I’ve lived in many areas of this country and once I made it back to Calif this last time, I vowed never to leave this great state again for a variety of reasons ranging from weather to attitudes to geography (calif’s proximity to things i enjoy doing).
There is a reason people pay so much to live here.
That said, my absolute favorite part of Calif is north of Sacramento. Absolutely stunning in its beauty with reasonable (for calif) prices and that “girls are warm” thing that Steve Miller noticed long ago.
Alas, we are stuck here in southern calif due to our careers – the reason northern calif’s prices are lower is because there are very few decent-paying jobs, which is how we landed in socal to begin with. We still fly into the Sacramento airport a few times a year and it is an easy, uncongested airport to use. From the moment the plane touches the runway until we are on I-5 going to our destination can be as little as 15 min and has never been longer than 25 or 30 (if the rental car counter is busy).
We would probably jump at the chance to live in northern Calif again, at our current salaries of course. But then again, we’ve grown addicted to the nightlife big socal cities offer, so we may never return to northern calif! Time will tell.
