For me, since I’ve been 100% remote for 8 years now, I can live pretty much anywhere I want, as long as there’s decent Internet. As my kids all grew up and moved out to live their own lives, I asked myself where I really wanted to live. One was Ecuador, specifically because of the tropical climate combined with high altitude rain forests. The other was the PNW. My partner and I came up to Eugene, OR and did a massive three day tour of Oregon and southern Washington looking for a place to live and finally settled on Eugene, at least to start. Now we live in northern Salem, OR and we absolutely love it here. The climate (bring on the rain!), the overall feeling of the people, the forests and beaches, just all of it really. To be fair, there are definitely still a number of hateful angry people who live in rural areas, which can be problematic, but overall it’s lovely.
What made you move?
I moved to Oregon from the E Coast in 2008 to attend University and also because of the climate (physical and political). I absolutely loved the gloomy Eugene winters, and the cool summers. Lately, however, it hasn’t been the same. For the last three years I was forced to move to Southern Oregon because of work, and loathe the 100+F degree summers (April though October) and the MAGA people. Still, I would never live anywhere else than the PNW. Hopefully soon I can move back to Eugene.