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The upper Connecticut River Valley meets all the criteria except for "west". West Lebanon NH has all the big box stores. Hanover/Dartmouth College, Dartmouth-Hitchcock teaching hospital for medical. You can find a fixer-upper on some land for $350k though it won't be in the most desirable towns. MHT is a good regional airport. It's 70 minutes from the I-89 bridge over the Connecticut River. Boston/Logan with nonstop flights everywhere is 1 hour 50 minutes if you pick your drive time to avoid the Boston rush hour.
If you want lush, green landscape, you're not going to have 300 days of sunshine per year.
Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. I've been looking at Boone, NC, however, I'm wondering if flooding is an issue to be concerned with?
I really love the forests/mountains in the West, but it seems the only green places are either a) low on snow totals (i.e., PNW, west of the Cascades), b) very remote (i.e., many places in Montana), c) have very gray winters (i.e., North Idaho, Montana), or d) absurdly expensive (i.e., ski resort towns).
I understand I'm going to have to give on the amount of sun. Denver gets 245 days of sun (Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site), which is really more than I want or need. However, I'm unsure about whether long stretches in the winter without much sun may be too much in the other direction.
We're okay with high snow totals, but we don't want to live in a place with barely any snow. I enjoy all 4 seasons.
Denver is also very dry, too dry really. But I've never lived in humidity and it's a concern that again, high humidity might be too much in the other direction.
I've been narrowing it down to:
Missoula, MT
Boone, NC
Asheville, NC
My ideal place would be somewhere in or near the mountains of Oregon or Washington state. Are there any mid-sized towns anyone knows of that I'm missing with snow in the mountains of the Cascades?
Last edited by Yac; 11-20-2019 at 02:04 AM..
Reason: Edit
Ah, another Goldilocks post. OP wants exactly the right amount of ____, not one iota more or less:
The OP’s Must Haves:
- Mountain town. We want to live in the mountains or a valley with mountains surrounding.
- Population of ~10k-75k (or a town that size close-by for amenities).
- Gets some amount of snow in winter. Looking for somewhere that gets more than just a light dusting a couple times a year.
- Some amount of green landscape.
- Airport within 1-2 hour drive.
“Some amount of winter snow” in a mountain town might be lots of snow. Or none at all in a drought year. Consistent precipitation does not characterize CO. This affects the “amount of greenery.” Greenery turns to brownery, or blackery from forest fires, or reddery from beetle infestation of drought-weakened trees.
Don’t like Denver’s dryness and sunniness yet want “some” sun? Most places in the US are reasonably sunny in winter. Some have both humid times and arid times. Sounds like what Goldilocks wants cannot be fulfilled in CO: all desired items and no disliked ones.
I hope it isn’t yet another bot.
Cynical much? I understand that what I'm looking for is quite specific, which is why I'm posting on this forum.
Plattsburgh NY, which is about an hour south of Montreal would fit many of the requirements and it is also close to the Adirondacks and is on Lake Champlain. You also have the Green Mountains across the lake in Vermont. http://www.cityofplattsburgh.com/Ima...ocumentID=4118
Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. I've been looking at Boone, NC, however, I'm wondering if flooding is an issue to be concerned with?
I've been to Boone a couple of times. I don't see how it in any way meets your "amenities" criteria. There's a Publix and a Lowe's but it's a tourist service economy with a couple of really wimpy ski areas and related "escape from the southern heat" summer tourist traffic.
Flooding is an issue in any eastern mountain town. Just don't live in a flood zone.
Plattsburgh NY, which is about an hour south of Montreal would fit many of the requirements and it is also close to the Adirondacks and is on Lake Champlain. You also have the Green Mountains across the lake in Vermont. http://www.cityofplattsburgh.com/Ima...ocumentID=4118
Read the first sentence of their criteria: "Mountain town. We want to live in the mountains or a valley with mountains surrounding" and look at the first link posted. It is literally just east of the Adirondack Mountains in the Champlain Valley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champlain_Valley
OP, the thing to keep in mind west of the Cascades is that most cities are at a relatively low elevation, and there's a ton of snow as you head up. For example, here in Bellingham we may get a couple decent snowfalls per winter, but an hour away at our local ski area (Mt. Baker), it regularly gets 600"-800" per year and has the record for most seasonal snowfall on the planet (1140" - and less than halfway up the mountain!). The Cascades are at lower elevation than the Rockies, of course, but in many areas they are more inhospitable for development and there aren't a lot of decent sized towns in the middle of them. So generally you're either on the wetside or dryside. FWIW, many of the westside communities have parts of town that are significantly higher and receive higher snowfall, as well.
In the PNW, the immediate east side of the Cascades is much colder and much more like the Rockies/Intermountain West, and then it becomes desert. In WA, the eastern side drops down to a lower elevation than OR. In WA, you may want to look at Wenatchee, and in OR, Bend/Redmond is an awesome, but expensive area. Also, you may want to look into the Columbia Gorge communities- Hood River/White Salmon are very cool places and kind of defy definition. They're in transition zones between rainforest and desert, and have characteristics of both. They're expensive, but have surprisingly quick access to the amenities of Portland (1 hour from the airport, etc.).
I've been to Boone a couple of times. I don't see how it in any way meets your "amenities" criteria. There's a Publix and a Lowe's but it's a tourist service economy with a couple of really wimpy ski areas and related "escape from the southern heat" summer tourist traffic.
Flooding is an issue in any eastern mountain town. Just don't live in a flood zone.
Frankly, other than the skiing being not as good, I don't see how Boone doesn't meet the OP's criteria. Sizewise, it doesn't compare to a metro like Asheville, but it is an outpost for the NW NC High Country, and the highest small city of anywhere in the east (~3300') and has a climate much more like that of Southern Canada. Boone's economy revolves more around Appalachian State University than tourism, BTW, as it's a major university of nearly 20,000 students. I'd factor that in to my decision about living there, as it dominates the town.
Again, it's worth noting that it is substantially colder than Asheville (~2200') in both Winter and Summer. It receives a lot more snowfall, and is quite a bit cooler during the hot months. From my experience living in the area, around 2,500'-3,000' in elevation in Western NC is a dividing line between significantly colder and warmer weather and temperatures.
Boone would be closer to the airport. Asheville farther away.
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