I'm much further north (less than 100 miles to Canada) but our winters are much more mild vs just about anywhere in Wyoming. We have a 5.4% state income tax though.

Washington doesn't have one, but the property taxes and sales taxes (and a million other random taxes) are killers. There are some beautiful places in the state though and many are super mild. We have a lake house in N. Central Washington and it's actually considered desert and it's warm most of the year.

Tenn is best for no state income and also low other taxes. Florida probably #2, but it's Florida. I like to visit, but wouldn't want to live there. Tex #3 but property taxes are pretty high.

They moved to CDA, then Boise last year. They are our age with kids. They're conservative in that they don't want to pay Cali taxes and they want safety and good schools, but pretty chill about everything else. The rest of their family and the other dozen or so families of friends that all came around the same as them are pretty much the same. In my view, they've all got Cali vibes.

What?

That’s rural not suburban

and I can walk to 2 bars and restaurants in 10-15 minutes and I can drive to like 25+ in 10 minutes or less....probably 100 in 20 minutes or less. Downtown CDA is 8 miles away.

I'm not sure if you've been in a suburb lately, but bars and restaurants will rarely be more than 3-5 minutes away from anywhere in town.

I can hit up live music, trivia nights, etc at multiple bars every night of the week at multiple different places 5 minutes from my home on the fringe of the burbs.

Maybe if I didn't have kids and hadn't lived here for 20 years I'd feel different as a single transient...

But while not a local / native...I'm about as close as I can get to that without ACTUALLY being one.

But my job is here...and I think I have a very small pool of job portability. My house is small with 4 of us living there but in 10 years it'll be a perfect size for my wife and I. My neighborhood is very very safe. I'm 6 blocks from the ocean and have all of the entirety of Central and Northern California at my fingertips. My kids elementary school is top notch (top-50 in California). I like my neighbors and hang out with them. Individually, block parties, school functions, etc. My kids and their friends zoom around on their bikes in the neighborhood or go to the park or the beach as a little crew with their friends. In San Francisco we take advantage of all the different neighborhoods which, despite dramatic news reporting, most of them are also very safe and very different from our own.

So, I sell my house for 2 million bucks, pay off my mortgage and start my families life over in Idaho in my late 40s?

For me, personally, I don't see much upside other than a bigger house and an admittedly much lower COL.

I'll pass without thinking twice.

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