantic is how you get everything. Sometimes you get everything in the same week, or almost anything. I admit that I've never seen August snow, but I have seen January heat. If you can get bored about the weather here, then you just don't have much of an attention span. You have to be adaptable and prepared. I was just about to get sick of the previous weather regime, mid 90's with humidity so high that, if you turned on the airco in the house, the windows would steam up on the outside, and then we had a round of big bad storms that dropped lots of rain, knocked out power for some, followed by a gloomy, rainy day, and now it's cool and dry. Tomorrow it will be mid-80's.

I think I would get bored in a place with predictable weather or terrain. An old tourist slogan for Maryland used to be "America in Miniature". We have mountains (little ones of course), midland, rolling hills, flatland, seashore, bayshore, the world's largest estuary, city, suburbs, farmland, little pieces of wilderness, and even a couple desert areas (serpentine barrens) which are due to soil conditions rather than lack of rainfall. If I'm in the mood for nature photography, I can walk from my house to something that looks (in summer at least) like a rainforest and then make my way uphill to the desert, and be back for lunch.

I love where I live! I live in the high desert of eastern Oregon and there are many people that think it is ugly here. I have really learned to appreciate it and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. Sagebrush and juniper trees will always be some of my favorite scents. Also there are more cows than people here which I consider to be a big plus.

Riley, Oregon sounds like an awesome place,love your cow photographs!

John, my father's family also came over in the 1600's and migrated to Charleston, S. C, A great, great, great grandfather was an artist, John Rose, and one of his paintings found its way to the Museum in Williamsburg. My grandfather was a cartoon artist but never pursued a career, just did his drawings for anyone that asked. Their talent missed me because I can't draw a straight line, but I am trying the digital drawings. I ended up now living near Columbia, South Carolina, which is the center of the state. the beaches are just an hour or 2 away and the mountains are only 3. I love the Hendersonville, Asheville area and that would be my second home if I ever move from here. I try to get up in that area for a week every year. The only thing I really can't stand living here are the Sand Gnats that drive me crazy.

Abbie,

I agree - a meet up for coffee sounds good :)

PM me!

I love where I live in north central Wisconsin, 5 minutes out the door, I am in the country. I never know what critters will come into the yard. I grew up north of here in a little town called Eagle River in Vilas County. The county has over 1,300 lakes with numerous rivers. And what isn't covered in water, is covered by trees. Great place to grow up, to raise kids and a great area for a photographer. There is enough city for all the other stuff. It is 3 hours or so to southern areas of the state where there are relatives. I know, winters are cold, but you can always put on more or better clothes, you can only strip so far in the heat and humid down south. Winters can be magical for photography. Then there is fall, no better place in fall. Up north here we have something special that other places cannot see and that is the northern lights or aurora borealis, they are magical and elusive. Seeing them should be on everyone's bucket list. And it sounds like we have a good chance this weekend.

In the 80s, I worked and lived in MN, MI, WY and MT. I've been to FL, TX, CA and WA and traveled in between. If I lived any where else it would be Montana, one great state, also.