This one's too big.
This one's too small.
This one's too far.
Ah...just right!
...At least I'm hoping to come across a place that is just right. For the next year and an half Cameron and I are setting off to find our just right landing grounds...whether it is a metropolis (Alberta and Calgary, Canada are the two largest places on my list, each with populations over 1,000,000) or a hamlet (there are six towns with populations under 5,000 that we're considering), my goal is to fall in love with a place, buy a house, and stay settled for the next 30 years.
I spent the first few months of 2021 devising a list of locations that I thought might be just right. I started with over 600 sites, littering the entirety of the US and Canada. Months of research allowed me to whittle it down to a manageable 43. Some components were easy to find, like population density and livability scores, whereas others took significant sleuthing, such as finding the distance to the closest airport from which I could fly to both Seattle and El Paso with one layover or less (that one knocked off most of the smaller towns in eastern Canada).
Even with over two dozen qualifications each town needs to meet, I know that you can't fall in love with a place based purely how well it scores on paper. Attraction requires on-site inspection. How else am I going to know if kids ride their bikes around town or if neighbors greet each other as they sit on their front stoops? That's why Cameron and I have bought a van (which is now delayed, but expected to be delivered mid-November, 2021) and are setting out for a year on this Goldilocks Project.
The current plan (subject to spontaneity) is to visit the handful of locations in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah as we build out the van from Mountain Green, UT. Once it's in ship-shape, we'll hit the road and make our way to the Northwest (roughly Spring, 2022). Once we finish with Washington State, we'll catch a ferry to Alaska, then drive across the Canadian border (Summer, 2022) before dropping back into the US via Maine. We'll zig-zag through New England and the Midwest (Fall, 2022) before heading South for the winter (Winter 2022-2023). Hopefully, by Spring, 2023 we'll be making our way towards our new dream home.
We're not planning on hitting every state, and I'm expecting we might end up with a toss-up, in which case we'll do a longer multi-month stay in each of the final contenders (assuming we don't hate each other and the van by that point). However, to make sure we are fair, and don't fall for recency bias, I will be using this blog as my field notes, documenting the good, the bad, and the in-the-moment verdict ("yes, I would live here," or "absolutely not!"). For now, welcome on board! (I know you say that for ships and buses, so I'm hoping the same greeting applies for vans, too.)
The List
If you were an avid reader of my former blog, Aackle in Krakow, you may be familiar with this list. For those of you were are here purely for van-life adventures, you can learn more about my initial van plan here, and details on the research process here.
As linked already, above, you can find the full initial list and the research notes here.
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