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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?

#231
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I'm thinking of is that a town that small is probably missing lots of things many people consider important, so they'd have to drive to a neighbouring town. My sister lives in such a place, and does more driving than I could stand.

Wrong again. We have a Walmart Super Center, ER, quite a few good restaurants, and many other things. The city with more stuff is 20 minutes away, less time then you'll sit in traffic in the city going a few miles to the same thing. So less time commuting than in the city and I prefer the privacy of driving over public transportation. I hate people, especially crowds.

> less time then you'll sit in traffic in the city going a few miles to the same thing

Most people aren't going to drive for just a few miles though, surely. I'd just cycle or take one of the busses that arrive every 6 minutes. Although this is purely hypothetical, because I already have access to everything I need within walking distance.

It's a bad faith argument. You've claimed that it takes much longer to get somewhere, but only when you take the inefficient route. Ok sure, you have some special needs that means you must take the car, but this is not a problem you can claim most people would face.

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

#232
post #210

This is where the UK is great. It has lots of well connected by train towns. You can commute for a night out in London but live a generally quiet life in anything from a tiny hamlet to something like Cambridge which is a small city.

Most places close enough for "take the train for a night out in London" will (practically by definition) be "you can commute into London for work from here" places, though, with correspondingly high house prices. Certainly Cambridge is not cheap for housing!

This, but "commutable to London" covers a very large area, and you can still get cheap(ish) housing there. If you're in a town an hour away from London, daily commuting is uncomfortable, but doing it once a fortnight for a night out (especially if you've got somewhere to stay overnight in London) is much more doable. I used to do that when I lived in West Berkshire.

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

#233
If you want an airliner airport with a wide selection of time and destination options, as opposed to somewhere to base your private airplane, consider starting the search around those. Look in the opposite direction than the big city it serves. And beware of noise issues caused by the airport itself.

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

#234
Yes. The way my wife and I found ours was that on vacation we'd just drive to somewhere we hadn't been, stopping in small towns along the way. When we found a town we liked, we'd get a hotel room or B&B and wander around and explore the town.

Ended up buying a house in one of those towns that we had passed through on vacation. Within walking distance of everything we need. It's much cheaper than the big city, or even a suburb near a big city.

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

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, Pine Bluff is quite a place to move to out the blue. Still, there's good interstate access and a local state U. Curious why the city is so reluctant to support new businesses. You might try Jonesboro, Fort Smith, or Hot Springs if you're looking for cheap nearby places. North Little Rock or someplace in NW Arkansas too would have more nearby amenities, albeit at higher (though still quite affordable nationally)…

>Curious why the city is so reluctant to support new businesses. I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to. Anther person pointed out in a comment that comment chain OPs twitter had posts about about holding somebody at gunpoint in apparent frustration. To me it sounds like OP knew absolutely nothing about commercial real-estate, absolutely nothing a…

> I'm guessing the town wants him to do very basic stuff to get the property up to code, and he doesn't want to.

It looks like he wants to but the city won't let him. e.g. https://twitter.com/pontifier/status/1534754382885052417

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

#236
> restaurants > 20 or so shops

Forget eating out. We just moved from a city of 2.5M to a town of 1500, the next biggest town over has 3000. The thing we miss the most is the variety of food, especially Asian food. However that's all we miss and the benefits are many.

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

#237

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…

Someone should make a documentary about you. Just your Deuterium Deuterium Periodically Returning Orbit Fusion reactor is interesting enough (http://www.ddprofusion.com/), but doing it in Pine Bluff? I'm sold.

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect big money coming into a small town to face serious static from local authorities unless and until you're cozied up to its political scene.

Nobody saying or reading this sees this as a problem?

Governments are just mafias with better PR.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong again. We have a Walmart Super Center, ER, quite a few good restaurants, and many other things. The city with more stuff is 20 minutes away, less time then you'll sit in traffic in the city going a few miles to the same thing. So less time commuting than in the city and I prefer the privacy of driving over public transportation. I hate people, especially crowds.

> less time then you'll sit in traffic in the city going a few miles to the same thing Most people aren't going to drive for just a few miles though, surely. I'd just cycle or take one of the busses that arrive every 6 minutes. Although this is purely hypothetical, because I already have access to everything I need within walking distance. It's a bad faith argument. You've claimed that it takes much longer to get som…

Judging from all the traffic inside cities and my experiences, most people do idle for awhile in traffic just to go a few miles.

The bikes are the minority vs cars sitting in the roads and all the full streets / lots, but the bike riders are generally the worst offenders on the street.

Most city public transportation is sub-par quality and safety wise. I don't mind public transportation in some countries to an extent, but not in US cities.

The bus is super slow with all the stops and you can't exactly load it up with stuff, bikes are inconvenient because I'm most likely getting groceries for the next two weeks, or it's raining, etc.

You don't have to have special needs for a bike to be impractical a lot of the time.

Anyways, your idea of small towns is quite off and generalizing, we'll leave it at that.

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