I lived in California for a few years. I'm actually going to visit it again in about 2 weeks.
I really don't like living in areas with high density, and imo being able to go to beautiful hiking spots (especially without much people) plays a huge role in how much I like to live somewhere, which is subjective of course. As most people know, California is not good for that, lmao. But even excluding that, it has lots of issues. And I don't know where exactly you lived in California, but the traffic was absolutely terrible and the drivers weren't technically bad, just very rude and cut you off whenever they can. I lived in southern California which is way worse than northern California in several ways iirc, so that might be why
As for Missouri, yes, the taxes are not very impressive but the house prices and general cost of living is very low. It might be rising by now, though. I wouldn't know since it has been a while since I've looked at anything related to Missouri
And as for your favorite states being Oregon and Utah, well that's interesting... because those are my two favorites as well. I too would exclude Portland since it feels like a dystopia down there, but I'm biased since I never liked living directly in cities. I don't have a comment on how Utah is with taxes but Oregon doesn't have sales tax and relatively good house prices (although not notably good either), so I'll take it
Anyway to wrap it up - both Oregon and Utah are absolutely gorgeous; they offer some of the most beautiful places in the entirety of North America but there aren't tourists or people everywhere either. Actually, most places are completely empty since there's usually a tourist spot nearby... always nice
I really don't like living in areas with high density, and imo being able to go to beautiful hiking spots (especially without much people) plays a huge role in how much I like to live somewhere, which is subjective of course. As most people know, California is not good for that, lmao. But even excluding that, it has lots of issues. And I don't know where exactly you lived in California, but the traffic was absolutely terrible and the drivers weren't technically bad, just very rude and cut you off whenever they can. I lived in southern California which is way worse than northern California in several ways iirc, so that might be why
As for Missouri, yes, the taxes are not very impressive but the house prices and general cost of living is very low. It might be rising by now, though. I wouldn't know since it has been a while since I've looked at anything related to Missouri
And as for your favorite states being Oregon and Utah, well that's interesting... because those are my two favorites as well. I too would exclude Portland since it feels like a dystopia down there, but I'm biased since I never liked living directly in cities. I don't have a comment on how Utah is with taxes but Oregon doesn't have sales tax and relatively good house prices (although not notably good either), so I'll take it
Anyway to wrap it up - both Oregon and Utah are absolutely gorgeous; they offer some of the most beautiful places in the entirety of North America but there aren't tourists or people everywhere either. Actually, most places are completely empty since there's usually a tourist spot nearby... always nice