Where to Move to in Oregon?

[Bristol]

Please help me with a BIG life decision.

I really enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, and snowshoeing. I also strongly prefer moderate weather (no freezing cold winters) so that I can enjoy these activities year-round. I lived near Redding, California for six years and loved it, but I have always moved where the job is (Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, Kansas, and even China) and thus have lived in Texas the last three years.

I really regret this last move. It's time for me and my family to make a final move to the perfect place for us and just find a good job there - a move for happiness, not money! We are really focused on the central Oregon area from Medford on up to Eugene (close to the ocean, close to the redwoods, close to the Cascades, good weather).

So here's the question for you Portland Hikers who have experience in this part of the country - where would be the ideal place to live in Oregon and why? Which town would you pick? Portland, Bend, Eugene, Grants Pass, Cottage Grove - or forget that Washington or NorCal?

Thanks,

Kirk Bristol

[Lumpy]

I believe this is an impossible question for someone else to answer for you and your family.

Oregon has it all, you just have to find where you fit into it. That is a very personal thing. My parents spent years travelling to western Washington before they settled on the Olympic Peninsula, and a couple more years before settling on where on the peninsula. Then, they spent more than 20 years there until the recent death of my mom. They may have been more picky than your family might be, but if this is going to be your final move, I wouldn't leave it up to anyone else.

Any area near any major metro area, but maybe not in a major metro area, will give you access to everything you are looking for, and everything else is less than a day's drive away. That is Oregon and Washington to me. It's so hard for me to nail down where I like it best around here, I am considering getting a travel trailer and rambling around until I find a place to call my very own, or maybe even no place, and keep on rambling.

[adamschneider]

If you're looking for access to hiking, Portland is probably a better choice than Eugene or Medford... unless you really want to be able to do day trips to The Redwoods or Shasta.

Of course, there are enormous political and cultural differences between all these areas too; these matter more to some people than others. And in that respect, Medford and Portland may as well be on different planets! (And Bend is on yet another planet, one populated largely by a diverse crowd of ex-Californians who love new construction.)

[sprengers4jc]

I agree with Lumpy that this is a hard topic on which to give input, since everyone's experiences and needs are different. For what it's worth, when we moved from NC seven years ago, neither of us had a job. I was originally offered a job on the coast but there was no employment for my wife so we took our chance and moved to SW Washington. It took us two months to find jobs, even in such a heavily-populated area. We find the recreation opportunities here to be unparalleled and have never regretted the move, as the quality of life is very good here. I can't speak to anywhere else on the West coast, as we have only lived in Camas and Vancouver but it may also depend on your line of work and your significant other's work as to where you end up. My wife was a Montessori teacher, so we moved to Portland instead of Pacific City. I am a writer, so I can pretty much write anywhere. So this area made sense for us. Wherever you end up, best of luck to you!

[Water]

What Lumpy said..truly. You should take a vacation up here at a minimum if you can.. maybe once in august and once in february. If you don't like cold winters, Bend is more like a midwestern town temperature wise in winter. Sunny though.. but frosty mornings/plenty of below freezing temps. Hotter in summer too, but certainly not humid--but the temps swing a lot more there through the year than a place closer to the coast or in the valley.

Personally if I could live in any place in Oregon it would be Bend. Or Joseph OR out by the Wallowas maybe... but probably Bend, best of many worlds imo.

One thing to ask yourself about 'close to redwoods' and other things is really how close do you want/need to be. On a different scale I recently hung our bikes up in our entry-way stairwell. At first I was a bit perturbed that they kinda took up space there, but now that it has been a few weeks it is funny because the amount of time I spend in that hallway is laughably low in the scope of my home time. If you expect to go to the red woods every weekend..maybe move to Crescent City. Or if you expect to go to the OR coast weekly..maybe move to the coast? But if you'd like to take a handful of trips, maybe visit the red woods 5 times a year and the coast 10-15 times a year--if living an extra hour or two from either of those allows for better school/housing/employment... that is probably a trade-off worth making. After all they're still 'at hand' here in this state.

[arundodonax]

Consider Ashland:

A good mix of Oregon-y-ness and more Portlandy than the rest of Southern Oregon, good weather, great hiking (Trinity Alps/Russians/Marbles/Shasta/Southern Cascades, etc, etc), skiing not too far (Shasta/Bachelor), there's work in Medford to some extent, moderate winters for the most part. Some of the community is a little older (+65), another fraction is college age and above (SOU). I'm in Grants Pass right now and I'd move down there if I could.

If you wanted to live in an even smaller town, Mt. Shasta and Hood River are other places I'd throw around for easy access to great hiking. There are a lot of cool small towns in the WA Cascades as well.

And another vote for Bend on the list of "where I would move if I had my druthers."

[tednottodd]

I'll take a stab at this. I don't think the OP is asking for us to make their decision, just looking for input. I am not making judgments about the differing areas, and these are just my perceptions. I have never lived in some of the areas so I could be wrong.

For starters if you tell people you want to live in Central Oregon, they will think anything east of Mt Hood until you get to the far eastern part of the state. Think Bend, Lapine, Prineville, Redmond etc. If you are talking Northern or Southern Oregon don't use the term Central people won't know what you are talking about.

If you choose Portland area. You can be at Mt Hood in an hour and at the coast in slightly more than that. It is wetter than further south, but temperate. When I say Portland, I am thinking Portland Metro. There are many suburbs that you could choose without being in the city. It would likely be cheaper to live in Vancouver, no state income tax but they do have sales tax. However, if you live in Vancouver and work in Oregon, throw that out the window because Oregon taxes all income earned here even if you aren't a resident.

If you are looking further south in the Willamette Valley, you will likely be able to get to Central Oregon faster for lots of great outdoor sports, as well as reaching the coast in good time, but you will be further away from Mt Hood. There is plenty of great skiing on Bachelor (i'm not a skier) in Central Oregon though. The further south you go, you will find less rain. It gets hot in Medford and the air can be questionable at times. Ashland has a great cultural scene. Some of the other Willamette Valley cities may lack a tad in that department.

Politically Portland is seen as more liberal. There are plenty of conservative people in PDX, but there are just more left leaners and they vote. Medford, Roseburg and Salem would likely be more conservative on the whole. Ashland has a bunch of old hippies. You may hear the term "State of Jefferson" there was a movement that you may or may not be aware of to have southern Oregon and Northern California form a separate state because those people are more like minded as a group. I don't know if it's really true, but people down there still talk about it.

There likely won't be great job opportunities on the southern coast if you were looking at the beach as a possibility. The coast can be very wet. Lots of people obviously like it, but it would be too wet for me. Central and eastern are really high desert. It gets cold and hot. Sometimes in the same day. The further east you go, the more remote. Bend is pretty liberal, but on the whole, central and eastern Oregon are pretty conservative. As in other more rural areas, people are pretty independent, and I think their politics follow suit.

I hope this helps some.

[llamero]

Bristol, I think you can rule out Bend if you want to avoid freezing cold winters. Some people consider the winters in the Willamette Valley to be moderate, but I'll offer Roseburg, OR. as a place you might consider as a base for your outdoor adventures. Roseburg is the gateway to the absolutely stunning Umpqua River system and Crater Lake, not too far from the southern Oregon coast, close to the Rogue River and near enough to the Siskiyou Mountains.

I find this site useful for researching towns.

www.city-data.com/city/Roseburg-Oregon.html

Enjoy

[Koda]

I really enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, and snowshoeing. I also strongly prefer moderate weather (no freezing cold winters) so that I can enjoy these activities year-round.

It should be noted that Hood River and Bend are renowned Mt Bike meccas. But neither are moderate weather in winter although Hood River has some year round mt bike options most times and is a stones throw from year round hiking in the renowned Columbia River Gorge. If I were you I would strongly look at Hood River for year round hiking and mt biking out the front door and a very quaint town.

[adamschneider]

If I were you I would strongly look at Hood River for year round hiking and mt biking out the front door and a very quaint town.

Plus, Hood River has the best ice cream shop in the world.


(Seriously though, Koda's right: HR is a nice compromise between a lot of different facets of Oregon. It's halfway between sun and rain, you can't beat the views, and it's not as conservative as most small towns.)