site banner
Being  26d ago (text post)   1696 thread views

The Motte Picks Where I Spend the Rest of My Life

Alternative Title: Where would you live if you had only minimal constraints?

While I am very much soliciting genuine requests and hope to follow through on the post title, I hope this prompt will also be a fun one.

Many of us fantasize about living abroad or starting over. But there is always an excuse. Some factor tying us down or preventing us from making the lunge: a job, a partner, a sick relative. I have found myself with these excuses recently plucked away.

Since any (good) recommendation should be tailored to the recipient, here are the aforementioned minimal constraints:

  1. American citizen. Native English speaker.
    • Not restricted to English speaking locations, but the difficulties of learning a language and assimilating should be considered
    • For simplicity and op-sec, assume fluency in other languages can be rounded down to 0
  2. Long Term, Stable Couple
    • All preferences are shared between both of us
    • Do not need to consider relationship prospects of destination
    • Monogamous
    • Straight
  3. Young (~30) years old
  4. No children yet. Will have first (of several) children within next 3 years.
    • No adult dependents (such as sick family members that need to be cared for)
  5. $250k household income
    • Assume standard income growth for competitive tech field: +5-10% real growth per year.
  6. Fully Remote Work
    • This is the big one that opens up the world
    • Assume remote work will remain viable (fair assumption given our fields)

I'm a believer in the idea that constraints can paradoxically increase creativity, but if you have a dream destination that is incompatible with these constraints don't let me stop you from sharing.

The Motte has an eclectic mix of users and I specifically want to know YOUR ideal destination, NOT what you think someone like us would want. The standard lists and rankings of "best places to live" are either bizarre (they overweight metrics that don't matter to most) or end up just being too blank - effectively just a list of major cities.

I'm hoping to discover some unusual preferences. Maybe your dream is a few hundred acres of farmland in a rural spot. Maybe it's something incredibly niche like needing to be walking distance from the Louvre or being able to view the Khumbu at sunrise from your porch. Now is the time to sell me the rest of us on your dream :).

We will be visiting a number of options this summer and would love to add some additional locations to either this trip or the next. The goal is to move to this location early 2025.

Will include some of the options I've been toying with as a comment.

8
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'll go first.

Personal Preferences :

  1. (Strong) Owning a property
    • Rules out VHCOL area (e.g. NYC,SF) at income level (#4 above)
  2. (Strong) Stick to same location
    • We will live in or around this home city for the next 25+ years
  3. (Weak) Western U.S.A.
    • Family is clustered in this area, but this is not a super strong preference.
    • We are fine not living near to family and both our families are also open to relocating

My fun picks:

  1. Beautiful remote living in the Spanish (pre)Pyrenees. Sample homes:
  2. Castle in the Italian countryside. Sample 15th century home: https://www.engelvoelkers.com/en/exposes/403ce1ae-62cc-5773-a893-1a76e7fa8e7c
  3. If French castles are more to your taste, here's another option: https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/chatellerault-france/vienne-department-15th-18th-and-19th-century-listed-chateau-to-be-renovated-9-8-acres-of-land-11091591

As an American, the availability and affordability (let's just ignore the repair and maintenance for now....) of these castles is something I would never have guessed at.

Some boring (“realistic”) cities that are currently on my list that I plan to explore:

  1. Boise
  2. Salt Lake City
  3. Austin

These areas provide affordable homes near to a reasonably large city combined with proximity to numerous outdoor recreation options.

Given your constraints, Coeur D’Alene or its suburbs would be excellent (with international groceries, cultural stuff, and a major airport fairly close by in Spokane when you want them).

That lake is probably the prettiest place I have ever seen.

This is exactly the sort of niche pick that I wouldn't think of myself that I was hoping my question would draw out so thanks!

I'll do some research into it (I may have a problem with finding myself deep in research rabbit hole. Last time I found myself reading individual teachers' classroom pages at a random school in a random town before I pulled myself out.)

But since I have you here... my very limited mental model of Couer D'Alene is from when I visited there as a childhood. In my head it's a lake town where people have second homes and not something I had considered as a primary residence locale. The area is definitely beautiful, but what makes you think it's worth being THE PLACE to commit to? Proximity to a moderate size city is definitely a strong plus (maybe even a requirement), but there are hundreds of cities just within the U.S. that meet this criteria.

Fantastic nature, small enough to avoid soul-crushing traffic, comparatively sane government, and freedom to homeschool with decent private options if you’re not into that.

If I could tolerate remote work, it would be my top choice in the US.

Consider it added to my list. I'll get back to you in 5 months with my post visit review.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats