Ask HN: Places near nature to live/work remotely in US/Canada?

2 points by yogi123 5 years ago | 5 comments

With working remotely now acceptable for all companies, I'm looking for places to move from NYC. Ideally in or near nature; affordability would be a plus; a place where one can live year-round without temperature extremes in summer or winter. What's your experience been living there? Thank you!!

AnimalMuppet 5 years ago |

Denver, Salt Lake, Boise, and Reno are pretty good. I'm not sure that they fit in your "without temperature extremes", though. The upside is, with the temperature extremes comes some pretty good skiing.

Without temperature extremes... maybe San Diego or Seattle. I'm not sure that either of those are great for affordability, though. San Diego might be better than Seattle, but I'm not sure.

My experience: I live in Salt Lake. World-class skiing is 45 minutes from my door. I can literally wake up, look at the weather report, decide to go that day, email my boss, and go. I don't waste half the day getting to or from the slopes.

In the summer, there's a lot fewer mountains than in Colorado, but they're closer. There's a couple of good trout rivers an hour away.

Moab is four hours away. Yellowstone is 6 1/2 hours away. The Grand Canyon (North Rim) is 6 1/2 hours away.

If you want to get away (like, really away), in two hours you can be the only person in the surrounding square mile.

Salt Lake is pretty affordable, at least compared to NYC or the Bay area.

The weather, though... it gets up to 100 in the summer. It can get down well below 30 in the winter. And it's dry. 20% humidity is a regular thing in the summer. 12-16 inches of water in a year, and some of that comes in the form of snow.

Also, Salt Lake sits in a valley. That valley has a nasty tendency to trap air pollution. It's not as bad as Los Angeles, but it's still an issue.

Oh, yeah, and the valley floor is at 4200 feet elevation. The mountains go up to 11000 feet outside of town. You may be in good aerobic shape in New York, but expect to take a little bit to get adjusted if you come here.

yogi123 5 years ago | |

Appreciate the detailed reply!!

smt88 5 years ago |

> without temperature extremes in summer or winter

That's going to limit your options tremendously (in the US at least). Parts of Southern California would fit, if desert is an acceptable type of nature for you. The cities are expensive, but smaller towns aren't always.

What are "extremes" for you, anyway? Are hot summers OK, but cold winters are not? Vice versa?

The only place I have personally been with lots of nature and mild weather year-round is Guatemala. Perhaps somewhere in the Mediterranean region?

yogi123 5 years ago | |

Let's say <90 F in summer and >30 in winter :). Open to suggestions with weather extremes as well. Thanks!

DoreenMichele 5 years ago | | |

Some parts of Western Washington might fit your criteria. Maybe Western Oregon as well and Northern California. I mean north of the Bay Area and towards the coast -- temps are more extreme the further inland you go. Large parts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington have a lot of nature -- national forests, etc.