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Being  7mo ago (text post)   2283 thread views

The Motte Picks Where I Spend the Rest of My Life

Alternative Title: Where would you live if you had only minimal constraints?

While I am very much soliciting genuine requests and hope to follow through on the post title, I hope this prompt will also be a fun one.

Many of us fantasize about living abroad or starting over. But there is always an excuse. Some factor tying us down or preventing us from making the lunge: a job, a partner, a sick relative. I have found myself with these excuses recently plucked away.

Since any (good) recommendation should be tailored to the recipient, here are the aforementioned minimal constraints:

  1. American citizen. Native English speaker.
    • Not restricted to English speaking locations, but the difficulties of learning a language and assimilating should be considered
    • For simplicity and op-sec, assume fluency in other languages can be rounded down to 0
  2. Long Term, Stable Couple
    • All preferences are shared between both of us
    • Do not need to consider relationship prospects of destination
    • Monogamous
    • Straight
  3. Young (~30) years old
  4. No children yet. Will have first (of several) children within next 3 years.
    • No adult dependents (such as sick family members that need to be cared for)
  5. $250k household income
    • Assume standard income growth for competitive tech field: +5-10% real growth per year.
  6. Fully Remote Work
    • This is the big one that opens up the world
    • Assume remote work will remain viable (fair assumption given our fields)

I'm a believer in the idea that constraints can paradoxically increase creativity, but if you have a dream destination that is incompatible with these constraints don't let me stop you from sharing.

The Motte has an eclectic mix of users and I specifically want to know YOUR ideal destination, NOT what you think someone like us would want. The standard lists and rankings of "best places to live" are either bizarre (they overweight metrics that don't matter to most) or end up just being too blank - effectively just a list of major cities.

I'm hoping to discover some unusual preferences. Maybe your dream is a few hundred acres of farmland in a rural spot. Maybe it's something incredibly niche like needing to be walking distance from the Louvre or being able to view the Khumbu at sunrise from your porch. Now is the time to sell me the rest of us on your dream :).

We will be visiting a number of options this summer and would love to add some additional locations to either this trip or the next. The goal is to move to this location early 2025.

Will include some of the options I've been toying with as a comment.

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I'm late to this one, so hopefully this comment doesn't get lost, but I'm about five years older than you, I've got the kids, and I don't have remote-friendly work. Our preferences and situation are otherwise similar. My two cents in no particular order:

  • Don't underrate the crime rate where you go, especially the neighbourhood level crime rate. When I became a parent my aversion to crime and disorder went up a lot. After all, you have precious cargo now.
  • Similarly, the quality of schools will matter a lot. Some places have really large real-estate premiums for good schools. If you think a city is cool, but the house you need to ensure a good education are not affordable, maybe pass on it.
  • When you have kids convenience is everything. This is why, for instance, I don't live in NYC: Things are a hassle when you have lots of time, but when you have kids, you dont have that time anymore so it just becomes horrible.
  • Consider the culture of the place you are moving to. You will always be a transplant, but it will be the "home culture" of your children. For instance, do you want grandchildren? People from large urban cities have ultra-low fertility. If you have 2 kids, you might be rolling the dice on having any grandkids if you live in NYC, SF, or Boston. If you move to France, your children will be French, etc.
  • This are all specific cases of a general point that you are putting down roots here so you need to think if this place will service your needs in the remaining phases of life and mold your children the right way.

If I had your circumstances including income and the knowledge I have now, I would be looking for a wealthy exurb of a major metropolitan area with decent weather, uncrowded natural amenities, and where I'd feel at home culturally. For me this looks like:

  • A commuter town in England's "home counties" -- i.e. within a short train ride or drive from London.
  • Very suburban Washington DC or Connecticut.
  • Maybe more adventurous, but I love Freiburg and the Black Forest generally in Germany.

I just remembered Puerto Rico and the US VI have some very nice tax incentives, if you like tropical weather and don't like paying income taxes.

Not enough detail to say but if the goal was cheap COL, English, nice weather I would likely choose Pensacola. Downside is it’s a second tier or maybe even third tier draw for people. So the high IQ types won’t be there. It’s like a vacation area for plumbers.

If you want cheap COL, high IQ people present, good weather than you look at top regional cities in developing world. But you won’t get English. Mexico City or any of those capitals will have global people and cheap COL.

It’s like a vacation area for plumbers.

Haha, don't sell it too hard! What about Pensacola drives it the #1 spot on your list?

Which developing world city would make be at the top of your list? Mexico City? My hesitation (perhaps unfounded) around many developing countries is instability of the political/economic variety. The Americas, at least, tend to more extreme swings than the first world typically experiences. Instability isn't a big deal if you are buying a vacation/second home, but for someone like me I'd be hesitant investing the significant resources (primarily time) to assimilate in a place that has a high chance of becoming significantly less hospitable.

Pensacola because I was tempted by it when I visited a now ex-gf dad so know what it would have costs. Dad was an idiot and had a reverse mortgage so could have bought 3500 sq ft for around 200k. So some renovations 100-150. Big enough to make some of the space Airbnb. 350 all-in with a little Airbnb money on the side. About a mile walk to ocean and about half a mile to downtown. Plumbers are a joke because they can make really good money. Pensacola isn’t going to get your highly educated friends to visit but if you have nurses or the skilled trades in your family it would sound fantastic.

Maybe more now with Florida boom but I would call that a nice QOL.

I am in Buenos Aires now and it’s completely chill. I feel completely safe. If you are Italian or like Italian food you may like it. There is no crime like big American cities. People are so passive. But then you are outside the American empire and it’s Spanish speaking.

Mexico City I do not know. I might visit some friends there but it seems much louder there.

I tend to get winter depression but also don't deal well with super-humid tropical weather. So if it was more practical I would like to live in one hemisphere in the summer and the other hemisphere (or a semi-tropical location) the other half of the year, avoiding winter entirely.

I'd probably do exactly this if we were aiming for the DINK lifestyle, but with children it's disruptive to pull them away from their friends and classmates for significant portions of every year.

How do you feel about island life?

A lot of the places that are trying to attract remote workers and are themselves decent places to live are small island nations.

Malta, Guernsey, Bermuda, Cayman, BVI, Antigua, Monserrat. There's a lot of choice of places that are safe, commonwealth members (and therefore English speaking), tax havens (and therefore self selecting for affluent international elites and their needs) with warm climates, beaches and all the nautical activities you could want.

I've never seriously considered island life. I tend to think of the islands as a pretty strict dichotomy between the working class locals (involved in service and tourism industries) and the wealthy who bring their money with them.

Neither of us has spent any non-vacation time in any island nation so we are coming at it blind. Is there a particular nation you'd recommend above the others? Also keep in mind the kids aspect: would you want to raise your children there?

Malta in particular I thought was really child friendly, very safe, lots of activities, strong local communities and therefore lots of them running around the place, to a degree that surprised me as a "regular" Europeean, and it has a few other advantages due to its proximity to Europe. People there mostly work in the online gaming industry too, which percludes it from being solely a tourist trap, but let us be honest, wherever you go there is always going to be a gap between international elites and locals (even in Germany and the like). It's just a feature of the globalized world at this point and how fair the arrangements they have negotiated with each other are is really what you should be looking at rather than whether the gap exists.

And it's not the only one like that, what few time I spent on Corsica or even Sark I thought I would have loved growing up there. But I might be biased because I love both the countryside and the sea.

I’ve met a few people who grew up in Bermuda or the Caymans. They’re similar to expat Hong Kong or Singapore kids in that they often tend to become degenerates by their late teens.

Like my neighbor comment says, that's probably a function of being a rich brat more than anything else, but there is a diversity of cultural choices in even this small subset of places. Pretty much all the Maltese I know are either strongly catholic or least moral people whose few sins are typical catholic sins (i.e.: infidelity, alcoholism and laziness).

Is that a function of the island or the socioeconomic class?

Boring choice, but I'd choose NYC.

If you don't need to commute, you can buy a house in a quiet Brooklyn neighborhood or one that is mid-gentrification. I am not too different from you in age or compensation, and Greenpoint, Brooklyn is my dream neighborhood. The area near 11th ARR in Paris is my #2 and Somerville, MA is my #3.

Every place that is sunnier and as happening as NYC is culturally isolating to someone who is not from there. So Madrid, Tokyo and Barcelona lose on those grounds.

A lot of this will be bounded by "where can you get a visa." You said you're working remotely, and that's nice, but remote work usually doesn't give you a visa to live in another country (and in fact they kind of frown on it. you might have to use a vpn and lie your ass off). you can buy a "golden visa" to a few countries like portugal and thailand, but those are the exception, not the rule. Most countries will let you do an "investment visa" where you buy a business and promise to create jobs, but it has to be a bona fide business.

Is there a specific country you would recommend if the visa wasn't an issue?

I don't want to trivialize the difficulty and I may just be naive, but I don't think that the visa question is actually that much of a determiner. Young, educated, financially successful professionals from the West are more able to obtain visas than others so YMMV. If it matters, we have EU and US citizenship currently.

I'd probably choose Japan. Beautiful countryside, fun and safe cities, fascinating culture, lots of help for retirees, surprisingly low CoL. But it's tough to get a visa there... you have to get a job that will sponsor you for a work visa, which usually means you need to speak Japanese, which is hard to learn when you're not living there using it every day.

I ran across this guide at some point. In all likelihood, your values are not identical, but it should at least provide things to consider and I'm sure some of the analysis is useful.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tq9rY1TCs49XHckWtzOowYz_xHXFnRpOZq8r0lE5JSQ/edit#heading=h.z7flydhghql5

Wow, this is a very thorough document. While most of it is either stuff I already am factoring in or not relevant (looking at you fire ant map), there were enough things I hadn't seen before to make it worth the read.

Thanks for sharing!

I've been looking at moving to Malaysia (albeit my partner is from there and has a big, pretty well-off Malaysian Chinese family which makes the decision considerably easier) with my newborn, sooner or later.

  • Cheap (About a third COL of Australia). Can buy a reasonable longterm family home in the gated community in a upper middle class suburb my partner's family lives in for $300-350k AUD (About $200k USD)
  • 90% Developed. There's stuff you'll miss from the West but if you pick one of the outlying spots around Kuala Lumpur or Georgetown you're getting the vast majority of creature comforts and cheap as hell.
  • English reasonably strong
  • Education system strong if in Malaysian Chinese area
  • Childcare very cheap due to proximity to the rest of SEA. Foreign maid is about $10-15k per annum AUD.
  • Going from 0 cousins for my child in Australia due to my only child status to about 40 within 20 minutes in Malaysia.
  • Nice and central for Asian tourism (also only 8 hours back to Australia for occasional trips in my case)

Honestly in my opinion technology's reached a point where there's just not a huge dropoff in QOL/development between a city in a country with a first tier Western GDP per capita and one that's above $15k per capita or so.

I love KL, it’s probably one of the cleanest and best ‘developing’ country cities in the world, possibly the best. Every modern amenity is available and you’re very close to Singapore in the rare event something can’t be found. Also pretty close to nature, hiking, moderate amount of cultural activities (certainly the most you’ll find in SEA), that wacky amusement park on top of a mountain they keep expanding, pretty low tax and not much hostility toward whites (a lot toward Jews from Malays, but probably not something that affects you). Plus very close by air to great beaches and diving and good international connections.

The downside is it’s about as far from the US as it’s possible to get, but because you’re very close to Singapore and Singapore Airlines has ultra-long-haul flights to NYC and LA it’s not a huge issue if you can afford business class and are willing to sit on a plane for 18 hours.

Yeah. I'd be looking about an hour out of KL where my partner's family is from, but I agree with this. Personally being located in Australia normally the distance to USA is something I just take as a given about life, and Malaysia actually improves most of my woes in terms of getting to Europe/USA becomes 15 hours instead of 24 hours.

Their own colorful ethnic issues seem to suppress issues with white foreigners, plus not really being a tourism defined as other similar countries.

Dude nice! Southeast Asia is probably one of the most intriguing areas of the world for me. One of the better non-Western country choices, if you ask me. Seems like Malay isn't too hard to learn either, for a non-Indo-European language, and a lot of people speak it.

Which language to learn in some countries is a bit of a question. In my personal situation I'd be a lot better served improving my Mandarin than my Malay, since despite Malaysia's diversity it's in kind of an odd 'everybody lives in their little bubbles and deeply distrusts the other ethnics' kinda way.

This is a tough one because constraints are what makes these questions fun. Without constraints, just choose London, NYC, or anywhere and call it a day.

For me, if I could live anywhere, it would be NYC. English speaking, large population, relatively cold weather, relatively high IQ population, practically infinite choices of food and entertainment.

If I were in your shoes, probably Eastern Europe. Your dollar will go a longer way there and kids won't grow up in the backwaters.

Are these constraints too strict or relaxed for you?

If I could live anywhere, it would be NYC... [you should live] in Eastern Europe

That was quite the twist haha. I'd love to know what context clues were used to make this determination. Has our measly 250k income condemned us to being Europoors forevermore? On a serious note, I will say that you did correctly deduce that NYC would not be our first pick for places to live. Is there a specific Eastern European nation you'd recommend? I hadn't considered these nations as I've never been there or known anyone contemplating emigrating there.

If you are going to have kids and have parents who would be interested in being involved grandparents or have siblings who have kids who would be cousins (or are likely to do so), then I'd put living as close as possible (really, as possible, being 5 minutes away >>> being 25 minutes away >>> being a half-day drive >>> being a flight/full day drive) pretty highly on the list of things to prioritize.

Obviously depends on where people live as to how desirable those cities are, but something to strongly consider.

See my response to @Antitheticality who raised a similar point below.

Consider places ~an hour from LA or San Diego. This takes you down a notch on cost of living, at the primary cost of being farther from exciting things to do, which some of your suggestions about more remote places tell me you might not super prioritize. Still not cheap, but home ownership is plausible at 250k/yr if you prioritize it. At the same time, you're close enough that if you build a life but decide you need to be more central (e.g. for special schools), it's not the end of the world to commute or make a small move.

Beautiful, great weather, lots of hiking, active rat community, plenty of smart young people (albeit not SF/NY/Boston levels).

E.g. Fallbrook/Julian/Camarillo.

Feel free to PM if you want more details on my similar search a couple years back.

My age/demographic/household income/child status/relationship status/etc are all extremely similar to yours, with the key difference that my wife and I already made the jump of purchasing a house and starting to put down roots in an area (US east coast). From the other side of the decision you're facing, what I can offer is that while we don't regret our choice and we love where we live, the experience of moving just a few hours drive away from both sets of parents, most relatives, and most friends was an isolating one. We're currently engaged in many slow, low-level efforts to entice family and friends to consider relocating closer to us, because life is simply more fun when you're with people you like, and meeting new people is hard (though we're working on that too). The project of "modern life" and dealing with all the little inefficiencies and surprises that spring up also becomes vastly easier with an existing support network of at least a few close relatives/friends nearby.

Preferences differ and your mileage may vary, but in my opinion an overemphasis on geography is a red herring - relationships are more or less everything. I'd spend more time thinking about who you like being around (or who you aspire to be around), who you want to spend more time with (or who may not have a lot of quality years remaining for you to enjoy their company), and who you want to have an impact on your future children's lives. Then move close to those people.

Of course, a castle in the Italian countryside also sounds absolutely incredible, I had great fun looking through the links you provided. Good luck with your search!

relationships are more or less everything.

I agree with this and and everything you wrote about the value of family proximity, but I think geography is far from a red herring.

First off, this is a (hopefully) fun question and if you reduce the answer to "you should live wherever your parents live" then all the fun is gone.

Second, I think that you would agree that geography matters more than family's current location at least some of the time. Without needing to go to full Godwin, history has shown that those who were living in towns in severe decline benefited from leaving vs their more stationary peers. The question then becomes one of severity: at what point does the severity of decline tip the scales?

Third, the "type of people who you like being around" are not evenly represented across every geography. Someone looking to surround themselves with those who consider themselves urbane and cultured is probably going to struggle finding them if they live in rural Alaska. While living in any sufficiently large city should afford opportunities to find a fit for any taste, there are benefits to having more of your "chosen people" nearby. Having neighbors who share your values is immensely important - just speak to anybody who has lived in a neighborhood with those who did not. This goes in both directions: the quiet folks who have to put up with their neighbors partying wildly late into every night are not going to be happy. But neither will the free-spirited folks who are constantly harassed by their HoA demanding they take in their garbage bins or keep the grass at the length their bylaws require. With children in the picture, your ability to self sort decreases further. You will end up spending time with the parents in your children's classes. Being "compatible" with 1/10,000 citizens will no longer be sufficient, now you need to be compatible with at least 4/50 or risk your child's social opportunities or your own mental health pretending to get along with those you do not.

My framing about being freed of the typical ties that bind one to their geography was not just a hypothetical framing, but an accurate description of our current living condition. If it wasn't for this condition I wouldn't be considering such an open-ended destination search and would likely just move close to family. Our immediate family is spread out across 6 U.S. states (not including our own), the only way to be close to most of our family is to convince them to move. And, imo, the easiest way to convince them to move is for ourselves to move to a place worth moving to (and flexing our powers of persuasion). We are also blessed to have family that will likely move - many of them are not particularly tied to their current locales. Neither of our families live in the towns where we grew up; likewise all of our closest friends have also departed our hometown and are spread across the nation. While this is rare, it is not as rare as it once was. In our atomized society there are a decent number of youngish professionals who find themselves in similar shoes. I think we all know many who went away for college, moved to a new city for career opportunities after college, and don't want to return to their hometown for one reason or another.

Have you considered the Alaskan wilderness?
Obviously it's not the most appealing place, but as @George_E_Hale says, you shouldn't just be thinking about yourself.
Choosing where your children grow up is a big influence on their development, so it's worth considering all options.
Kids are resilient, and if they make it to adulthood, the hardship will make them infinitely attractive and set them up for a good life.

Its never too young for The Hock. Set them up for their first solo camping trip by the age of 5 and they'll be wrestling bears by 10.

Clearly this is satire, but just on the off chance anyone reading thinks this kind of trial by fire is a good idea (now that I know there is a vocal rDrama contingent here, all bets are off). A childhood filled with hardship probably ups their ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) score quite a bit, which is a really good predictor of problems later on down the line in life. Kids are sometimes resilient, the adults they turn into aren't always, especially those with high ACEs numbers .

ACE numbers, to my knowledge, are almost entirely about interpersonal experiences (Did anyone in your family go to prison? is an exception but not by much) and have little to do with the physical environment of the child. A kid could be raised in BFE and have a non significant ACE score. If the parents neglect, slap, insult, etc. that's going to show up in the ACE score.

Take the test via NPR

Being raised by someone that moves to the Alaskan wilderness to prioritize some kind of crucible for you and hopes you just might make it to adulthood if you're lucky, to then enjoy "infinite attraction" from the opposite sex from your "hardship"--- probably would give yah about 4 of those to start, perhaps culminating in Prison for a family member depending on how many of their children survive.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BFC5PkSdFvk

I used to run a high-adventure program for the Boy Scouts, and whether or not some sourt of "Trial by fire" wilderness experience would be considered abuse would depend on the nature of the experience. There's a big difference between pushing a kid's limits and actively abusing them. If I take a kid mountain biking and he's apprehensive about riding a certain line, I'll encourage him to ride it if I think it's within his ability based on my observation of him. If I don't think he can ride it and that it's going to end in a crash I'll tell him to walk it. If he's clearly freaking out at the prospect of riding it, I'll tell him to walk it. If it's a difficult line I'll probably won't even pressure the kid into riding even if I think he can ride it; I'll just tell everyone they can walk it if they'd like. It gets more difficult when, say, you take the kid on a long bike trip with limited or no opportunity to bail. In that case it's more a question of getting them motivated enough to keep pedaling rather than putting them in a situation that could lead to injury, and making sure they have enough snacks, water, etc. so that an acute event isn't going to happen. I mean, I always have outs in case of emergency, but a kid being tired isn't an emergency unless they're obviously incapable of continuing. Usually I just slow down the pace and take more frequent breaks to keep them moving, even if it ultimately takes longer. When they complain, I just ask what they expect me to do about it, and that usually shuts them up, especially when I tell them that an evac means an ambulance ride and a trip to the hospital that will likely end their time in the program.

The key is that the adversity be time-limited, controlled, and intended to develop skills and build confidence. Telling kids who are old enough that they'll be cooking dinner one night a week so they can learn the skills necessary to be adults is a lot different than just not feeding the kids. Making sure your kids get early exposure to outdoor adventure in the hopes that it will maintain fitness and social relationships while building a lifetime hobby is different than putting the kid in situations he's clearly uncomfortable with (and that come with high risk of injury) and regularly subjecting them to death marches in the woods. Some kids are just whiners who want to stay inside and play video games all day and not do anything that's going to make them mildly short of breath, and I never had any problem trying to toughen those kids up over their complaints. But it's important that you know where the line is, and that you make sure you never get anywhere near it. If you're moving to the Alaskan wilderness because you like the outdoors and want your kids to learn self-sufficiency, I don't think that's too much of a problem, as long as you understand the limits I outlined above. I certainly wouldn't put it anywhere near the level of the kind of stuff that's on the ACE quiz.

Agreed. I think the best criteria for determining when a challenge will cause growth or trauma is the likelihood of success. If you force a child to repeatedly endure a ritual they have 0 chance of succeeding at, that is abuse.

Overcoming a challenge provides a sense of accomplishment that has no substitute - for children and adults alike. Kids (over the age of 10 at least) can assess difficulty well enough to know whether the challenge was real or not.

Of course in order for a challenge to be real enough to provide that positivity there has to be a real chance of failure too. But then, learning to deal with failure is it's own sort of reward. It's a tough calibration and has to be adapted to the individual child as well.

You may have me confused with @SkookumTree, may he live long, and prosper.

Am I looking at the same quiz? Looks to me that a super harsh upbringing "trial by fire" by loving parents would still result in a 0/10 on those questions.

I don't think you can be the type of person to move across the world to "trial by fire" your kids in the Alaskan outback and also not have a lot of problems that would lead to a pretty high aces score. I would also suspect that most wives wouldn't be into that, divorce is an extra point as well.

May I offer a reply that is neither a suggested location nor anything else you will probably want to read, and may in fact be advice you do not want to hear and did not ask for?

Yes? Great.

You mention having children. Wherever you go, if you go anywhere, should be chosen with their childhood, upbringing, and environment in mind. I say this as a parent who has made very specific choices, some of them possibly wrong (living extremely far from one set of grandparents who would have loved to regularly see grandchildren and who are both now dead) but also some probably right. I include language in this (if you don't understand the language it's still a very safe bet that your child or children will outpace your fluency within five years or less. Which is fine, but means also you'll have difficulties dealing with their school--teachers, other parents, their friends, their friends' parents, etc.) Also schooling, and if you homeschool or whatever there is the notion of isolating your child in a possibly unhelpful way from potential peers.

Basically if you're going to have kids --and do, certainly, if you feel you want to--they ought to be arguably a main factor contributing to your other life choices. I cannot stress this enough. Also you will find many who disagree with me (even here, no doubt), but I'm right and they're wrong.

My train is here, but I think I said what I wanted. Good luck.

I think almost everyone (or at least anyone I'd consider listening to) would agree that children "ought to be arguably a main factor contributing to your other life choices."

In my experience, most people want to transmit their values and lifestyle onto their children and see themselves reflected in their children - hopefully as a better version of themselves. In practice, I've found that this means that everyone rationalizes their own preferences so that "My preferred lifestyle" just so happens to always to be "What is best for children." If a person has that "Black lives matter. Women’s rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love Kindness is everything" slogan plastered on their car and foyer I think we can also predict quite a bit about what they would value for their children as well.

There are many theories on the best way to raise a child. These theories differ significantly. I'm not so cocky as to believe that only I know the Truth and everyone else is wrong. My summary of the messy evidence we have would simply be: "There are multiple approaches that work. How you parent is more important than which framework you adhere to."

I think anyone's answer to my question already has what they think is the best place to raise children baked in.

If people think that a farming lifestyle getting exposed to the harsh realities of death from an early age is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that a Huck Finn (free range, largely self directed outdoor exploration) approach is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that an urban lifestyle holding your child's hand as you tour art museums, I want to hear that too! If people think that living in an third world slum exposing your children to the lowest depravities of man, I will probably discount their opinions, but I still very much want to hear it!

I don't disagree with anything you've written here.

Unrelated to this thread, but I'm a usual lurker who very much enjoys your slice of life reflections of living in Japan. Your writing style is a pleasure to read and you're one of the few posters who I would gladly read a full length novel from. Your relaxed, reflective tone depicting a rather mundane (meant as a compliment) life as an outsider is one I have rarely come across. Everywhere else I see people either playing up the differences to exoticize the destination (as in a travelogue) or minimizing the differences and focusing on the global, homogenous culture that exists everywhere in the 21st century.

Please write the book,

A fan.

That's very kind of you to write. Thank you.

Edit: Downvoted. TheMotte is... whimsical today.

If my wife were stable, then a rural location near Ulm, with a view of the Alps (given decent weather). I have history with the place, friends there, there's work and activities, and once you get far enough away from the town proper, the landscape can be nice. But really, it's the distant mountains on a good day. Hundreds of kilometers of mountain range in plain view for anyone with good eyes. See https://www.swp.de/bilder/die-schoensten-sonnenauf-und-untergaenge-aus-ulm-und-neu-ulm-16130225.html .

If the previous condition were met and if my income were better and/or its growth stronger, lake Constance, directly on the shore: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodensee. Not as broad a view of the mountains, but closer to actually go there and explore (in Austria and Switzerland, then), and being near a large body of water is nice. But the area is famously expensive the closer you get to the lake, so, money.

And if I hadn't fallen for the heartfelt patriotism meme, then I'd want to live near the ocean. Obviously lots to choose form here - but if I have to pick something I personally know, then the French Atlantic coast is beautiful, though the local inland geography and architecture do nothing for me. At least I speak the language. Mmmmaybe Japan? I've been there, it's beautiful, but I'm really not sure how isolating it would be to live there as a foreigner, unless you manage to slot yourself into an urban expat community. And frankly, I'm not good at networking.

If I am to just throw something out without ever having been there, then Portugal, just going by the map, looks good. Warm and with the Atlantic all over. But my wife would probably melt. Then again, with that constraint the Japanese summer would've killed her already.

And lastly, if I had no concern for standard of living or safety, then I might just want to spend my days in some ancient Carthaginian settlement on the North African Atlantic coast. Say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essaouira, just living with history at my back and the stark, naked face of the Earth below me, and the Ocean gently wiping it all away.

And lastly, if I had no concern for standard of living or safety, then I might just want to spend my days in some ancient Carthaginian settlement on the North African Atlantic coast. Say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essaouira, just living with history at my back and the stark, naked face of the Earth below me, and the Ocean gently wiping it all away.

Morocco isn’t too unsafe and the standard of living for expats is pretty high, Carrefour has pretty much their full French selection (including the high end stuff) in all upper-middle class neighborhoods of larger towns and cities. There are quite a few wealthy French retirees there and a large tourist economy. If you speak French and have a remote job it could be interesting.

I love Lake Constance and actually lived in Konstanz for a short time. That whole band of far south Germany is really nice, one of my favorite places in Europe and seems like a good place to raise kids, very close to nature, outdoor sports, rich and peaceful.

If you speak French and have a remote job it could be interesting.

I do and I do, actually. Not sure whether my contract allows remote work from outside Germany though. But then again, I'm not married to this particular job. I am unfortunately married to a woman who falls apart at temperatures above 15°C, whereas I begin to feel comfortable at 25°C and more. I don't think Morocco is a realistic option, sadly.

Portugal is, alright. I've been twice, it is nice, but it is more arid and dry than I expected. Again, it has been "discovered" by digital nomads and that has driven the truly great deals on food and housing out of almost everywhere popular. The fishing and seafood is on the downswing as well, half the stuff at the seafood markets was from Asia not the Atlantic. Still cheaper than the US by a long shot, but not shockingly so. Everyone under 35 speaks English as they watch a lot of english TV, so no need to learn Portuguese in a more than conversational way. I will say rental cars are shockingly cheap if you want to check it out. 5 bucks a day if you can drive a stick. 10 if you can't. Traffic near Lisbon is terrible, and the airport is a hot mess of overcrowding, even in the off season. Fly into Porto if you can.

Again, it has been "discovered" by digital nomads

Bali has the same problem. Destroyed by influencers.

My list of countries that I somewhat researched moving to (before finding that no other country on Earth would have me) are:

  • Liechtenstein
  • Monaco
  • Bhutan
  • Brunei
  • United Arab Emirates
  • Eswatini

That is a very unique list to put it lightly. I couldn't even begin to understand either the commonalities between these locations or how you even approached creating such a list haha. Mind sharing what you were selecting for?

before finding that no other country on Earth would have me

Can't just drop this and leave us hanging on the cliff! Why are you trapped?

Mind sharing what you were selecting for?

Let me enhance my list slightly, and add in one nation I forgot, namely Saudi Arabia:

  • the Principality of Liechtenstein
  • the Principality of Monaco
  • the Kingdom of Bhutan
  • Brunei, formerly (before it became a British protectorate from 1888-1984) the Sultanate of Brunei
  • the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
  • the United Arab Emirates
  • the Kingdom of Eswatini

Namely, they're all hereditary monarchies with non-figurehead monarchs.

Can't just drop this and leave us hanging on the cliff! Why are you trapped?

Like @magic9mushroom said, mental illness — namely, schizophrenia. Not even the US allows permanent residency. I'm on the dole here, and I'd probably end up on the dole in any other country, so of course they don't want to let in a net tax burden if they can avoid it.

And even if I wasn't, most of those wouldn't let me become a subject or permanent resident anyway. Liechtenstein takes in only a few new people a year, pretty much all Swiss or Austrian. One of several pre-conditions for Monegasque citizenship is having an account in a Monegasque bank — and while the minimum deposit to open such an account varies between banks, the smallest is half-a-million Euro, and most require a cool million. Bhutanese citizenship law is a mess, which has been leading to expulsions and a refugee issue since the 90s. The UAE has neither natural permanent residence nor naturalization — you're either a born citizen, or a guest worker who will eventually have to leave. Obtaining permanent residency in Saudi Arabia is reportedly very difficult, and acquiring citizenship requires it being granted by the King himself via royal proclamation. And, of course, not being Muslim is a problem for any of the Islamic monarchies. Eswatini sits between Mozambique and South Africa, being almost completely surrounded by the latter. They were also one of the British "High Commission Territories" until 1968. As a result, they have good reasons for not being particularly welcoming to white guys looking to move in long-term.

It's like Groucho Marx's quote "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member," only with countries.

Never would've guessed monarchy as anyone's selection criteria. Even though this community (and precursors) provides way more exposure than typical to neoreactionary thinking, I guess I never internalized someone would deliberately select for it.

The culture, economic prospects, geography, genetics, laws, etc vary so widely among those countries that it makes me wonder why you think that the style of government matters so much more than the governing (what laws exist and are enforced)?

Tough break on the hand you were dealt, not sure I see a great way to achieve your goal of living your monarchistic dreams. There's always being successful enough it doesn't matter, I suppose.

Tough break on the hand you were dealt, not sure I see a great way to achieve your goal of living your monarchistic dreams.

An American Augustus still seems the best option.

There's always being successful enough it doesn't matter, I suppose.

Yeah, fat chance of that. Given my age, there's not much chance of me crawling out of this pit I'm in.

Why are you trapped?

I think it's because he's mentally ill per se and/or because he's dependent on a pension due to mental illness+physical disability.

commonalities between these locations

Geographic size.

Good spot/guess. I would have never considered that as a factor since it's such a bizarre metric to optimize around. Also, if he's going with city state , I'd expect to see Singapore on the list.

I'll go first.

Personal Preferences :

  1. (Strong) Owning a property
    • Rules out VHCOL area (e.g. NYC,SF) at income level (#4 above)
  2. (Strong) Stick to same location
    • We will live in or around this home city for the next 25+ years
  3. (Weak) Western U.S.A.
    • Family is clustered in this area, but this is not a super strong preference.
    • We are fine not living near to family and both our families are also open to relocating

My fun picks:

  1. Beautiful remote living in the Spanish (pre)Pyrenees. Sample homes:
  2. Castle in the Italian countryside. Sample 15th century home: https://www.engelvoelkers.com/en/exposes/403ce1ae-62cc-5773-a893-1a76e7fa8e7c
  3. If French castles are more to your taste, here's another option: https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/chatellerault-france/vienne-department-15th-18th-and-19th-century-listed-chateau-to-be-renovated-9-8-acres-of-land-11091591

As an American, the availability and affordability (let's just ignore the repair and maintenance for now....) of these castles is something I would never have guessed at.

Some boring (“realistic”) cities that are currently on my list that I plan to explore:

  1. Boise
  2. Salt Lake City
  3. Austin

These areas provide affordable homes near to a reasonably large city combined with proximity to numerous outdoor recreation options.

Given your constraints, Coeur D’Alene or its suburbs would be excellent (with international groceries, cultural stuff, and a major airport fairly close by in Spokane when you want them).

That lake is probably the prettiest place I have ever seen.

This is exactly the sort of niche pick that I wouldn't think of myself that I was hoping my question would draw out so thanks!

I'll do some research into it (I may have a problem with finding myself deep in research rabbit hole. Last time I found myself reading individual teachers' classroom pages at a random school in a random town before I pulled myself out.)

But since I have you here... my very limited mental model of Couer D'Alene is from when I visited there as a childhood. In my head it's a lake town where people have second homes and not something I had considered as a primary residence locale. The area is definitely beautiful, but what makes you think it's worth being THE PLACE to commit to? Proximity to a moderate size city is definitely a strong plus (maybe even a requirement), but there are hundreds of cities just within the U.S. that meet this criteria.

Fantastic nature, small enough to avoid soul-crushing traffic, comparatively sane government, and freedom to homeschool with decent private options if you’re not into that.

If I could tolerate remote work, it would be my top choice in the US.

Consider it added to my list. I'll get back to you in 5 months with my post visit review.

Your 3 boring picks are the top 3 picks for many in your demographic and beyond. They are already "discovered" so to speak, but there are no more secrets in this day and age, so that will be the case for any desirable place to live. They will have all the usual city issues and aren't in the hidden gem "keep Austin weird" phase or "where is Boise?"

All three of those cities are among the fastest growing in the country and have been for many years, if you want a house in an area with access to the amenities of city and the outdoor rec scene, you'll be paying a lot more than the cost of those castles. Also, any popular outdoor areas within 3 hours of the city are always swamped on any nice day, same goes for restaurants, grocery stores at peak times etc... there are simply a shit ton of people, and more are coming every year.

Your fun options are fun and cheap partially because they are not in the USA. How do you feel about becoming fluent in a foreign language? You say you don't have experience now, getting fluent is hard, at least for me, it would help if I lived there and had to do it every day, as I get better on long trips. If you want to really put down roots and spend 25 years somewhere it will be much more pleasant if you can really speak the local language well.

Since you're considering Boise, that means you're not afraid of winter, which opens up a lot more options for you. There are a lot of charming NE towns and cities that are close to the White Mountains, Lakes, AND the ocean. You don't get that combo too many places. I can't speak to Minnesota or the midwest at all since I've never spent any real time there. Montana is awesome, but again, not undiscovered, although still very sparsely populated. Colorado, maybe 20 years ago...Have to set out the night before so you can wait in traffic for 8 hours if you want to ski after a powder dump.

I mean I would love to live in the French countryside, I can speak some French but I'm certainly not fluent, and I don't know if I ever will be. Homes are cheap there and it is absolutely great, I recently stayed in a small town South of Normandy and it had just enough of a tourism industry by virtue of being on the "apple trail" of all things, that there were a good number of English speaking folks there. I tried to explain what apple picking was and they looked at me like I had 2 heads haha, "So you are stealing this farmer's apples?"..."No no, we pay to pick them?".... "Why would you pay to pick someone's apples?"

Backwater France isn't the same as backwater USA, the whole area has been cultivated for thousands of years, the scale is much smaller as well, you can easily live in the best of the countryside and go into the city any time with a very short car ride, they just don't see distance the same way we do. So yeah, the sticks of France would be my choice. They also have strong governance and straightforward property laws. Buttt.....It would get a bit boring, especially if you're both already working from home the whole time. Really you need 2 houses, one in the states and one in the French countryside.

Language barriers

A language barrier is insanely difficult to overcome. I didn't want to spend too much on this one in my opening post and hoped that my caveat was sufficient. But let's do it now.

For context, we have each attempted to learn several languages. My partner is a heritage speaker of another language and significantly beyond fluent. She is also fluent (depending on definition) in another language. I had the typical American school experience of attending years of classes only to be barely conversational in the language and am currently in the process of learning a separate new language .

My belief is that it is possible for a sufficiently smart person to get fluent within a few years IF they are willing to put in the time. Immersion is one hack to force you to put in the effort. I do not believe most people will ever reach a native speaker level of proficiency even after living in a country for decades. I do not expect us to be the exception. Therefore, living in a non-English speaking location means accepting that you will always be an outsider to some degree - full assimilation is not possible. This is not a dealbreaker for us, however, and we are at least be open to living in a foreign country knowing that our children will be able to assimilate in a way we never could.

@AhhhTheFrench, I have to say that your thinking aligns alarmingly close to my own on just about everything.

Regarding the "already discovered" aspect. While I know that this is almost exclusively thought of as a negative in popular attitudes, I think it may actually be more of a positive. (To the people living in an area who like the culture/vibe it had: you have my condolences. Your beloved town will never be the same). A discovered city means that the population is selected for a few aspects that I think are very positive:

  1. The population is largely comprised of people who CHOSE to be there. It's hard to quantify this, but the "vibes" between a town like this and a town that is filled with only the people who never left (think West Virginia as an extreme) are impossible to ignore if you've spent time in both.
  2. The population has more people who share several positive (to me) values:
    • Long term mindset - willingness to sacrifice in the short term for expected future returns. This is the grown-up version of the marshmallow test and I believe this trait to be central to many optimal societal outcomes.
    • Entrepreneurial Spirit / Internal Locus of Control - People who move great distance have taken a massive step to shape the direction of their own life and control their destiny.
    • Hardworking & financially self sufficient

For the sake of completeness I'll include one big negative: people who were willing to uproot their lives to move to a new location are also much more likely to do the same thing again and leave. Obviously some of the recent additions to the city are going to be trend chasers who plan on regular relocation. If my goal was property value growth this would concern me a lot. To assess the likelihood of someone leaving I think it's important to distinguish the recent immigrants into two classes: those who moved to the town because it was "hot" and those who moved to the town because the town itself had some core aspect that they felt aligned with (apart from being trending). Of the three cities I listed, I think Austin has more of the former. I believe this also explains why Austin has had more of a recent collapse than the others.

re: Colorado (Denver in particular). I could not agree more. It really is amazing that the entire town just spends every weekend sitting in traffic in the passes. There are some political currents in Colorado that also concern me. I would love to live in the Colorado of the 90s. But if I ask myself honestly, "Would you like to live in the Colorado of 2045?" I think the answer is no.

While I lived in Boston for a few years and have spent at least a few days in each of the NE states, I have never really considered living there. Do you have a particular spot you think would be worth us checking out?

The backwater/castle living idea I think is one of those romantic ideas that I love to love. The idea of spending my days laboring to restore some 500 year old piece of history to it's former glory really pulls at the heartstrings. If I'm being honest I think it's also better as a dream - I'll continue to tell myself I don't want to sully it by burdening it with the shackles of reality.

Well, I'm totally biased but Pittsburgh has most of the pros of the trendy cities and few of the cons. It's become a semi-trendy place to want to live if you believe Reddit, but the population isn't exactly exploding (the city population is holding steady and Allegheny County is actually losing population). It's also about double the size of Salt Lake and triple the size of Boise, and while it's similar in size to Austin, it's an older, more established city. What this means is that it has more big-city institutions than you'll find in any of those places and more of a big city feel rather than overgrown suburb (e.g. I don't think the Austin Symphony is playing for the pope any time soon).

As much as locals complain about the recent housing price increases, it's still nothing compared to the trendy cities. 500k gets you a four bedroom house in a highly desirable suburb with excellent schools. If you're paying more than that you're in a McMansion (or a mansion). And that's not just in a desirable neighborhood with good schools; that's in the most desirable area with the best schools. If you're satisfied with the former you're going to pay a lot less.

As an avid outdoorsman, the outdoor recreation is great. No, it's not as spectacular as certain areas out West, but an hour drive gets you pretty far out there and only the popular easy hikes are swamped. For example, Ohiopyle State Park is a popular area andit can be hard to find parking in town on a summer weekend. But as soon as you get away from town it's practically deserted even at the busiest times. A few years ago I was there Sunday of Memorial Day weekend up on the mountain and I saw a total of five other people, three of whom I knew. And the city is pretty hilly, with lots of wooded areas, so there's perfectly decent hiking without driving anywhere depending on where you live, though places in the city itself are going to be more crowded. The lack of spectacular views is only really a concern, though, if you're focused on "payoff hikes" that involve views. There are plenty of waterfalls, and the forests themselves are top-notch.

Getting beyond hiking and views, though, the mountains are first-class. I've mountain biked in several of the big name destinations across the country (Pisgah, the Rockies, the Western Slope, etc.), and the mountain biking in the Laurels is as good as it gets. I'll admit the skiing isn't exactly Colorado, but at least we have skiing. The real secret, though, is the whitewater. SWPA and Northern WV probably have the best whitewater anywhere in the world, and certainly the best whitewater a reasonable day trip from a major city. A lot of the Western states have more mileage, but most of it's only runnable during spring snowmelt. Here, we get enough rain that even the small stuff is runnable a few days after a heavy rain, and we have everything from Class II family floats to sketchy-as-hell steep creeks.

The population is largely comprised of people who CHOSE to be there. It's hard to quantify this, but the "vibes" between a town like this and a town that is filled with only the people who never left (think West Virginia as an extreme) are impossible to ignore if you've spent time in both.

Pittsburgh is unique in that it's a rust belt city that people actually want to move to. The declining population of the region is largely a function of the exodus in the 90s, during which an entire generation moved away. Their parents stayed, and now that generation is dying off at a faster rate than new arrivals can make up for. That being said, the declining population isn't the same as places like Cleveland or Detroit that look like bombed out shells of their former selves. There are a few ghetto areas like that, but most of the city population's decline is more due to declining household size than outright abandonment. At some point I'd like to do a survey of the region on here to evaluate its potential on a granular level, but I've got the music thing to do for now. But I'm actually dead serious when I think you should move here, because it's actually realistic and makes more financial sense than trying to pursue some pipe dream of living internationally or moving to some overly trendy city that's going to run into problems as a result of the population crush.

Great comment. I never considered Pittsburgh as a place people choose to move to - I'm obviously ignorant but the impression among myself and peers is that it's a steel city that is dying as US manufacturing has declined (like Detroit or Cleveland).

I'll spend some time doing some research to fill in what is clearly a gap in my knowledge, thanks for the rec!

What are your feelings about weather? In particular, snow?

Personally I enjoy snow, but there is a big difference living somewhere which gets a fair amount and somewhere which doesn't have any.

No preference. I've lived in both and didn't find it to be a impact my life positively or negatively (pros&cons balanced perfectly). What did you find to be the big difference?

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