I lived in the Seattle area for 45 years. My transition was a piece of cake, except it took me two years to find “paying” work in my field. In hindsight it is because I went about it wrong. There is lots of work if you are in IT.
The only thing I hate is the bugs. You don’t just lay down in the grass around here and bug spray is NOT optional if you walk in the woods. Chiggers are an awful thing to get.
All that said, the people are wonderful and the climate is spectacular. It gets colder than Seattle but winter is MUCH shorter. The frost actually goes deeper into the ground in Seattle. And traffic is simply not an issue here.
Been here about 2.5 years now. We just bought the ~20 acres next to the place we originally bought. The property taxes are just a hair more PER YEAR than my monthly car payment on the car in the slide show. And the total price for BOTH properties was just over one year’s Seattle wages.
http://s409.photobucket.com/user/robbbb4/slideshow/Kentucky%20home
What a beautiful place.