For me, since I’ve been 100% remote for 8 years now, I can live pretty much anywhere I want, as long as there’s decent Internet. As my kids all grew up and moved out to live their own lives, I asked myself where I really wanted to live. One was Ecuador, specifically because of the tropical climate combined with high altitude rain forests. The other was the PNW. My partner and I came up to Eugene, OR and did a massive three day tour of Oregon and southern Washington looking for a place to live and finally settled on Eugene, at least to start. Now we live in northern Salem, OR and we absolutely love it here. The climate (bring on the rain!), the overall feeling of the people, the forests and beaches, just all of it really. To be fair, there are definitely still a number of hateful angry people who live in rural areas, which can be problematic, but overall it’s lovely.
What made you move?
I’ve been to every state and Oregon was always my favorite, so I moved here in 1989. Back then, Portland was a really cool city to live in but that’s changed. I still live in Oregon, just not Portland.
I moved out here in 2013. The person I was with at the time wanted to get out of the Midwest, and it was between Portland and NYC. I felt that Portland was more my speed, and 10 years and a few relationships later, I’m still stoked with my choice! Making meaningful, long term friendships has been a challenge for this introvert, but I’m happy to be here while I figure that out!
Moved here this year after too many years of feeling unsafe being openly gay in public living in the midwest. I was even in a medium sized city but there are just too many small minded backwards people there, my partner and I didn’t even feel safe holding hands in public. Now we’re in the PNW and feel like we can just be normal without constantly worrying that someone will see us “looking gay in public” and react with hostility.
I moved to Oregon from the E Coast in 2008 to attend University and also because of the climate (physical and political). I absolutely loved the gloomy Eugene winters, and the cool summers. Lately, however, it hasn’t been the same. For the last three years I was forced to move to Southern Oregon because of work, and loathe the 100+F degree summers (April though October) and the MAGA people. Still, I would never live anywhere else than the PNW. Hopefully soon I can move back to Eugene.
Originally from Texas, came up here for school over a decade ago and found the weather, people, and ease of queer existence agreed with me a lot more than Texas did! I do miss the landscape and culture of the southwest but I love the landscape and culture here too.
Cost of living in our home state and we have always loved PDX. My wife wanted to move here for years before we finally decided to do it.
Moved here when I was a kid because of my dads job. Since then I just decided to stay. Love for the outdoors
Hey, North Salem! South Salem here. :)
For me, we moved here from Montana a bit over a decade ago. Interviewed for a job in January, and they asked me if I was still interested, having now experienced the typical dreary 50 degree weather. I explained to them that the HIGH when I left Montana was -20. Like, the day had to work hard to get UP to twenty below.
You don’t realize how many shades of green there are till you spend some time in the PNW. :)
My sister lives in Bozeman and it always amazes me when she tells me the temp there.
Hiking opportunities, the proximity of mountains and sea. I would say weather, but it’s gotten a lot hotter over the past two decades…
