Do You Like Where You Currently Live?

Twin Cities here. Minnesota.

I love where I live, but I think I'd enjoy it more if I lived in the central part of Minnesota.

There's plenty of forests where I live, plenty of prairies, and the even more lakes. I enjoy a full four seasons. I need a few winter backpack outings per year, and that's hard to accomplish elsewhere.

All in all, I like living in a busy city bordered by vast wilderness.

I have mixed feelings. But I'm restless for a change.

Mild winters disappoint me. I need a few good blizzards to feel at home. Every time we have a mild winter I want to move.

I like wildlife, and there is a variety here — including more pronghorn and mountain lions than in the Yellowstone Area. But our wolves and bears tend to be transients. Maybe it's time to trade a few mountain lions for a few more wolves and bears.

Here I can snowshoe or ski several months of the year, kayak and swim in summer, hike and backpack any time of year.

Within an hour's drive or so there is a variety of different land managers and landscapes. It's a huge tourist draw, yet much of the mountains are deserted. I can hike all day and never see another human, let alone another tent.

With a two- to three-hour drive I can be in the Bighorn Mountains, Badlands National Park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park etc. With a morning's drive I can be to most of the mountain ranges of Wyoming, to Northern Colorado, to the Beartooths of Montana, or to Yellowstone Park.

But I want to see snow-capped alpine peaks from my living room window. I want to walk a mile out my back door and into wilderness. I want to hear wolves howl at night and never the neighbors driving home from a movie or church. I want to plow snow in my driveway and let it collect two feet deep in my backyard.

I don't dislike where I live. But I'm still restless. So why be satisfied?

I live between Toronto (TO) and Hamilton, Ontario where I reside in the former and work in the latter. I grew up in a stain-on-the-map in proper Northern Ontario, relocating to Hamilton for my schooling. Post-school had me living downtown TO, then eventually settling to a TO suburb. TO has amenities I could only dream of when growing up, but I'm not accustomed to the hustle-bustle of big-smoke life. There is not nearly enough wilderness around to sate me. It is Canada's NYC, with fewer winning teams and crummier transit. The majority of my close friends live in the general Toronto area and I'm pretty slow when it comes to making good friends, so there is a lot of inertia keeping me here.

Hamilton is a smaller city that feels more like a town. It's earnest and blue-collar much like my hometown so I definitely dig it a bit more. It contains over a hundred waterfalls within its bounds (allegedly) which are fantastic for winter ice-climbing.

The deep woods are about 2-4 hours away and get very busy on summer weekends (long weekends requiring reservations well in advance). Good crown land is on the closer end of that time scale, but it can be tough to find somewhere to stash the car. It's good to know a few secret trail heads.

I suppose I'm pretty dandy here, but still dream of living out in Banff, Canmore, or the like.

I've lived in Maryland for thirty-five of my thirty-eight years. I can not wait to leave. For my liking, Maryland is too hot, too crowded and too expensive. My version of "having four seasons" is Boston. I hope to retire to New Hampshire or Maine in about ten years. My wife likes access to cities; so Manchester, Nashua and Portland are all possibilities.

Jim, the winters don't seem to be as cold - or long - as they used to be. Most years lately they just turn into a long wet spring. That's good for some things, but not so good for others.

We've lived in the Napa Valley for the past 35 years or so. Great food and wine, obviously, and pretty much year round cycling and hiking with this climate. For those who want the activities offered in cities, we're an hour from SF. And we're less than 3 hours from the Sierra Nevada, just about the perfect mountain range. So yeah. we like it. We have a small cabin up in the Sierra, so we can spend more time there. And SFO gives us easy access to just about all of the world with a single connecting flight...