What 4 seasons are in Santa Barbara?

Being Canadian, looking at the USA objectively and having visited roughly 30 states, I can say that if I had to move, I would move to Seattle. I love it there - west coast lifestyle, good sized city with attributes and a great climate - rain never hurt anyone, in fact it's essential to life on earth, and Seattle is cleaner, greener and happier because of it.

Kennedy3,

Try Hutchinson Kansas. It is only 50 min. from Wichita. It has beautiful golf courses and is within an hour and a half of several lakes. The spring is great, the summers though, are hot. Fall is nice and winter does have snow.

Hutchinson has about 40,000 people and has many local attractions. It has the Kansas Cosmosphere and the Underground Salt Museum (which takes you 650' underground :-))

As for schools, there are several are choices. Hutchinson High School (which has won 6A State Boys Football the last four years), Buhler High School, Nickerson High School, and many other local schools.

The nearest airport is Wichita ICT-about 50 minutes away. It offers nonstop to Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, L.A., Dallas, Houston, Denver, etc.

In Hutchinson, $800,000 for a home will get you quite a bit. Again, there are several are golf courses that you could build on or around. One would be Prarie Dunes Country Club. The Dunes has hosted the Women's and Senior's Open.

Hutchinson has all that you need for shopping. It has several grocery stores (Wal-Mart Supercenter too!) and a Mall that has such stores as JCPenney, Sears, Dillards, etc.

Come try Hutchinson out!

The only thing I'd be wary of is when people say they love their town because it has four seasons, that usually means winter lasts nine months.

People with great weather, as in San Diego, say that they have year around perfect weather.

Learn to read between the lines.

I doubt the original poster still wants info, but I can't resist responding. Spokane, Washington is a closer fit to the stated requirements than any other place mentioned so far, in my prejudiced opinion. Spokane is on the drier, east side of Washington state, but is not in the near-desert SE corner of the state; it is in the central to north part of the east side, which is one of the most beautiful areas of the entire U.S. Four distinct seasons, low humidity, probably a bit hotter in the summer than the poster wanted, green landscape - not as lush/soggy (depending on your point of view) as the Seattle/Portland area - but many, many more days of gorgeous sunny skies. Green scenery, forests, lakes, rivers, streams, mountains, hills, not far from rolling wheat fields - an outdoor person's dream. An international airport right outside of town. Population of the metropolitan area - about 400,000+ (big enough for Broadway touring shows.) Great health care. Several colleges/universities. Half an hour from beautiful Coeur d'Alene, Idaho (another place worth looking into.) Rarely does a day pass that I am not grateful to live in the best part of the country (best = beautiful landscape, green, sunny, four seasons, low humidity.)

The poster who said that it isn't the amount of rain, it's the number of days with mostly overcast skies, was absolutely correct. I've lived near Seattle and Portland, love them both, they are fabulous cities (other than Seattle's traffic), but the overcast skies do bother me. Spokane is about 4.5 hours from Seattle, and maybe 6 from Portland.

My only comment was that after a week in Spokane, I felt that I was a very long way from anywhere.

Please do not move to Missoula, Mt- the moutain sides are full enough.

Portland and Seattle both have another problem beyond dark winters: TRAFFIC! The traffic in those cities is so horrible that in makes them unattractive places to live. What's the point of moving to a place where you're confined to your neighborhood unless you want to join the fray on the highways and battle for an hour or two getting to your destination. Unfortunately, there's no solution in the cards for either city.

I like the suggestion of Bainbridge Island, which is just across the bay from Seattle. You can live in a quieter, island environment (with a few traffic problems of its own) and take the ferry to downtown Seattle for all that the city offers. It's just a 1/2 hour ferry ride, and you can leave your car at home.

Another possibility is Bremerton, which is about an hour's ferry ride from Seattle. It's growing, but offers cheaper home prices and a bit less congestion. Great golf courses too!

I've been gone from Portland for a few years, I've seen far worse traffic in other cities. Rush hour was bad, but you knew when it would start and where things would back up. Unless there was an accident, I never hit any traffic during non-rush hours -- unlike, say, New York or L.A.