Posted on 03/22/2006 9:25:19 AM PST by pissant
If you're looking for adventure in the mountains, your own surf break, a favorable girl-guy ratio, or utter solitude, we've got the town to fit your needs.
BEST OF THE BEST Our hands-down winners are the perfect combination of adventure, attractiveness, and affordability.
Portland, Oregon Metro Population: 2,265,223 Median Household Income: $41,128 Median Home Price: $263,200 Average High/Low Temp: 81°/35° Welcome to playland for adults. Movie theaters serve liquor and show Monday Night Football, the transit system is nearly flawless, and skiing on Mount Hood, kayaking the Clackamas River, and windsurfing the Columbia River Gorge -- not to mention the ocean an hour west -- are all part of the package. Compared to West Coast cousins Seattle and San Francisco, Portland is an out-and-out bargain, offering affordable Victorian fixer-uppers in neighborhoods such as the Lower Burnside. The whole place has an upbeat, experimental air, with so many karaoke bars that locals lay it on the line every night; a penchant for converting movie theaters, warehouses -- even a school -- into happening bars and restaurants; and a passionate relationship with the Blazers, the town's only major sports franchise. "People here tend to focus on what they're doing or making, rather than on what they can buy," says architect Matt Johnson, 32, who moved here five years ago. "It's a creative place in its infancy." Lewis & Clark and Reed College feed young minds into a burgeoning economy (heavy-hitters like Nike, Adidas, and Intel are all nearby). And when the town does the outdoors, it does it right: Each August, locals run an epic 197-mile relay race, in 1,000 teams of 12, from the top of 11,235-foot Mount Hood to the Pacific. --Jason Harper
MECCAS Every sport has its home field, and you can make it your backyard.
Haleiwa, Hawaii Population: 2,316 Median Household Income: $42,476 Median Home Price: $531,500 Average High/Low Temp: 83°/63° Surfing defines every aspect of every day on Oahu's North Shore. Former lifeguard Jeff Johnson ticks off a typical Haleiwa morning: "Roll out of bed and tug on your boardshorts, down some coffee, and get some waves as the sun comes up. Now you've got your surf in, so you're not freaking out, and you can roll the Kam and check all the surf spots" -- legendary tubes at Sunset Beach and Banzai Pipeline, the original big wave proving ground at Waimea Bay, and dozens of lesser-known world-class breaks -- "on your way to breakfast." Cafe Haleiwa, a no-frills eggs-and-flapjacks joint, is wallpapered with autographed surf posters, and you might recognize regulars like Kelly Slater, Andy Irons, and Jack Johnson (no relation to Jeff).
COMEBACKS A city reborn is your shot at cheap real estate and a fresh perspective.
Port Townsend, Washington Population: 8,810 Median Household Income: $35,957 Median Home Price: $235,200 Average High/Low Temp: 75°/35° After a decade of battling Seattle's gridlock, Keven Elliff knew it was time to leave. His first instinct was to get as far away as possible. Alaska, he thought. But after busting his foot in a boozy tennis match the day before his flight, he ended up living only two hours from where he started.
Like Elliff, Port Townsend has seen its share of mishap and recovery. It thrived in the shipping boom of the late 1800s, and speculators filled the place with Victorian townhouses. But railroad tracks from the East never materialized, and almost overnight the harborside town was nearly abandoned. Now Port Townsend and those 100-year-old Victorians are filling with city-weary folk like Elliff who are drawn to the region's scenery and miraculously dry weather. The result: a tight community of people who stock their cupboards at the twice-weekly farmers' market, discuss local politics while waiting in line at the movie theater, and take advantage of the surrounding mountains and waterways. "You can kayak out your back door, ride your mountain bike on singletrack right in town, and be in Olympic National Forest in 30 minutes," Elliff says. "There's a whole community of people living here who don't seem to do anything but play." --Ben Hewitt
UP AND COMING Make a move on these below-the-radar spots before word gets out.
Homer, Alaska Population: 5,252 Median Household Income: $47,351 Median Home Price: $222,300 Average High/Low Temp: 62°/8° "You know how I decided to move to Homer?" asks Josiah Campbell, a 28-year-old fishing guide who quotes Gilgamesh and sports a forearm tattoo of a woodcut from Moby Dick. "During a visit I stumbled out of a movie theater nursing a hangover and saw a moose munching a bush, right in town." Campbell's interest in moose is practical: "Everybody tries to get one in their freezer before winter." Locals make regular runs to Kodiak Island to pop a couple of deer. And in the summer, Campbell's guiding gig lets him catch as much salmon as he can fit into his backyard smokehouse.
Homer, on Alaska's unspoiled Kachemak Bay, is the capital of the subsistence lifestyle -- people move here to eat what they kill. But there are other reasons the area attracts so many bright-eyed twentysomethings. There's the temperate weather, round-the-clock summer sunshine, abundant glacier skiing, vast wilderness across Kachemak Bay, and first-class sea kayaking. And there's the town itself. Think Cape Cod 30 years ago: progressive and sophisticated, yet working-class, with only 5,000 residents, good art galleries, two bookstores, and a roaring economy. "Almost everybody starts off working on a charter boat," Campbell says, but eventually they can rake in as much as 100 grand for five months on a halibut boat.
"It just doesn't feel like the lower 48," says Katie Bennett, a local sea-kayaking guide and drop-dead gorgeous, unmarried blonde. "You can still work hard and get a piece of the American dream." Campbell, meanwhile, points out a different sense of possibility: the weird abundance of smart, beautiful women like Bennett. "There aren't a lot of great guys here," he says. "If you can hold a conversation and not just stare at their boobs, you do pretty well." --Daniel Duane
ADVENTURE CITIES Chasing your ambitions doesn't have to mean giving up your adventure dreams.
Tucson, Arizona Metro Population: 843,746 Median Household Income: $31,901 Median Home Price: $175,100 Average High/Low Temp: 100°/36° Living in Tucson requires a taste for heat and distance. Unlike the lawn-watering citizens of Phoenix, Tucsonians embrace the desert climate. And while the city is in the middle of nowhere, if you don't mind a few hours of driving, it's actually near everything.
Cacti outnumber lawns, many of the restaurants are locally owned, and you can bike to work. (The University of Arizona and several tech companies underpin the economy.) Tucsonians often try moving to glossier cities, but the cheap rents, great Mexican food, and easy lifestyle bring them back. "It's easy to leave Tucson," as the late author Edward Abbey put it. "I've done it six times."
In summer, Tucson is a blast furnace: nearly 100 days of 100-degree heat and a few over 110. But the temperatures deepen the experience and shape the social schedule. Residents exercise in the dawn coolness, and take hot evening strolls to the Hotel Congress, headquarters of Tucson's downtown music scene.
For patient travelers, Tucson's in reach of every outdoor diversion. In the Santa Catalinas, one of several nearby ranges, locals hike through rocky canyons and ski in high pine forests. Less than two hours north is the Gila River. And, as a secret bonus, Mexican beaches on the Sea of Cortés are four hours south. --Richard Grant
TELECOMMUNITIES You can enjoy the local flavor while working a job thousands of miles away.
Camden, Maine Population: 4,179 Median Household Income: $45,164 Median Home Price: $290,800 Average High/Low Temp: 76°/12° Camden is a small, prosperous, postcard-pretty coastal New England shipbuilding town with an inexhaustible surfeit of outdoor playgrounds. Locals explore Penobscot Bay by sailboat, hike to nearby lakes, and ski the Camden Snow Bowl 10 minutes from their desks. Know why L.L.Bean is in Maine? All its products are useful here.
But there's more to Camden than its marvelous backyard and last-century charm. In town, a significant tendril of the wired future has taken solid root. Camden gained sudden entrepreneurial voltage from transplants like John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Computer and MBNA, the world's largest independent credit card lender, which handsomely refurbished the library and part of the town. In 1997 Sculley and others organized the Camden Technology Conference, inviting internationally recognized speakers to hold forth in the town's Victorian opera house. Today, the annual Pop! Tech conference brings savants like Internet pioneer Bob Metcalfe to town, along with futurists, ecologists, and performers, in a synapse-crackling four-day powwow.
Full-time residents now include best-selling authors, among them Tess Gerritsen and Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Richard Russo. Pop balladeer Don McLean, children's book authors and illustrators, software developers, an "industrial ornithologist," and countless others "from away" also call Camden home. They could live anywhere, but choose to live here with the local lobstermen, boat builders, house carpenters, and indigenous professionals. It's still possible to describe local real estate as "affordable," but it can't last: The market's booming, and taxes are rising. Happily, the small-town feel persists. The eclectic professional community, with jobs in New York, L.A., and Bombay, supports local institutions like the antiquarian ABCD Books, Ephemere Pastry Shop and Cafe, which turns out croissants as good as the best in Paris, excellent public and private schools, and a YMCA to rival any high-priced gym -- real-world perks in a virtual life. --Peter Nichols
SINGLES SCENES The locals are restless and eager, and they're waiting for you.
Santa Cruz, California Population: 54,213 Median Household Income: $56,891 Median Home Price: $720,000 Average High/Low Temp: 78°/39° If you dream of paddling out to glassy waves alongside your hard-bodied babe, you can make it a reality here. With 11 world-class breaks, towering redwoods a few miles inland, and more state parks than any county in California, Santa Cruz is a popular place (and one of the six most expensive U.S. housing markets). Transplants come for the setting, the surf, and the beautiful people. Here's the thing: To meet the most spectacular girls of the bunch, you gotta surf. "At most beginner breaks," says Dylan Greiner, owner of the Santa Cruz Surf School, "eligible women surfers outnumber eligible men two to one." If you can learn the pecking order, and then, when it's your turn, rip it up at storied, fast-moving breaks like Steamer Lane and Pleasure Point, you'll earn the esteem of the locals. If not, you'll tire of sitting on the beach, acting as if you're about to go in while the better gender paddles out of earshot. Unlike their SoCal counterparts, women surfers here read books, ride bikes, and don't undergo cosmetic surgery. UC Santa Cruz brings in cultural events -- perfect for dates with grad students or Silicon Valley entrepreneurs -- and a tech-related job in San Jose or San Francisco will keep your entertainment budget high. --Sam Moulton
For the full list of "50 Best Places to Live" pick up the April 2006 issue.
Somebody say Tennessee? Go get 'em Moose. I gotchur back.
While we're at it, I'll throw in the "worst spot for single men..." - pretty much anywhere in the midwest.
Seattle is pretty bad dor single men as well. Pretentious women with no looks or brains.
Oh right, and Teva sandals, a fondness for dread locks, and not bathing.
My husband bought a truck last fall - it's been great!
"Median" numbers can be tricky. I'm thinking that this might indicate two populations: one that's living in $263,200-and-up houses and condos, and another - probably the majority of people, although in fewer than half of houses - that's living in "old Alaska" frame shacks with unrenovated bathrooms.
The financing aspect hadn't occurred to me, but that's probably a driver for the high prices.
Geez, you sure know how to score major points with the chicks, eh?
As I said, I wonder what the standard deviations are on those figures.
Gotcha. It's an interesting question.
LOL!!!!
I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with what's been said in this thread about Seattle....The Land of Unfriendly Women to be sure. Smiles are rare and far-between, holding a door open at a shopping mall entrance for a 'lady' will get you an angry glare or worse ("I have arms, you know!" was one memorable substitute for "thank you" and a smile) and you can rest assured that the date you are on will be your last if you dare to hold the car door open, help her with her coat at a restaurant or hold her chair for her as she sits at the table.
Although I was born in Seattle and have lived here most of my life, I hate it passionately and would have left decades ago had it not been for family responsibilities. I like FR threads like this a lot, not because of the original article (which usually is a laugh) but for the insights provided by other FReepers all across the country....I'm gradually compiling a database of prospective cities to move to when my responsibilities here end.
Thanks very much for posting the article :-)
This is a golden oldie. LOL. I actually like living here, despite the liberals. I always found it easy pickins for chickees, but I did end up marrying an LA girl. ;o)
Sweet Jawjuh Peach, Tennessee ballroom gowns, Virginia debutantes, Florida beach gals, Lousianna country gal, Mississippi gals, Sweet Home Alabama girls, Texas cowgirls, Sweet Carolina-accent gals - yes indeed, the finest ladies in the land are in the South!
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