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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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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.

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