Posted on 07/17/2011 4:11:56 PM PDT by ChocChipCookie
“It is beautiful in the summer. It gets too cold for me in the winter.”
The winters are very close to NY, and the summers are hotter than NY but dryer.
In southern Idaho you’ll still live in the desert... Though it doesn’t get much over 110 in the summer, it’s still enough to kill you.
I have lived in Boise for 25 years, and I never buy snow tires in the winter. Oh, and they also rarely plow the snow here on the side streets, but they use de-icer at the intersections.
I have lived in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I was always prepared to spend a comfortable 5 days in my old beater 1976 pick up truck.
Now days I would think that just about anyone that wants to has a spiffy little 4 wheel car or SUV and their cell phone and charger with them (and hopefully a sleeping bag).
A freeper should be able to handle driving to and from work, regardless of where he lives.
ping
I agree, but that doesn’t prevent the fool in the oncoming lane from speeding on ice crossing the line and hitting you head on. That’s my biggest concern...the idiots who don’t know how to drive in winter conditions.
Did you visit Idaho?
It’s funny how perceptions vary. I live in the middle, also in the middle of nowhere. To me, Boise is the big city and I avoid it like the plague. I was there 4 years ago, I think. The people out here are mostly friendly, minus the few jerks which are in every population. They are miners, ranchers, and regular people. There is a goodly number of Mormons. I’m not, but we all deal with each other because it is 150 miles to the nearest Walmart or Home Depot. There are little museums in the three nearest towns.
I lived in southern ID a while, north of Twin Falls. I wouldn’t exactly call it wet or green or cool. The fields are green during irrigation season, everything else is sagebrush or cheat grass, waiting on a lightning strike. And it is hot down there if you are used to the cooler and higher mountains.
There seems to be almost no meth problems in the area. I think it is too isolated so those types migrate to where the supply is better.
Bring a job with you, just to be safe.
Hey, I moved to a state that people routinely criticize. It’s no big deal, to each his own. I love my adopted home state.
Boise is still far to small for what I consider “job security.” There are about 1.5 million in Phoenix alone. A half million in Boise PLUS surrounding areas is very small, especially considering the isolation. Boise is not even in the top 100 US cities for population.
Boise is still 5-6 hours from what I’d consider a major city (for my purposes). You get laid off, you have a good chance of relocating quite far away. Since we moved, my husband has been laid off twice. Both times he’s been able to find a better job within a week. If worse came to worse, we’d have to relocate about three hours away, in many different directions. Since almost all of our family followed us when we moved, it’s very important to us that we are all able to stay fairly close to each other. Three hours away would suck but is acceptable for a day trip. Six hours is not acceptable to me.
Idaho is beautiful and has many things to offer, but this is what killed it for me. YMMV, obviously.
If you find regions of America too risky because car accidents are more likely, then it is hard for me to relate to that level of worry, I don’t have that gene.
We’re planning a trip there in the next month or so. We can fly into Idaho Falls inexpensively via Allegiant Air, but already we know that IF will be way too cold for us. Spouse grew up in the Pacific islands, the Phoenix heat doesn’t bother him, so we need to, somehow, find a four-season location that doesn’t have severe winters.
Northern CA would be a no-brainer but for their gun laws and overall mess of a state.
I want to live in my own private Idaho.
Try southern Oregon - Roseburg or Klamath Falls area. The area is a bit depressed right now, but that means you can get pretty good buys on houses. If you’re able to start your own business you should do okay. I’m in the Willamette Valley, & it rains lots, but no snow (or only rarely). You might get some snow in the more easterly areas, but it is beautiful. And you’re not too far from mountains or ocean. S. OR is also a very much more conservative area.
Yes, I visited, and did extensive research, both with books/internet and with people who had relocated into our out of Idaho. We had really planned on moving to Idaho and it was a disappointment that it didn't fit what we needed.
My husband brought his job with him when we relocated. He got laid off a few years later, and thank goodness he was able to find another job a week later. Then he got laid off from that 6 months later, and he found another job a week later. The jobs all used related skills, but are in totally different industries. I don't work in the same field I was in when I moved, either. Even white collar career jobs are not lifelong any more.
Spokane County (Washington) and Kootenai County (Idaho) are now one very large Metropolitan Statistic Area (MSA). We have lived in Coeur d’Alene (ID) and Liberty Lake (WA). The winters are unpredictable, some years mild, some moderate and one in ten somewhat harsh.
Jobs are cyclical. The economy is skewed towards government, healthcare and services with some very light manufacturing and some legacy extraction (mining and timber) jobs. Cost of living way less than the urban southwest, cheap housing, water, power and very high quality of life.
Few minorities, not a lot of “culture” but some, and Seattle is a 45 minute flight.
Religion - heavily Catholic, moderate LDS (Mormon) and Seventh Day Adventist as well as a fair smattering of Lutheran and other old school protestant chapels. A lot of newer “New Life” type chapels that confuse me to no end.
Have a job in hand or a lot of money in the bank. Hiring is by word of mouth more so than help wanted adds.
“Spouse grew up in the Pacific islands, the Phoenix heat doesn’t bother him, so we need to, somehow, find a four-season location that doesn’t have severe winters.”
Wife is from the Philippines. She has learned to love the winter because the summer is hot. She quickly found that in the winter, the perfect amount of clothes can be found to keep you at your favorite temperature.
Boise is not even in the top 100 US cities for population.Actually, Boise/Nampa is. Spokane/Coeur d'Alene will be as soon as the MSA merger is done.
These traditionally conservative areas around Sand Point in Idaho and Kalispell/Whitefish at the northern end of Flathead Lake are being populated by liberals from California who have spent a lifetime sucking off the government and ruining their former neighborhoods only to take their home equity and pensions to the northwest and get right to work making rules for everyone there to live by.
Boise would be up towards the top of my list if I were looking at places to retire to. I’ve only visited relatives there a few times but I really liked the city. I wouldn’t want to just show up there without a job in hand though.
Really - the Denver area would be better than that IMO. Larger enough city - we used to live in Arvada (north metro area). It is a large enough city to support a good job base and it’s not too far to get up in the mountains for camping/fishing/hunting. As with any metro area, there are bad parts of town to stay away from - but you just have to do your homework.
Just drove across ID a couple weeks ago. It is pretty dry and rocky down south but beautiful and Conservative. Speed limit is 75 and has a few no ethanol stations. Nice state.
Pray for America
Denver is a huge, filthy, sprawling megapolis filled with left wing uglies. The ‘burbs are OK but the sprawl, the smog and the leftwingers make it less than a good choice for us. Spokane tain’t bad.
Chubbuck in the Pocatello area. Ammon in Idaho Falls. More new construction happening in the IF area. The INL site often has work as well.
I live in SoCal but do business in Boise several times a year as well as Pocatello. It’s definitely cold up there, but beautiful. More Mormons than I had thought, but makes sense when you consider the territory.
If I could convince my wife to do it, I would definitely buy a vacation home there and perhaps move there, but she’s a So. Cal girl and doesn’t want the cold.
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