Do you want to live in the city or country? Either way, why? Is there a specific place you’d like to live?
A stable country with solid social safety nets where the people I love are not considered criminals simply for existing would be ideal.
Beyond those requirements, I could live in a cabin in the woods, a trailer in a park, a mansion in the countryside or an apartment in the city. It wouldn’t matter as much.
Sounds like good decision making there.
I want to live in the woods in New Hampshire again some day. It’s a beautiful place and also a place where the state and local governments don’t make me grind my teeth in frustration all the time*. I would have a house, a lot of land, and no neighbors except for pine trees.
I had most of that already and I left, because I was very lonely - I think I talked to another person face to face about once every few weeks. I thought I would be OK with that because I was used to being alone, but having no family, no friends, and a 100% remote job was too much for me. Apparently even I start going crazy if I am that isolated. Now I live somewhere I really don’t like (New York City) but I’m close to my family.
*New Hampshire is a rather libertarian state. Taxes are low but the town where I lived (population 15,000) didn’t provide water, sewers, or garbage collection. Many things are legal that aren’t legal in most other places. For example, you can drive without insurance, set off fireworks, and do almost anything with a gun except shoot another person. The state motto is “Live free or die,” and I would tell my guests that as long as they did one or the other, the state’s duty to them would be satisfied.
That sounds nice. I work remotely now and don’t talk to people outside of my home very often, but I do have a family that lives with me and they provide plenty of interaction. When we were moving, I did spend a few weeks completely alone here and it did get pretty lonely. I’m sorry you now live somewhere you don’t like.
No need to be sorry for me - I think my story is of the “learning what really matters” sort and my family is much more important to me than where I live is.
That’s a very respectable attitude.
Not in one single place.
I am lucky right now that my life is spread over 2 continents, with vastly different cultures and climates, and I love it
I also love the contrast, because not any single place is perfect, and switching every few months is just the best
There’s no single one-size-fits-all solution to your question. But maybe there are several answers.
Ireland or Finland. Senegal or Mexico when the cold gets unbearable
Countryside, as far away as possible while still having a reliable internet connection
Somewhere in the countryside with lots of nature around but not too far away from civilization. Ideally in a small country mostly unaffected by geopolitics and with a temperate climate.
I want to live on a sailboat and be nomadic.
I’m thinking of moving to Mongolia one day. Vast open spaces and a bitter cold winter. It’s nice to be forgotten by the world.
Ireland sounds nice
Canary Islands (Spain) because it is one of the best climate in the world. Always mid, average temperatures are around 20 degrees so winters are nice and summers not too hot. + you can go to the beach every day and it is Europe so you’ve got EU quality of life.
But I wont do it. Canarians are dying because of tourism, AirBnB and nomad workers. They can’t pay rents, there’s water shortages and too many old retired fucks from UK or Germany unable to speak Spanish and owning 25 apartments to short term rent. Fuck them, I wont be part of the problem.
So next solution is staying home, which happens to be one of the best country in the world for quality of life (Switzerland), so that’s not too bad. Food is not the best but France and Italy are less than 2h away by train.
I just need Tokyo to be a 2h train ride as well (for food yeah, again) and that would be perfect.
A city. Or a small town with city level amenities and reachability. Some place where I don’t need a car for regular and even some irregular errands.
I’m quite pleased with where I am right now, a provincial capital in NL. If I’d have to scale down, Houten looks quite promising. If I’d be forced to scale up and leave the country, the four places that pop to my mind that interest me are Freiburg (DE), Vienna (AT), Helsinki (FI) and Oslo (NO).
I’m basically there. I wish my property were a bit bigger with some woods and a freshwater stream coming out of the mountains, but I’m like 95% happy. Here is rural northern Japan. Having a grocery store closer would be neat. Maybe if the town grows again (it’s at around 50% of its pre-tsunami population) the one nearby will reopen.
Awesome that you’re basically there - it sounds like the idyllic environment I’ve seen in a lot of Ghibli shows. I definitely get the grocery store thing … I’ve lived in a few rural areas and the trip to get supplies is always a bit of a downer.
Insert joke along the lines of ‘I don’t.’
More seriously, I’ve thought about this a bit. The simple answer is already seen in other responses: rural enough to escape crowds, close enough to urbanity to get good internet. The more perspicacious answer is overly complex: someplace where the weather is mild enough not to kill you if you lose your keys, and likely to stay that way despite climate change, mountainous enough to have nice views and avoid flooding, flat enough to build, sparse enough for land to be affordable, populous enough to be able to get the things I want without making a long trek, wooded enough to get the benefit of trees, bare enough to allow access, not too many racists or zealots, not too rich or poor of neighbors, neighbors not close enough to disturb me, but not so far that I couldn’t run over for something if needed, somewhere politically stable, somewhere I can work without a million-mile commute, where the soil doesn’t suck, where there’s a pleasant amount of rain and sun…
It’s not a small question.
You’re mostly describing where I live! It’s really nice here. However, a few of your points are things that are lacking that I definitely wish I had. Oh well - I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been with my surroundings.
Between the flags on the Paseo Boriqua, Humboldt Park, Chicago
That’s pretty specific.
I’m not familiar, but an image search makes it look like you’re describing the middle of a roadway. Did I find the wrong thing?
Not the middle of the roadway, but the buildings lining it. Paseo Boriqua is the cultural heart of the neighborhood.
Agent 47’s cabin. For those that don’t know, he’s the main character from the Hitman games - and yes, his crib is epic.
