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Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#61

Post by ltbarcly3 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #43
ltbarcly3 wrote: post #38

I just moved to Ocean Springs, MS from Los Gatos, CA. We have been looking for about a year, this is the place that checked the most boxes for us. Most places we were looking at either had terrible schools (Alaska, apart from like 3 magnet schools) or were very remote (Islesboro, ME) Very happy I got out of CA before PG&E killed my family (we had a fire break out in June about 100 meters from my front door, if it had…

How often do you go to NOLA?

Well not too much yet, but my kids are begging me to go because they want to go to the mall there. It's about 1.5 hour drive, which seems like a long trip, but my commute to SF was longer than that (each way) via Caltrain so it's not really that bad I guess.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#63

Post by suhastech »

I have experimented with a lot of different types of living situations during the pandemic - mountain tourist towns, suburban areas, countryside. At the end of the day, I felt the most fulfilled when I was able to connect with a community. I've had better luck with acceptance when they, themselves, are new to the community.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#65

Post by wishfish »

w1 wrote: post #19

Emporia, KS. Home of a small college and a few large obscure athletic events (Unbound Gravel and disc golf nationals). Kansas is also a very reasonable state, politically, compared to much of the midwest. Less than two hours from decent sized airports (MCI and Wichita).

Nice to see Emporia mentioned on HN. A bit of a surprise but a nice surprise. I've always liked it. I've personally never lived there but do live in the region.

Eastern Kansas in general wouldn't be a bad place for a remote worker. Many of these towns have fiber. Homes are incredibly cheap. I picked up a 120 yr old farmhouse with broadband, a few acres and several 100 yr old trees for well under 100k. There's a deep calm here I really enjoy.

One interesting choice in Kansas is the town of Humboldt. Locals got tired of seeing their town decline as many others in the state. They've taken some impressive steps towards reversing that. Revitalizing their downtown with a string of new businesses. Here's a (paywall free) Kansas City Star article on the town and their newfound success.

https://archive.ph/Bhntu

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#69

Post by ajross »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #42
ajross wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Avoid high tax states like CA or NY. Why? This sounds (especially given the two specific states named) more like an impression from partisan media than practical advice. Those two states do indeed happen to have comparatively high tax burden and metro areas with high real estate costs. But the relationship isn't well correlated. Maine and Minnesota are "high tax" states with cheap housing, and Alaska has (IIRC) the…

I suppose I should have clarified to include property taxes. If someone is looking for an area to move to and possibly settle, when you pay off a house you may not want $800-1000/mo in taxes on that house. I said “like” I didn’t do an analysis of 50 states and tax rates. I think it would be common sense if someone was looking to move anywhere in the US to consider taxes and avoid places that were high. Similarly cons…

This still sems mixed up. In fact Texas has among the highest property tax rates in the country, above both NY (which it beats by a little bit) and CA (which is way down in the middle of the pack).

You can find data on states by total tax burden (which, sure, is going to depend on your particular assets and flows being taxed). It's not nearly as big a differentiator as you seem to think it is (especially, again, since it's quite minor compared with your federal liabilities), and I worry about the sources that might have informed your opinion.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a small town to relocate for remote work?

#70

Post by s0rce »

sneak wrote: post #52

Without a symphony/opera, theater, decent concert venue, and some art museums, life is going to get real boring, real fast. I did a stint in a cheap culture wasteland through covid. It may be economically cheaper but the toll it takes on your soul is real.

This is very personal, lots of people go their entire lives without going to those venues and aren't bored. You can ride a dirt/mtb bike in the desert or hike in the mountains, surf in the ocean, etc.
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