Just an idea, but have you considered signing up to be a traveling nurse for a year or so? I have a rental house that I rented to a traveling nurse for a few months last year. She works for an agency out of New Mexico and tells them the type of community that she would like to live in for a few months. While it may not pay quite as well as a regular hospital position, they find you a house and then pick up the rent as part of your compensation. My tenant had been doing it for a few years and loved getting to try living in different areas of the nation. Since she was an ER nurse, they never seemed to have difficulty placing her. You could test out different cities and then make a permanent move when you find a town that you want to call home. Good luck!

Best laugh of the day at Fodor's: Mankato MN on anyone's list of best places to live (except, maybe for people from Owatonna MN...Mankato may be a step up, not sure).<BR>And the Chamber of Commerce for Madison WI ain't going to get much mileage out of pitching Applebee's as a great restaurant destination, or Kohl's for shopping...for someone from Chicago?? No way.<BR><BR>Best suggestions:<BR>Fort Collins<BR>Burlington<BR>Chapel Hill<BR>Santa Fe<BR>Flagstaff<BR>

Have you considered Rochester, Minn.? It fits several of your needs and is home to the Mayo Clinic.<BR>

Mybe we need to hear back from Connie. I don't think she means to move out of Chicago to move to somewhere in the mid-west practically commuting distance from home with the same or worse weather etc. She seems to be looking for somewhere a bit different. I'm would think she is already familiar with Wisconson and Minnesota. If not, she really does need to travel to some new places.

Try the website Findmyspot.com

Connie:<BR>Jackson, Tennessee. We are 90 miles from Memphis. 120 miles from Nashville. 4 colleges in the city. 7 colleges within 30 miles including Univ. of Tennessee-Martin. 50,000 population. A humongous medical center, West Tennessee Healthcare, the city's largest employer. More restaurants per capita than anywhere in the USA. I-40 runs right through it. Temperate climate. A very progressive Chamber of Commerce. Lots of world class companys, ie. Delta Faucet, Porter Cable, Procter and Gamble, Maytag, ADM, many others.<BR>We are America's best kept secret.<BR>John

Coast or Mountains? Here are two cities with populations at about 60,000.<BR><BR>How about Wilmington NC for the coast? It has a branch of the NC public college system, UNC-Wilmington; growing at a nice pace, with some downtown charm. Nice weather, close to some beautiful beaches. Nearest big city (?) is Charlotte or Raleigh, though (and a little more than 150 miles).<BR><BR>For the mountains, Asheville NC. Blue Ridge Parkway passes nearby, scenery is great; has a good arts scene for a small town, and another branch of the UNC system, UNC-Asheville.

Usually these lists descend into bickering, but this one's doing fine. <BR><BR>Connie, I was looking over your list of preferences and thinking about places that might fit, so here are a couple, on opposite coasts:<BR><BR>Portsmouth, NH - very nice town, not all that far from Boston, beautiful area - Maine and coastal areas, not to mention lots of choice inland. Progressive, historic, very comfortable.<BR><BR>Bellingham, WA - 90 min. from Seattle, 60 min. from Vancouver BC. Skiing at Mt. Baker after work, or boating through the San Juans or Gulf islands whenever you please. College town, funky shopping, historic buildings, direct ferry to Alaska whenever you get tired of the rest of us.<BR><BR>Olympia, WA: At the other end of Puget Sound from Bellingham - 60 min. from Seattle, 20 from Tacoma, 2 hrs. from Portland. Boating, skiing, clam digging. It's the state capital, so lots of professional, connected people doing good work. <BR><BR>Monterey, CA: Great weather, 2 hrs from SF, closer to Silicon Valley; history, beautiful coastline, UC Santa Cruz up the road (stop at the seafront fun fair - last one on the Pacific coast? - cultural diversity, nearby garlic and artichoke festivals. What's not to like?<BR><BR>Happy planning.

Great advice so far, keep them coming!

Oh, by the way, since most of the good suggestions appear to have been offered already (and please accept my thanks for all the generous input!), I should let you know that this information is not really for me. It's for a travel and residential advice column I write for my real estate relocation business.<BR>This is great stuff.<BR>Thanks again, and please continue to help me write that perfect article!!

Connie, I feel sorry for you. The majority of the people here are friendly and helpful to people who are looking for travel tips, relocation hints, or how to travel with their monkeys :) It's a shame that people will take advantage of their generosity by using it to do their research. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I was the orginal Connie poster. The person who wrote that this info was for an article she was writing in a fake!

Connie, I don't appreciate your betraying our trust. We'll bring your abuse of this forum to the attention of your editor should we see the article in print some day.

Connie, I'll buy the fact that you are not the author of the post claiming this is research. But, considering how much information people have posted here, if this is truly advice you are seeking for yourself, can you give some feedback? What sounds good here?

Try 1-800-THIS-IS-NOT-A-FREAKING-RELO-FORUM.<BR><BR><BR>Everyone's favorite is their home town. Traveler's don't know squat.<BR><BR>Waste of time. Troll.

actually, the relo posts are some of the most interesting. Most of us have lived in a number of different places, and can compare. <BR><BR>And who cares if this ends up in an article? What difference does it make? Admittedly, the reporter would be an idiot, but a fair amount are, even if they do their own research.<BR><BR>If you don't like these posts DONT READ OR ANSWER THEM!!!

I've lived in several of these types of towns, and do now in fact, the aforementioned Concord, NH. It's a pleasant place, but it's really quite small and the culture is haphazard at best. The colleges that are here are small and don't really add much atmosphere to the city. Also there are very few people between 18-35 except for the ones that never left town. I went to high school in Portland, Me, and love it dearly, but the yuppies and the cute police poured in and really took over in the 90's, so a lot of the old charm has been, to me, somewhat neutralized, though there are still a lot of people with a pulse there per capita compared to other places. I went to college in Annapolis, Md, where I liked the school and the three or four blocks around it heavily frequented by people from the school, didn't like most of the local people at all. Also there is a really bad racial divide there. The school also had a campus in Santa Fe, which is a fun place to visit, but being from the East Coast, I find being in a town of 50,000 with literally nothing but a hundred miles of semi-desert between you and anything else to be a bit too isolated.

Well I currently live in a city called Haverill, Ma. It is about 35-40 minutes from Boston on the NH border. It is a great city to live in. If you are thinking about Manchester,Nh it only takes about 30 minutes to get there from Haverhill. Actually the whole group of cities on teh Merrimack River are great. Concord NH, Manchester Nh, Nashua Nh, Lowell Ma, Lawrence Ma, and Haverhill Ma. I would much rather live in Ma than Nh but not everone does. <BR>There is plenty do in all these cities and other surrounding towns.<BR><BR>As for Burlington, Vermont. I have been up there 3 or 4 times to visit it. I love going up there to visit. It is a college town though and it really shows. It is a very nice looking town though.<BR><BR>Two other cities In New England that you might want to look at is Providence, RI and Portsmouth, Nh. Both are great cities with plenty to do.<BR>Of all places in Nh that I would live Portsmouth would be the one.<BR><BR>Please feel free to email if you have more questions.

Can't beat Mankato. The balmy breezes even in the winter, the lovely scenery, the underwater city and the friendliest people on earth.<BR><BR>For more info about the above go to<BR><BR>http://lme.mankato.msus.edu/mankato/mankato.html

Does weather make a difference? Duluth, Minnesota, is a pretty harbor city. Has a university and a private college, and a decent entertainment scene. Just a short drive away from fly fishing, skiing, kayaking, and hiking. But Dec - Mar can be very cold.

wHETHER OR NOT THE RESEARCH BIT IS TRUE, WHO CARES? whY ARE PEOPLE CONSTANTLY SO UPSET THAT THEY MIGHT BE USED FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES? DON'T ANSWER IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TOPIC!!

Believe it or not, Dothan, Alabama could fit the bill nicely. It's in the southeast corner of Alabama. Just far enough from any cities &gt;100,000 that it has become quite self-sufficient. The drawing capacity for that area has become remarkable, especially for people in the health care industry. It has a university. Montgomery, Mobile, Tallahassee, Columbus, and Atlanta are all within an easy driving distance. Good people. Clean tidy neighborhoods. Mild climate. The shopping has become pretty good, since the big cities are at least an hour away. Culture? Progressive? They are actively working on that from what I can tell. Lots of college educated, professional? I really don't know. The demand was enough that one of the state universities has taken their extension program from an old hotel in the downtown area to a new facility on the outskirts of town. Lots of military retirees with it's proximity to Ft. Rucker.

Try findyourspot.com<BR><BR>Fill out a small quiz and it lists your top 24 cities to live in.

I vote Lexington, KY. Cincinnati and Louisville are about an hour away. Good climate, UK is here, pretty horse farms and hills, nice people and good restaurants and decent shopping.

Stillwater, MN.<BR><BR>A beautiful old river town with friendly people, a vibrant downtown, natural beauty. Close enough to Mpls/St. Paul to be considered part of the metro area, but Stillwater is definitely not a suburb!<BR><BR>Good luck. Life is an adventure -- have fun!<BR><BR>http://www.ci.stillwater.mn.us/

I can relate to your quest! We moved, by choice, to Alaska 5 years ago, and love it. Anchorage is a city of over 200,000 -- HOWEVER, the city limits stretch along a 40 (?) mile corridor, following mountains and sea. Very little traffic, laid back, and this is considered the "Banana Belt," weather-wise. There is an acute shortage of nurses, and the pay scale is higher than average. Educated populace, as most folks are here by choice, not birthright. As a consequence, we have quite a diverse population. Our winters are long, but summers are like perpetual spring-time and the rivers run turquoise.....I'm on a roll, so I'd better stop! Good luck with your journey, wherever it may lead.

Whats wrong with Tallahassee? If I could find a decent job there I would go in a heatbeat. You have rolling hills and forests, the environment of great universities and the state capitol. And there is a nice seasonal change there between the sometimes chilly winter and hot summers, but always the Florida sun. And no state income tax.

To the last poster:<BR><BR>My complaint re Tallahassee: North Tallahassee is fine but the south side of town has to many rednecks who drive their car onto their lawns. Town needs tougher zoning standards! Also, the huge black population causes Tally to have a huge crime problem. It seems like Tallahassee is out in the middle of nowhere- 260 miles from Tampa or Atlanta, nothing but cut over pine forests for a s far as you can see. The amount of logging of Florida's once beautiful forests outside of Tallahassse is shocking. My final complaint: to many stips of ugly fast food and big box retail areas have been built up in the last 20 years.

SANTA CRUZ, CA.<BR>--although I should be keeping it a secret.