Is there anywhere in the world that has all these things?

What about New Zealand?

That sounds alot like the Northeast. We have most of what you mention here in central New Jersey.

Areas near or around Boston, or if you are feelthy rich, areas near or around Manhattan.

(I can’t guarantee non-humid summers, but you would be near both the Atlantic and decent mts., if not as spectacular as the Rockies, Cascades or Alps.)

Madison, Wisconsin

My son went to grad. school in Madison and complained bitterly that it was too flat. (Altho he was a complainer.) But he did enjoy cross-country skiing on that river (What’s its name?)

New zealand does have all these things, in fact, it is the only country in the world with evey type of climate. The South Island is a hiking and mountain climbing paradise, it has spectacular autumns, cities that retain a lot of old architecture (particularly Dunedin, Invercargill and Oamaru) and some pretty wild weather comes up from the Antarctic. It only gets humid in the far North of the country (Auckland and above).The political climate is relatively liberal and there are no poison or dangerous animals.

@Tupera: How difficult is it to get a permanent visa (and thus a paying job) in NZ for a non-national?

Money Magazine has a calculator to help you choose a city in the US. I did it several years ago and eventually moved less than 50 miles from where it told me.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/
It doesn’t seem as good as it did then, but there are more options if you choose to “refine” your search.

Yeah, Madison is kind of flat and cold. But there are some rolling hills just west of the city and you cannot beat the low cost of living or all the lakes. Not sure which river he meant, Gail. The Yahara, maybe? The Wisconsin?

The closest river to the Grad. program in Comp. Lit. My son’s idea of rolling hills were The Wind Rivers’ in Wyoming.

Boulder, CO?
Taos, NM?

If you could combine Boulder and Taos, then you’d have something. (Boulder has too many perfect, blond, athletic students from the University who rush up and down The Flatirons on their way to the gym. Taos is fun but filled with lots of wifty artists – but fun.)

Welcome to California!

Northern California, on north up through Oregon, all the way up to Seattle Washington.

My top choice: San Francisco CA.

@loser is right, dude. Before you make your list of must-haves, check out California. My crap pictures don’t begin to do it justice.

edit: @sndfreQ too!

I agree with New Zealand and will add Southeastern Australia. If you want to stay stateside look here for liberal cities.

I don’t think San Francisco could be classified as a place with really good Autumns or a lot of thunderstorms, maybe a little more north, but not SF.

And Gail, before I even received my Masters, I was recruited for a job in NZ. Of course that was many moons ago, but I got the idea that if your profession is in demand, the PV and job permits were no problem.

Maine or Vermont, USA (New England area)

I know Toronto, Canada has spectacular thunderstorms and most of the rest of the list too, I suppose. Summers are VERY humid though, so I’m gonna guess that maybe Montreal is a better fit. If you can do without the thunderstorms though, I think Vancouver fits all your other criteria nicely.

Saratoga Springs, NY

If you’re flexible on the thunderstorms (because they wouldn’t be that frequent), I’d suggest Sweden.

Sounds like my ideal place to heh. If I ever get the money and when I get older and have the chance to go places maybe I should give it a shot at visiting some of these places. They sound quite nice :)

Seattle doesn’t have a lot of thunderstorms. It’s more of a drizzley rain a lot of the winter with a few thunderstorms. But other than that you’ve described Seattle.

Portland, Oregon is nice, too, from the bits of it I saw.

sky: what does “to heh” mean? Some new Internet slang I am not familiar with?

My daughter is just N. of Vancouver, which she says is gorgeous. The paper work now for a US citizen who wants to stay and earn a salary is complicated and in her case, requires an attorney who specialises in immigration issues.

My daughter had to provide notarized facsimiles of her college diploma and financial records, for starters.

I suppose it’s sort of a ‘half laugh’, a little chuckle, a comma would have felt at home before it. I’m not too sure of what it’s really used for, but I use it just to ‘chuckle’ as opposed to a full on laugh.

Montreal fits most of those criteria. people complain a lot (about politics, hockey which is religion, and the anglo/franco debate). speaking of anglophone/francophone, its very hard to get a job in Montreal if you dont speak french.

another option would be Victoria, BC. just adjacent to Vancouver. it has an interesting history and has a fun port, mainly for tourists though. the winters are pretty brutal, but the summers are gorgeous. you also might notice many asian people because of immigration, and chinese is the unnofficial 3rd language.

sky, maybe what you were trying to write was: “sounds like my ideal place too, heh.” (too, as in also?) Gail, “heh” is kind of an under-breath laugh, a shortened form of heh, heh, heh. (and my auto spell-check is telling me it is improper English, for the moment, at least)

Yes, that is what I meant, I’m not too sure when to use to/too in that cirumstance, I know when to use ‘too’ when it’s ‘too much’, but besides that I’m clueless, ta :)

Post it as a question and I’m sure Gail and others will answer it. They will be able to explain it MUCH better than I can. I’m sure you’ll help a lot of others if you do so and you will find out that you are not alone. We have some true experts here, so post any questions like that that you can think of. Don’t do as some do and take offense when you are corrected, (you didn’t, by the way). All of us get hung up on certain aspects of the English language at times, and it is really great to have a site like this where we can get then cleared up.

Keep in mind, however that the UK has different forms of some structure and spellings than does the US, so mention which form you want if you have a question…or better yet, ask for both.

Homophone misuse is a bit of a pet peeve with me. If this isn’t asked by this evening I may give it a go. Cheers!

Some people get really annoyed when we writers comment on this. So it’s often lose-lose.
“Too” is really easy. It is a simple replacement for “also” or in the case of “too much,” “overly.”

Skyrail meant, I see now, “Sounds like my ideal place also, (chuckle).

“To” is a preposition. “To be or not to be.” “Happy Birthday to you.” To me, it is a matter of long usage. Or, “To all of you nit-pickers, ease up.”

Same with it’s = it is. It’s easy, if you’re not careful, to let misuse of commas take its toll on your nervous system.

Two is the number.

“Their” is possessive. Their football…

“They’re” is abbreviation for “they are.”

“There” is an adverb. A way of checking whether you want to use it is to substitute “here.”

They’re really mad because their football is over there (or over here).

Wow Gail, thank you, I’ve saved that now on a document on Google Docs, I’ll be sure to look at it when I get stuck. I’m especially bad at slipping in the ’ in ‘it’s’ when there’s no need to and my comma usage is dreadful. Just wished I had asked it as a question now!

@sky-stick, with, me, kid.

I agree with New Zealand, and SouthEastern Australia, especially Tasmania. And it’s not just because I live there. It has all of the things you listed, except the political one, which is “Labor” right now, though I don’t know how our Liberal, Labor and Greens correlate/compare with American politics. Our wilderness, and hiking opportunities, are especially amazing, I feel.

Perhaps it could be dreamland or a France.The city as Lion and Schampagne area….....

Schurely you mean Champagne and Lyons? Or not.

“a France”? I didn’t know there was more than one…

Portland Oregon, Southwestern France (from the Spanish Border up through La Rochelle).

Central Europe has all of these. Mostly Austria, north of Italy, Slovenia. Summers can get hot though.