Ask HN: living and working in US

PS: there is a way to get your college paid for, and that is scholarships, if your child is extremely good in school, he/she can get any college paid for. But you can't count on it as it is something very hard to do.

But my cousin got 8+ years of medical schools paid for, and also her rent was paid for.

Since you mentioned it, I'll throw a shameless plug for Fort Collins (and Colorado in general). We do get snow from about November-March but its generally sporadic, however, there's usually 2-3 big snows a year. Despite this, we still get (on average) 300 days of sunshine a year [0].

For work, Foco has offices for Hewlett Packard, Intel, AMD, Avago, National Semiconductor, LSI, and Wolf Robotics. If the start-up scene is more your taste, Fort Collins-Loveland was rated 2nd in the "Top 10 Metro Areas for High-Tech Startup Density" in the United States (with Boulder at #1) in 2013 [1], and is also home to a start-up incubator called Rocky Mountain Innosphere [2].

There are miles of bike trails [3] all over the city and many places to hike nearby as well [4]. Needless to say lots of people are out and about being physically active around here and biking is often the preferred mode of transportion.

Other than that I just personally enjoy the atmosphere out here. Since we have a university in town there are tons of little hole-in-the-wall coffee shops open 24/7 (or close to it) and lots of specialty food in the form of restaurants, food trucks, food carts, ect. Old Town area is the main social scene and is always bustling whether people are out getting a bite to eat, walking around, or there are often various festivals taking place. Micro-brew Beer is also a huge part of the culture around here (at least in my circles), as fort collins is home to New Belgium, Odell, and many other micro-breweries and holds a huge beer festival called New West Fest every year. In all, it's a quirky little city that I quite enjoy.

Disclaimer: I've lived in the Loveland/Ft. Collins area for 6 years now and just finished my CS degree at Colorado State University.

[0] - http://www.fcgov.com/visitor/fcfacts.php

[1] - http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/2013/08/young-hightech-firm...

[2] - http://www.innosphere.org/

[3] - http://www.fcgov.com/bicycling/pdf/bike-map-front.pdf

[4] - http://alltrails.com/us/colorado/fort-collins?ref=header

edit: formatting

I moved to America six years ago. I have lived in California, Texas and now live in New York.

> My wife keeps saying we should move to US, perhaps California. She thinks we'll finally have some sunshine, lots of affordable fresh food, perhaps live in a house with garden, beautiful nature close enough to actually go camping for the weekends, and friendly and approachable people

Sure, if you lived in Nor Cal, somewhere close to Marin or in the East Bay, you could probably get that. It is kind of puzzling to me that you would go all the way to America for this though. Wouldn't you prefer to live in the EU closer to a community ?

> 40h workweek 5 weeks of holiday a year free/cheap health insurance free/cheap education up to university level for our daughter.

You are not going to get a 40 hour work week in America. It might be close to 60 hours. At least 50. Again, depends on the place. If you work for a big company like Google, things will be reasonably. Early stage startup. Miserable. Vacation is 2 weeks - 4 weeks. Health insurance has always been paid for me by my employer. Schools, I can't comment. I don't have offspring.

Someone mentioned other regions. Let me give you a quick run through considering that long term, America is my home but I don't know whether I want to live in a city.

Austin, Texas. Too small, too hot. Still too Texan.

New York. I love NYC. But it is not what your wife would want. It is a Megapolis.

Colorado. I fucking love Colorado. Boulder is amazing, it is a great college town with all those beautiful girls. Great opportunities for hiking. It has a great and upcoming tech scene. Honestly, if I were ever to buy a summer home or move elsewhere in the U.S., it would be Colorado.

We would love to have you and your family. The USA is so large and diverse that practically any living scenario is possible. If you want to live near nature with sunshine, fresh affordable food, and a home with a garden then I would suggest checking out more rural parts of northern California. There are many employers that will allow you to work onsite part-time (one day a week, month, or quarter) and the rest of your time at home, assuming your output is acceptable and you are available during working hours. Special arrangements such as this are more difficult in the beginning but are very easy to setup if you have proven yourself to be a productive programmer.

I would suggest checking out areas such as Redding, CA. If you make over $100k a year you could get yourself setup with a nice place such as the link below.

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/reb/4450341909.html

More properties in that area: http://sacramento.craigslist.org/search/rea?query=acre&sale_...

Note: Life can be wonderful in the USA but our healthcare and education system need work. Healthcare is fantastic if you get good insurance, but that will cost you each month. Being a programmer, it is likely your employer will provide health insurance. Our Universities are some of the best in the world (ex. MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, etc), but our elementary and high school education system is inefficient so you may want to consider one of the many private school options in your area. This too will be costly. Basically expect to pay 10-15% of your salary towards making up for our deficiencies in these areas. Work/life balance is entirely possible here although many European countries structure their national policies around promoting such ideas while the USA pretty much leaves it up to the individual to organize their life in the way they see fit. This is why we have so many people living on the extremes, from super-star entrepreneurs to homeless individuals and everyone else in-between.