Cities for Life

I just love where I live.

Keep in mind, there is nothing which holds us here by force. We are retired, and therefore not tied down by jobs. Our pensions are wonderful things, and follow us everywhere we choose to go.

We have no parents, nor children. Our closest relations are a very dear sister, and her husband, and a brother, and his wife and kids. They all live in Victoria, and we visit them often. It's about a five-hour trip to get there (car, ferry, car, ferry, car). There are plenty of closer places, but we feel no burning desire to be nearer.

We have some good friends that decided, as they approached retirement, what British Columbia town they wanted to live in. They selected the community, based on weather, proximity to larger centres, shopping options, and activities, and then moved there. I think that was a wonderful way to do things.

But why limit oneself to only a single Canadian province. Granted, it's a very good one, but still. Why stick to Canada at all?

I suppose it would be sensible to limit oneself to places within the world that are known. We shouldn't up and move to Katmandu, for example.

That limits things quite a bit, actually. We know parts of North America, and a very little bit of Europe, and nothing else.

Let's go exotic first. The Cayman Islands, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and a few places in Mexico. None call to me from across the miles, although all were interesting.

How about Europe? We've been a few places in Germany, Salzburg and Vienna in Austria, Venice, Genoa, and Monterosso in Italy, and seen Dubrovnik in Croatia, two places in Greece, and a town in Turkey.

The German cities were nice, but I didn't connect. The same is true of all the other places, except for two; Vienna and Venice. Let's see if there are any more places in North America that I can add to the list.

In Canada, I quite like the Vancouver area, and Victoria. All the other places we've seen come with real, nasty, Canadian winters. I never want to live with harsh weather ever again.

In the USA, there are lots of places I like to visit, but not necessarily to live. I could do San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and Orlando, or Miami Beach, or just possibly Las Vegas.

My list of possibles isn't really all that long. To recap, Venice and Vienna, Victoria and Vancouver, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, Orlando, and Miami Beach. Those, or somewhere close by.

Let's work from roughly east to west. Venice is incredibly expensive for residents, and is a mouldy, humid, water-locked world. I could see doing 6 months there, or a year, but not living as a permanent resident.

Vienna is really great, and a better fit personally. As with Venice, I could easily live there for a happy stint, but not forever. Both of my European choices would come with me needing to learn a language to get along.

So, on to North America. Miami Beach comes at a high financial cost, and is really just a waterfront suburb surrounded by a high-stress city. Best to strike it off the list.

The Orlando area is intriguing, but is really just an area spread out over freeway distances, held together by theme parks. I could do a year there happily, but forever?

Most would consider me insane to even consider Las Vegas, which is probably wise. Beyond the tourist strip, it suffers from all sorts of aches and pains from the over-rapid growth of earlier years, mixed in with its current economic downturn. Another less-than-perfect choice.

San Francisco is great, but has a very strange micro-climate. Through most of the summer, when the rest of California is bathed in sun, San Francisco is normally hidden under clouds and its famous fog. Not the best of situations for me. I like sunshine.

My last American city to think about is Los Angeles. It is a huge conglomeration of dozens of communities and cities. There is certainly a lot to do, but he amount of freeway time that getting around necessitates would probably burn off the lustre pretty fast.

So Canada. My only weather-suitable choices are Victoria and Vancouver. Victoria has the added attraction of our family all being there. Vancouver is the much larger and more vibrant place. Both have incredibly expensive housing markets, which hinders their appeal.

Interestingly, we can get to Vancouver easily whenever we want from our current home. To do so, there is a short drive, followed by a 45 minute ferry ride. If we are headed to the city, the boat time is not a negative at all. We eat onboard, or drink coffee, or just use the ferry's wifi.

What the ferry does do is to act as a force field keeping the city people away from our town. It also keeps our property values at a quite-reasonable fraction of what folks pay in the city. To most, the ferry is an unacceptable inconvenience.

So, we currently live in a delightful little coastal community, conveniently located right next to one of the prime cities on my desirability list. Housing here is artificially low, as are population densities. We have the calmness of a small town.

In addition, all of our activities and friends are here. Helen is a member in three music groups (it could also be more, or less; I can never keep up), as well as crafting. I am kept very busy training at Jiu-Jitsu five days a week.

Can't see us moving anytime soon.