Do you want to live in the city or country? Either way, why? Is there a specific place you’d like to live?
I lived in Suburbia as a child. Happiness is a thin veneer over the contempt the majority of neighbors feel for each other.
I lived in rural towns for much of my young adult life. Monopolized utilities and services, as well as the issue of small-town indoctrination, were reliably present.
I currently live in a metro. The rampant corruption and vehicle-oriented culture are noxious.
I guess I want to live in outer space. It’s pretty quiet up there and I’d imagine it doesn’t really smell all that bad.
I currently live in a metro. The rampant corruption and vehicle-oriented culture are noxious.
Not all metros are that shitty. IDK about corruption, but at least in Europe there are cities with less car-oriented culture.
In space, everyone knows you farted.
Not in one single place.
I am lucky right now that my life is spread over 2 continents, with vastly different cultures and climates, and I love it
I also love the contrast, because not any single place is perfect, and switching every few months is just the best
There’s no single one-size-fits-all solution to your question. But maybe there are several answers.
The Shire
I want to live on a sailboat and be nomadic.
A nice little cabin in the woods and by a lake.
Far enough from the nearest town that I don’t have neighbors, but close enough that I can reasonably make a grocery run each week.
A stable country with solid social safety nets where the people I love are not considered criminals simply for existing would be ideal.
Beyond those requirements, I could live in a cabin in the woods, a trailer in a park, a mansion in the countryside or an apartment in the city. It wouldn’t matter as much.
Sounds like good decision making there.
I’d like to live in the woods in the PNW. It’s pretty, I like the weather and there aren’t too many bugs (compared to other parts of the country).
Countryside, as far away as possible while still having a reliable internet connection
Canary Islands (Spain) because it is one of the best climate in the world. Always mid, average temperatures are around 20 degrees so winters are nice and summers not too hot. + you can go to the beach every day and it is Europe so you’ve got EU quality of life.
But I wont do it. Canarians are dying because of tourism, AirBnB and nomad workers. They can’t pay rents, there’s water shortages and too many old retired fucks from UK or Germany unable to speak Spanish and owning 25 apartments to short term rent. Fuck them, I wont be part of the problem.
So next solution is staying home, which happens to be one of the best country in the world for quality of life (Switzerland), so that’s not too bad. Food is not the best but France and Italy are less than 2h away by train.
I just need Tokyo to be a 2h train ride as well (for food yeah, again) and that would be perfect.
I’m thinking of moving to Mongolia one day. Vast open spaces and a bitter cold winter. It’s nice to be forgotten by the world.
I lived there for a while, it’s very cool, it feels like going back to the wild Wild West. Bonus points if you like to drink, deduct points if you’re a vegetarian (they mostly just have meat dishes).
That’s the impression I always come away with - similar to Montana or one of the Dakotas in the US. How was the language barrier?
Hmm I don’t remember it being too bad, but I was very used to traveling at the time. Work-wise I was able to find well educated staff with a good enough knowledge of English to work ok so it was all good.
Reminds me of when I was up in Iqaluit (far north in Canada). The best way I could describe it is imagine Mos Eisley if it were on the planet Hoth.
Yeah that’s very accurate! I forgot to mention the fighting, they fight a lot there.
Would love to live in the Portinscale Keswick area of the UK. I might never settle down in one place though as there is so much to explore.
On some planet where is an intelligent life.
Insert joke along the lines of ‘I don’t.’
More seriously, I’ve thought about this a bit. The simple answer is already seen in other responses: rural enough to escape crowds, close enough to urbanity to get good internet. The more perspicacious answer is overly complex: someplace where the weather is mild enough not to kill you if you lose your keys, and likely to stay that way despite climate change, mountainous enough to have nice views and avoid flooding, flat enough to build, sparse enough for land to be affordable, populous enough to be able to get the things I want without making a long trek, wooded enough to get the benefit of trees, bare enough to allow access, not too many racists or zealots, not too rich or poor of neighbors, neighbors not close enough to disturb me, but not so far that I couldn’t run over for something if needed, somewhere politically stable, somewhere I can work without a million-mile commute, where the soil doesn’t suck, where there’s a pleasant amount of rain and sun…
It’s not a small question.
You’re mostly describing where I live! It’s really nice here. However, a few of your points are things that are lacking that I definitely wish I had. Oh well - I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been with my surroundings.
Cabin in the woods near a river or lake somewhere in Alaska. I love the cold and the snow. I want big dogs. I like chipping wood for heat. I enjoy being along the evergreens.
