Since you titled your initial post &quot;looking for the most beautiful 'liveable' <b>city</b> in the western US&quot;, I wouldn't include Lake Tahoe in the list. What city?

There are multipl websites that can give you a list of desired cities to live in, given specific criteria. I can't think of the name of the one, but maybe you can find the websit through google.

Having spent 18 years in Portland, it is not all that great. Much wetter than most people think. Much greyer skies. Big thrill if you can stand to wear shorts on Memorial Day. Bad sprawl and lots of homeless/drug problems.

Seattle, WA
Portland, OR

Not sure of the population sizes but perhaps Corvallis or Eugene, OR?

<i>Portland, Ore., would fit. Nice scenery. Nowhere near as rainy as Seattle.</i>

Really? According to weather.com, Portland has an annual average of 43.16 inches of rain per year compared to 37.07 for Seattle. During the three wettest months (Nov-Feb) Portland has 24.45 inches compared to 20.83 for Seattle!

I was surprised too.

Investigate Salem, OR, and Olympia, WA, when you are out this way.

Pasadena, Ca. and nearby cities, Sierra Madre, ca. perfect.

I live in a very beautiful part of Florida, but just returned recently from two glorious weeks in San Diego.
It may not exactly fit your criteria, but it is very lovely, and has the most perfect year round weather that you could find anywhere.

&lt;Portland, Ore... Nowhere near as rainy as Seattle.&gt;

That is simply not true.

I'm always amazed when people use &quot;rainfall&quot; to judge Portland's weather when, in fact, the actual amount of rain we get here is irrelevant. People don't get depressed because of the rain - they get depressed over the gloomy, overcast days, when it MAY rain. Portland (and Seattle) get a lot of these types of days without necessarily tons of rainfall.

What you really want to compare are number of sunny days a year - but how do you measure THAT? Some days are partly sunny. It's a judgment call.

Portland doesn't have noticeably fewer overcast days than Seattle has. It's not a reason to consider one over the other.

I live in San Diego and the weather is great, especially if you love surfing, jogging, and other sporty activities. Although San Diego doesn'thave 4 seasons, within an hour you can drive to the mountains for snow &amp; fall leaves, and skiing, etc.

I love Portland, Oregon which I think is a very livable city - and has a very &quot;green&quot; environmental livestyle. There is the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood, and within an hour drive the beautiful coast.

Another city to check out is Austin, TX

I would suggest:
Boise, Idaho
Eugene, Oregon
Missoula, Montana
Spokane, Washington

Sorry Andrew, you can't worm you're way out of this one! Portland has more rain than Seattle. Period.

I think Portland is warmer too, but I'm not positive--it's only an impression I get from my visits there.

HTTY--Well, not all areas. When we lived in WA we were in the convergence zone, but down here we are in a much drier pocket. I miss the rain actually. But yes, we are quite a bit warmer.

happytrailstoyou: <i>Sorry Andrew, you can't worm you're way out of this one! Portland has more rain than Seattle. Period.</i>

As I said, the actual amount of rainfall is pretty much irrelevant. No one cares about that. What they care about are the number of overcast/gloomy days, on which it often rains. No one is going to move from Portland to Seattle and say, &quot;Wow, my winter moods have improved SO MUCH since I moved to a place with 6&quot; less per year of rainfall.&quot; If you find one city gloomy, you'll find the other one just as gloomy.

I believe it is colder in Seattle and if it is not wetter, it is as wet as Portland..not sure about Seattle but I do know that Portland has fantastic summers!

You don't get that kind of beautiful green country without a certain amount of rain or damp..similar to England..soft rain..not downpours..I didn't mind the rain in Portland that much..but when my son lived in Seattle, he said it rained for one year lol...he could not wait to move back East.

With that budget for buying, I would go for Portland, definitely, you can buy something really nice and have money left over for your winter getaway when the damp gets to you :D

Don't know why happytrails is in such a flap over rainfall differences in Portland and Seattle. Average annual rainfall for the two cities--

Seattle: 36 inches
Portland: 36.3 inches

FWIW, my in-laws lived for years in Seattle and now live not far from Portland. They feel (as do we) that things are a bit brighter down in Portland.

The winter days never bothered us...cool, grey, misty days are great for your skin. Summers are gorgeous and if it gets hot (which it can), you can cool off with a dash to the beach. In the winter, you very seldom have to shovel your driveway, but snow is plentiful in the mountains an easy drive away. We think Portland has just about the perfect climate--four distinct seasons, but no real weather extremes.

Flap? No. Somebody wrote &lt;Portland, Ore... Nowhere near as rainy as Seattle.&gt; which is incorrect.

According to worldclimate.com, on an annual average Portland either has more rain than Seattle or about the same precipitation as Seattle. It depends where the measurement were taken (airport, downtown, etc.).

It's hard to judge because a &quot;partly sunny day&quot; (in either Seattle or Portland) can mean the sun peaks out only for 10 minutes... or it's beautiful &amp; sunny most of day with some brief clouds or showers.

I think it's obvious that many Portlanders and Seattlits (?) are not overly concerned about the rain as we think they are. I may be wrong.

When I visit Portland on a regular basis I am always amazed how many Portlanders just walk around town without an umbrella - kinda oblivious to the rain. They really don't seem to mind it.

Both cities have so much good stuff going on there that what's a little rain going to hurt. It's not like blizzards, hurricans, earthquakes, droughts, terential rains/floods that many other parts of the country experience.

Another beautiful area are the coastal cities south of San Francisco such as Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara. .

As I've said and no one seems to get: it's not the <i>RAIN</i> that bothers people in the NW, it's the number of overcast, gloomy days, on which it may or may not rain. Some people get used to the cloudy days, others don't. It can be very depressing. I find it worst when the days are short in November and December.

The only problem with the rain itself is outdoor activities. But many of us do get used to doing things outdoors and planning around or ignoring the rain, as noted.