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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?

#91

Post by shrubble »

The warning I would make about PA is about their road system, which is tremendously, comically, confusing (every road has at least a name and a number) and leads to driving taking so much longer than you would think.

Lancaster PA: drive from Park City Mall to the center of Lancaster City, which is the Greist Building, the tallest in the area (has many telecom antennas there) and is near the Fulton Opera House. On the map, it shows 3.5 miles as you pass by Long's Park. Unless it is in the middle of the night, you will be lucky to make it in less than 20 minutes.

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

#92

Post by smt88 »

rswerve wrote: post #4

College towns. Pick some states, and go visit towns with colleges in them. They'll have restaurants and groceries, and those faculty kids have to go to school somewhere. Internet should be passable, too. They won't be the cheapest small town option, but houses should come in well below a million bucks. The one town you mention, Lancaster, PA, is a model of the type.

Home prices are pretty high in most nicer college towns.

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

#93

Post by Arete314159 »

Make an excel spreadsheet, list the things you want in a town. Then start researching towns and list whether they have those things, point by point.

One thing I would suggest is that if you're moving, bear in mind that climate change is making some previously pleasant places much more unpleasant. Look at recent years of fire data, flood data, air quality from smoke, drought, heat, etc.

And finally, make sure the place you're moving to is going to have ample, clean fresh water, and no other environmental problems looming. Don't move to Vegas. Don't move to Salt Lake City. Don't move anywhere that is going to lose power if Lake Mead or Lake Powell dry up.

You can search EWG for your prospective towns. Be aware that many, many towns in the US have way higher PFAS / PFOA / etc. than you probably want. Many have very high levels of other contaminants as well. Some whole-house filters can filter that out but they're expensive.

Here's the EWG report for a sample California town: https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=CA0110009

Search "town name + superfund". Search "town name" + "pollution". Search "town name" + {various natural disasters}. Search "town name" + "smoke". Search "town name" + "smell". Search "town name" + "water."

Go visit everywhere that's on your short list. Ask people about the town.

Good luck!

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

#94

Post by spudlyo »

Olympia WA. Home to The Evergreen State College, Washington State Capitol, and Sea-Tac International is just under an hour away. Winters are mild, but very wet. Violent crime (20.4) is under the national average, while property crime is nearly twice the national average at 61.2.

I grew up in the Thurston County area in the 80s, and went to school at TESC, a hippie liberal arts college I remember the downtown as being charming, with lots of hip cafes, bars, and restaurants. I've considered moving back there myself. That said, in recent years epidemics of homelessness and drug addiction have taken a bit of a toll on the city, but I still think it's worth checking out.

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

#95

Post by jazzyjackson »

duped wrote: post #3

Try the Midwest around rail commuter routes. Most of them developed small yet thriving downtowns that are quite quaint and affordable For example check out Geneva Illinois

Geneva has a very unique feature: the Fabyan estate with its recently restored dutch windmill, built nearby but looks straight out of the netherlands.

The story behind the estate is very interesting, iirc Fabyan was obsesesd with finding hidden codes in Shakespeare, thinking he could prove Francis Bacon was the real author. By the time World War I broke out, he had gathered a library of historical cyphers and had a team of codebreakers working for him, who quickly changed course from Shakespeare to the War Department.

It's a frank lloyd wright house with a well done japanese garden right on the fox river, worth taking the tour :)

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

#97

Post by duped »

jbhouse wrote: post #66
duped wrote: post #3

Try the Midwest around rail commuter routes. Most of them developed small yet thriving downtowns that are quite quaint and affordable For example check out Geneva Illinois

illinois winters though...

Winter is the best time of the year. It keeps housing prices down from people that can't deal with it.

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

#98

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

A number of states are offering grants for remote workers to relocate, offers vary but generally you can get monthly installments of around $1k paid out over one or two years. You have to apply and be accepted, be verifiably employed full time, 100% remote, and if you leave within the first couple years you either lose out on the balance of the grant or you might need to pay a portion back.

The programs are generally designed to bring people into rural areas, you need to pay close attention to make sure there is sufficient internet for you to work remotely. Places like Frontier top out at 1.5mbps, a little further down the road your internet might be line of sight wireless. Then inexplicably the other side of a hill might be top of the line cable internet. You can’t really trust the web sites, they need to come out and confirm an address can be serviced at the speed you need (without you paying them $10,000+ to run cable)

Oh! Your employer might need to be registered with the state so they can submit your withholdings. You should verify with your HR department which states they can support.

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

#99

Post by duped »

cssanchez wrote: post #60

You should consider Puerto Rico. The entire island has a small town feel, but the west coast is mostly what you describe. There's also great weather and tax benefits.

They lost 100% of their power network to Maria. Hurricanes are becoming more common and higher intensity. Humanity's days in the Caribbean are numbered.

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

#100

Post by neilv »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #45
pontifier wrote: post #39

My method sure hasn't worked very well... or has it? I was looking for cheap warehouse space to start a business in, and did a nation-wide search for the largest, cheapest building in the entire continental US. I found one that seemed too good to be true. a 220,000 sqft metal warehouse and office complex on 17 acres. I thought the price was a typo at $375k.The agent assured me that the price was correct, and I flew o…

Promote yourself and your town. I'm looking for a new home in the same way as the OP, and my best hope is that a few dozen like-minded nerds will gentrify a small town, because they have been so undercut by cities of late.

> a few dozen like-minded nerds will gentrify a small town

How does one do this in such a way that it's welcomed by people who already make their home there?

(I can imagine a lot of ways this could go work out badly, but don't immediately know a good approach.)

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