If you had to, which would you choose?

Death.

lol.... if Maine was on the table, I would go full Mainiac.

Neither one has an appeal to me me. Been to both never going back.

Both provide some awesome areas. Rural, beautiful.
Great people.

The cities are the problem.


Kinda like living in Texas.

Well, maybe if you judge all of Texas by Austin.
Or El Paso.
Or Houston.



Or, not.

for what?

Stay in Texas. I live in Oregon, my wife and I are planning our exit. Texas is on the list.



P

North West CT, Western MA, VT, NH, ME. All great. Ditto Rural CA, OR and WA.

It would have to be New England,.....not that I have any plans to move there.

There's still some places in New England that are sequestered away from the insanity that's sweeping across America.

The west coast is destined to become El Norte.

Northern Maine.

Between Bangor and Millinocket
Penobscot County
Live in neither of them at all.

Hope your financially good to go.

That state will tax the schitt out of everything.

Hell. With my back broke.

Death.

Maybe Maine, but only after purging and burning out all Assachutians.

never been to the west coast, but i love new England.

Laffin’
Compare NH’s laws/Constitution to others, including the South.

Y’all can give us the ‘Yankee’ [bleep] all you want, but NH still stands well in front of most where individual liberty is concerned.

C’mon, guys, Oregon ain’t all bad. Just Multnomah and Lane counties, really, plus Ashland. I live south of Corvallis up in the Coburg Hills. Five acres, can’t see my nearest neighbor, deer and turkeys in the yard every day, elk on the hill behind me. An hour 45 from the ocean, two hours from the mountains. Better water from my well than the stuff you buy in bottles. Pistol range in the back yard.

Could be worse.




P

I'd go west coast only because it's a lot closer to the rockies when the time comes to escape to Gods country.

Bigfoots and sticky green

Duh

There's a few guys around here gonna hate me for this, as they want to keep the whole State to themselves....................but last I checked ........................






Southeast AK is still on the West Coast, no?


Geno

I was in the outskirts of Hartford, CT two months ago (Avon & Canton) and was surprised how hilly it was. I was in suburbia and had a decent size black bear and a bobcat run across the road in front of me in broad daylight.

Well........
Now that ya say that.

LOL!!!

Yeah, from what little I know of NH, it rates pretty high in individual liberty and was chosen for the Free State Project. I actually know very few people from NH and they were all military guys I served with. I think Daniel Webster and Massad Ayoob are probably the most famous New Hampsheahmen I'm aware of. It seems that those from there tend to stay there rather than migrate to other places. I probably know more folks in AK from ME than just about any other state. VT seems to be a state of weird contrasts. The problem with all three is you have to cross enemy territory to get to them.

Geno wins.

I had the same thought. Been there, lived it for a decade, wouldn’t mind doing it again if I had a good sized pile of money and some way to replenish that pile.

I've never been farther east than Minot, ND and that was 25 years ago so it would have to be west coast.

That and my wife grew up living on the west coast.

San Diego would work if I had to.

Kent

New England is beautiful, has a great economy, offers world class fishing, has vast reserves of open space, is steeped in history and it’s landscapes, and has lots of thriving gun clubs, but it suffers under a liberal political paradigm. I’ve had some of my best days duck hunting in New England and I grew up diver duck hunting on the Great Lakes. If you’re willing to travel to it’s northern most edges, you’ll have a chance at the best partridge and woodcock hunting on the planet. Unlike in California, gun regulation in Massachusetts is much more bark than bite. To a significant extent, I attribute this to New England’s legal system’s much older foundations and it being the historic center of the US gun industry. Neither of which will ultimately save it, particularly as the latter wanes into darkness. We’re going through a major cultural shift in America and like it or not, what’s being seen on the coasts is a blueprint for the future. These are the battle grounds and they deserve the support of anyone who cares about these issues. The liberals know this and pour in outside resources.

Pennsylvania or Maine

Pennsylvania is not New England, but it thanks you for the compliment!

I spent a month in New England one summer. Beautiful part of the world with excellent food. I really enjoyed the old houses friends of my host lived in, amazing to me that houses built in the 1780’s were still being lived in.

But ultimately I felt too crowded and there just wasn’t enough room for me to want to do any hunting up there even though I was invited back for deer season. Those guys’ “hunting land” places were smaller than our hay meadows.

It was a wonderful experience and I’d like to visit again.

I kinda dislike PA from driving across it.......but I’ll formally offer to trade PA for CT !

I loved being stationed in Wa State 88-95. Great hunting, fishing, skiing and other outdoors stuff but as bad as the liberal influx was then it has gotten worse. Now that all rule of law being is created out of Seattle and King County regardless of what the rest of the citizens want the result is mind boggling taxes and over regulation.

As my wife and I discussed potential retirement locations I did a lot of work figuring out where the things we like are (hunt, fish, ski, history, good medical care, mountains, lots of public land) and how that aligned with places with no large urban areas for the dazzling liberal urbanites to ruin the rest of a rural state the answer became obvious. New Hampshire.

Closing in rapidly on 3 years to the move.

and seat belts are optional over 18 years of age!

I'd consider the West coast of Florida.
I'm already on the West coast of the Atlantic Ocean though.

Kent, I know from your posts that you love the outdoors.

I grew up in that area, and can hardly stand to go back for visits to remaining family members. And the beaches and fishing I love. Too many people, no more shooting (or very few places) on public land, too many people. My brother just texted us the other night, it's taking him 1.5 to 2 hrs to get from where he's working to home at night, a trip that used to take me only 45 mins to an hour when I left there in '91, and it only took about 25 minutes on a Saturday morning when I went body surfing.

I told my wife 15 years or so ago, if she got rich enough to buy us a nice place west of the I5 in Encinitas, where I could go to the beach every day, ride my bicycle to the grocery store and local taco shop.........then I might consider living in San Diego again.

I hope you never "have to" live there, but that's just me.

Geno

New Hampshire or Maine, because of the above mentioned, and also because, tho I could never live there, NY State is so friggin beautiful. I could leave the handgun at home and visit.

I like Pa. too. Any state that has free state parks and “Public Hunting Lands” clearly marked all over can’t be all bad.

New England by a large margin.

Death by oga de boogadee

I already live in NE - oops - that's NE New Mexico !
And there will be icecycles hanging off the hinges to the gates of Hell, before I move!

Thanks Geno...

Being 5 1/2 hours away from San Diego I have visited often, sometimes taking the wife for a getaway or a boat out tuna fishing. I like California itself, just not most the people living there. I also have no problem heading down into Mexico fishing the Baja or Pacific, I know most that don't go down there are scared of it but I'd live in Mexico running a boat on the Baja before living in the east. I picked up a Boston Whaler that I will outfit for saltwater fishing. Will hit Huntington beach where my niece lives and we visit often, she loves fishing, maybe San Diego bay for sand bass and definitely Baja where I love to fish.

I don't ever plan to move from Az as I'm close to chit I like and living in chit I love, but if I had to it'd be San Diego.

Kent

New Hampshire and Vermont (that latter originally called the “New Hampshire Grants”) were originally Scots Irish all the way, what the American South might have been without the curse of Slavery.

No accident that the NH state motto is “Live Free or Die”, thank the Scots-Irish for that.

Understood Kent.

and on a good day in the spring (June?) don't be afraid to take that Whaler outside San Diego Harbor to off the beach at Imperial Beach if there's a sand bass bite going on there. Or out to the kelp for some of the bass out there.

Geno

Ken,
I lived in San Diego for a short time and fishing the bays for sand bass saved my sanity.... it used to be very good.... and Geno speaks the truth
Callico's in the kelp is good sport

As I'm getting older my hard hunting days are coming to an end and my fishing days, which are substantial already, will be increased. This last hunting season at 62 years old, I hit it hard, 9 days archery antelope hunting with a few close calls but no shot, then 8 days on a buddy's archery elk hunt when he missed 2 big bulls then able to kill a decent 270 bull on the 8th day and finally my leftover cow elk tag that was in some of the roughest country I've hunted, ended on the 5th day when I was questioning what I was doing out there and passing on a cow that would take me 2 hard days of packing to get the meat out.

I'm looking forward to fishing local, Cali and Baja more and hard hunting less.

Kent

Now you’re talking my language. I moor a boat in Newport, Oregon for 6 months out of the year, May-November. Halibut, salmon, tuna, rockfish, with crabbing whenever. You name it, it’s available.





P

You're a smart and lucky man.

Good fishing there,

Geno

New England is not a homogeneous piece of real estate.

Vermont is so liberal that it is on the very edge of socialist, probably due to an influx of people from the NYC Metro area.

New Hampshire north of Concord is still mostly rural, conservative, and Caucasian.

Maine is Maine, not an attractive place to live because of the grinding rural poverty.

Massachusetts is Kennedy liberal, lots of rich people who want the middle-class to pay for programs that might lift the poor up from their poverty cycles. That said, MA west of I-91 is pretty nice, but it would be nicer is it wasn't burdened by the liberal agenda of the rich and powerful.

Rhode Island is too small to be much more than Providence and its suburbs.

Connecticut is a lot more rural than most people think that it is, but the money and power is in the bedroom communities like Greenwich and Darien and along I-91 and I-95.

I have kin in Vermont, going up there was always a great trip forty or fifty years ago. Still is. Vermont has changed tho CERTAINLY due to an influx of rich urban Liberals. No surprise, Vermont sits within a half day’s drive of every major city between New Jersey and Massachusetts, but IIRC as it always has, constitutional carry still persists in that little state.



Sorta like East Texas without the Black people except with 40 below in the winter, and more blackflies and no-see-ums in the spring than you ever dreamed existed 🙂



Even way back then, Massachusetts gun laws sucked. Leighton has showed us another side tho.



My sister lives just north of there, in a rural area of NY along the Taconic Parkway, North of her lies the Berkshire Mountains of Eastern Massachusett, north of that lies Vermont.

OMG land prices anywhere along that whole NYC/Vermont corridor have gone absolutely through the roof, even by NY standards. Second homes of wealthy urban professionals on high acreage homesites.

Did the LT ever respond to the question “why ya asking”.

Then why does NH keep electing those that want to take it away from everyone?

Much of NH south of Concord is, more or less, an extension of suburban Boston, while the 2/3 of NH north of Concord is mostly conservative, with the exception of the college towns of Hanover and Plymouth and Hanover's "suburb", Lebanon. The majority of the people in NH live south of Concord and tend to think and act like they are part of MA.

A guy who I know a bit had been a NH county sheriff for a long time, was competent, respected, and generally well liked, but he was voted out of office in 2018 because he is a conservative republican. He lost the election because the liberal Democrats in Hanover, Lebanon, and Plymouth voted him out as push-back against President Trump. He was the best, most experienced, candidate and the so called "Blue Wave" got him. I think that it was a short sighted move, but the vitriol that so many Democrats have toward President Trump appears to have influenced them to damn all Republicans and raise up all Democrats without regard for who the best, most qualified candidate actually was.

I think that the political environment in NH may be similar to CO, CT, OR, and WA, in that the liberal populations are concentrated in urban/suburban zip codes, while the conservative populations are scattered n the rural parts of the states. Majority rules and the greater number of voting urban/suburban liberals keeps their agenda moving forward.

Vermont and New Hampshire are beautiful states and have good gun laws. I've been to Washington and Oregon. Didn't particularly care for either and the gun laws suck.

Lived in Oregon back when it hadn't gone completely to ____. I rather be dead than to go back.

It pains me to even think about it, much less resolve it in my mind. The due diligence list would be too long, although I think that I would lean toward a place with the most open public land far from urban population centers. My playground here is 1700 square miles, almost all contiguous, and barely scratches the surface of public playground space available to me within a few hours' drive. That may rule out New England.

There's a lot to not like about Oregon, but please do tell about the gun laws. The county I live in is a 2nd Amendment sanctuary and is as conservative as anywhere I lived in Utah, possibly even more so. There's not a single firearm I couldn't own/possess here if I wanted. No magazine restrictions, no waiting periods, instant background checks, plus no sales tax.

I’d have to strongly consider it.

We loved NE as tourists. Momma drove that small rv like she stole it. Beautiful country, just beautiful

Course we’ve also enjoyed our soirées thru the WC


Damn redwoods and sequoias are a must see in this too short a life



There’s pockets in both places I could live happily


It seems it’s more how you live than where you live

But then I’ve lived in a place I truly love for the last 40 years. Been thru some hard winters too.


My biggest problem with either locale is too many folks for my tastes

Mike!

Never been east of Texas and only there once in '79, don't ever plan on going east but never say never I guess.

Even if I was forced to live on the west coast I'm not far from getting away from people and escaping to wide open country, my perception of the east is that isn't so.

My bloodline has always been some of the first in the west, Augusta Archambeau who guided Fremont and Kit Carson, his brother my greatgreatgrandfather who came to California in the 1840s, not to dig gold but grow grapes... and Powell exploring the Colorado.

I'm a westerner and specifically a southwesterner, I imagine I'll die that way.

Kent

Vermont

Not me. I've been wanting to move to New England for the last 20 years.

If property taxes aren't an issue, NW Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, Vermont, Northern New Hampshire. Maine is a great state, and apart from ocean front property, taxes aren't too bad. I could do any of them.

There are also plenty of places in Oregon and California I could live. Just turn off the local news...

I can buy a Sportsman's Pack with upland game, turkey, cougar, bear, deer, elk, fishing, and crabbing licenses, with plenty of opportunity for all. Bay fishing/crabbing in my backyard (can't do the ocean because I get seasick). World-class steelhead and smallmouth bass fishing in the rivers. Like I said before, there's plenty to dislike about Oregon, but if you like the outdoors, there's plenty to do and see. Just have to avoid Potland, Eugene, and Ashland.

Choose wisely. Don't pick a state with a big debt mountain and who is being held hostage by unfunded union contracts.

You just identified Oregon. PERS (public employee retirement system) is in the process of bankrupting the state. Waaay upside down in the financial obligation. $25 billion and more.

Hence my reason for an exit strategy.





P

Avoid CT.
Thank me later.....

We've definitely talked about leaving Oregon and Texas, Idaho, and Wyoming may become targets.
Liberal Governor and Portland, Eugene, Bend liberalitice is getting to be too much.

^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^ memtb

West Coast, all day. And I have an office in Vermont.

You can buy the Sportsman's Pack and the price has gone up consistently to now pushing $200. The game is so mismanaged by the Fish and Wildlife that it is becoming non-existent. If we want a quality deer or elk, we go out of state. All the ODFW is after is money and if you don't believe that, visit the log mansion fish and game main office in Salem. They had a dozen employees in cubicles when I visited and the only one that they said could answer my question was out to lunch!!! Meeting rooms, displays...looks like a museum with no body in it.

Wow, a whole $200.00!

Save a seat for me.

Where I am, you will always be welcome, brother.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS !

Vermont born and stayed here all 71 years. Expensive with high taxes but the rural beauty is worth it. Just stay out of the liberal cities and enjoy nature.

I thought this thread was west coast versus new england IPA'S. Damn I was wrong

As vaguely written it could be anything, patriots vs 49ers?

So I'll just answer the way I read it.

Kent

Maine is still a good place to live.

Utah is full up.........

don't even consider..........

no p/dogs......no 30" bucks.....no public land 395" bulls.......no public land at all

too many people already........taxes are insane.......no place to shoot.......

I want aware Utah bordered the Pacific Ocean...

Same in Wyoming, all the 5 acre ranches are sold out now, gate is locked.

elec, welcome to the madhouse.

hell.....can't even find a a couple million acres to ride the SxS.....

It's a hard question. Politically, New Hampshire is the hands-down choice. Weather and scenery wise, it's California. As to like-minded people, hard to say. I have the feeling that it's also Cali or the other left coast states, where you'd probably be out numbered but still have lots of conservative/libertarian types that want to be left alone. California despite it's heavy population overall, has lots of places that are damned isolated too. Populated with individualistic types. I guess we'll soon see with the Virginia experiment, how hot the commies are to f u c k with people like us. The bottom line is, even if your state is good, the commies aren't gonna let it lie.

Did anyone consider that British Columbia is on the West Coast? Vancouver and Victoria are about the two finest cities I have visited.

Not to mention some of the smaller locations on Vancouver Island.

You could always work for Wild West guns..

There are plenty of great places in this country and also in Canada....

Bottom line, is what we are trying to dodge, is overbearing Government, and leftist politicians... and the clowns that support them...

only choices are places, that have been less polluted with them than somewhere else...if you are trying to escape that... good luck..

only options are living in a Motor home and migrating.....or fighting liberalsim all you can... with those with likewise intent.

because no matter where you go, if the area isn't over polluted with leftists, you can bet its on their radar...

the only real freedom on this continent any more, is no government knows you exist and you have bank accounts full of money stashed all over the place..

if not hassled by the government in some way, I can find a lot of wonderful places in the USA and Canada still left...
but they certainly don't involve cities....you can pretty much write all of those off...

my wife is like ALL Women.. they are nesters... gotta have the house, etc,,,

myself, I'm happy with a home base, but being out enjoying what is left that is great in this nation and Canada for most of the time...

Somewhere inbetween..................a little West of center.

NE without a doubt. it would take someone holding a gun to my head to move to west coast. NE almost the same, but not quite.

NE for me. Maine or NH

The gun laws here in Washington only started getting passed within the last couple of years but they’re still pretty reasonable. It’s a SHALL issue state for a CCP and open carry has been and still is legal. No magazine restrictions and we have qualified immunity in cases of self defense. If the state tries you for a self defense shooting and you prevail then the state is required to pay your court and attorney fees. It also protects us from civil suits in justified self defense cases.

We’re a conservative state overall but a few city centers ruin the elections and give us all a bad name.....and election fraud is rampant among the democrats so even when we elect a Republican governor the liberals win in liberal courts. I’m sure you can appreciate the irony of drawing conclusions about an entire state based upon the big city. 😉

We’re about 7 times the size of New Hampshire AND Vermont so it doesn’t take long to get away from the city and into the wild.....or into regular America. We have high desert and temperate rainforests. Huge deep (1500ft) lakes and coastal beaches. 14,000+ foot mountains and deep gorges. This is truly a magnificent state with incredible bio-diversity but it’s all being overshadowed and ruined by liberal faqs.

We also don’t have much for bugs, snakes, sharks, gators, hurricanes and tornadoes.....just earthquakes. 😁

Merry Christmas to you and yours Blackheart.

Not much land to hunt in Oregon.

That's a nice Savage. What caliber?

I've found that it's easier to live most places if you don't wear your causes on your sleeve. Some places that I wouldn't mind living, if I moved there I'd just "disappear" the hi-caps and AR's. Still have the hunting guns, 1911's, etc, etc, but keep a few that you don't talk about. I hate talking politics, even with those that I agree with.

303

West Coast versus New England is near impossible to pick a clear winner.

Being from New England I have my spots I love to hunt, fish, snowboard, mountain bike, whitewater kayak, rock and ice climb and surf.

Having lived in SoCal and worked in OR and WA there are places that I absolutely love as well.

Hunting, snowboarding, rock climbing and surfing the win goes to the West Coast!

Ice Climbing and Mountain Biking go to New England!

Ties are Fishing and whitewater kayaking.

Both face the exact same problems, they are inundated by Liberal/Socialist. If you could eradicate them in both places you couldn't go wrong in either region.

I moved out west from east coast 15 years ago. I just spent last year working on the east coast again. No thanks. Florida to Maine wall to wall people.


No contest. I loved Maine and New Hampshire when I lived there but don't compare to E Oregon, Montana Idaho etc

West coast wins. Get on the east side of the cascades if you move out

.Much better weather, less humidity, Fewer ticks, almost no lymes disease, Much less violent crime, better skiing, better bird hunting( big passion of mine) three species of grouse shot in one day, better fishing, better biking, less people, less traffic, better hunting if do the non res licenses, better fly fishing, better off roading, close to Alaska, tons of public land and better bigger mountains, camping, hiking, back country hunting


Less people !!

you can sit and watch a herd of elk feed on your property with your dog

Aces,

you seem to have forgotten those little explosive mountains............like St Helens.

Geno


PS, I've got a couple of big ones within 100 miles too. Maybe that's why I don't forget them.

A redoubt centered on the east coast is doomed for failure. There is an ice age coming and you need to go south-west situated on the Pacific coast or the Gulf of Mexico.

Wow. The original.

I'm a little more narrow minded than the OP. I decided on the west coast, and eliminated Washington, Oregon, and California, and a few others. Idaho is as far as the west coast as I'm interested in.

One word:

CHOWDA !

What a beautiful spot you have!

The west. There are to many people, and far to little public lands in the east!

In general the migration has been from the east to the west and still is today. If westcoaster moves east it's usually a step back into another western state.

Kent

I like hunting in a welfare state. Lots of free land.

I guess I'd have to choose the west coast









OF WISCONSIN

More Wisconsin Scenery...

Wisconsin Scenery

It’s gotta be NH or Maine. The rest of New England sucks too much for reason or another. NH and Maine are still good/great. I live in NH and have for the past 20 years since moving from MA, which I left running and screaming. Don’t think i’ll be moving out of state again and eventually take the dirt nap here. If I did, it would be further north into ME. Currently living in the ‘coastal capitol’ of Portsmouth. Have had enough of the growth, influx, change and increasingly leftist political climate. North and west around The Lakes region and north of there is where it’s best.

I will say the hills in Oregon are getting bigger every year. I may end up in Nebraska if I'm not careful.

FIXT

I love the West, but NH would be a close 2nd.

Dimocraps, GH, dimocraps.

Any fish outside sardine tins?

If you're considering the N.E. you might as well consider S.E. Alaska too....which is where I'd head to.....but at 68 Y.O. I'm falling apart pretty quick.....

Nice

Great, Ribka.

Just got back from California.
I agree, death.

I've lived on both and as much as I love my home state of Maine, I prefer the west coast. A lot more hunting opportunities and more space to escape the leftist loons.

Anyone moving to S.E. Alaska had better like rain because they get a chit ton of it.

50 years ago, I dreamed of moving to Alaska.....life got in the way! I never made It! memtb

I grew up in Wisconsin. Cant beat the Fall there. Now the winters......

South Dakota

I have lived in Washington, Oregon and Virginia. I would take the left coast for the mountains but the laws there...suck...