<<A solid week of rain unnerves me>>

Look NewbE, I live here (Seattle). I can't think of when we have had "a solid week of rain".

<<and it rains a lot in the winter in both Seattle and Portland>>

You need to take a minute and look at actual statistics. We simply don't have that much rainfall in inches. Lots of places get more rain than we do. You're just buying into the incorrect stereotype.

See YOUR state is way wetter than the PNW! What IS true is that we have more overcast and gray and partially rainy days, but less actual precipitation.

Mobile Alabama 67 inches, 59 days per year
Pensacola Florida 65 inches, 56 days per year
New Orleans 64 inches, 56 days per year
West Palm Beach 63 inches, 58 days per year
Baton Rouge 62 inches, 56 days per year
Miami Florida 62 inches, 57 days per year
Port Arthur TX 61 inches, 51 days per year
Tallahassee Florida 61 inches, 56 days per year
Seattle 38 inches, 154 days per year
Portland 43 inches, 154 days per year

Sorry. I withdraw my amusement at Seattle's traffic after looking at Actual Data!

You are up there, all right! In the top 10!

I apologize!

Apology kindly accepted Ackislander!

OK, now let's get back to helping 'helpimmoving soon'!!

Before Seattle, the two place I liked living best were Western Massachusetts (Northampton/Amherst area) and southern Vermont (Brattleboro).

They have much of what you want as far as liberal minded people, fun things to do, definitely green in both senses. Good colleges. Water (only if you mean lakes and streams). Beautiful mountains. Weather likely much like CO.

So you had all my comments deleted, even though they had actual data disproving yours? Great. I;m done here.

Move to sunny Seattle!!! Suze lives there, lol. Bye!

<i>Good colleges.</i>

Kind of. Sort of.

Amherst has a lot of truly great undergraduate colleges. But the best ones are liberal arts and not especially great for engineering or business (especially not for grad study).

Brattleboro has no good colleges. You are an hour from the Amherst area or two from Dartmouth.

<So you had all my comments deleted>

NewbE, No I did not.

I have never once asked for anything of yours to be deleted. No matter how many times you accuse me it. I perfer your posts stay up so people can see what you are all about. Believe it or not it must be Fodor's editors who don't approve of your continued personal attacks.

<Good colleges. Kind of. Sort of.>

Five College Consortium of: Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and U Mass Amherst.

Yes a shabby lot for sure.

I never said there were good colleges in Brattleboro. I only said it was a place I really enjoyed living that has some of what this person is seeking.

NewbE, our weather here in Seattle is horrible. It isn't that we get so much rain, but the rain we do get is spread across 9 months of pretty solid grey and drizzle. Don't even think of moving here!

<i>Yes a shabby lot for sure.</i>

Nice selective quoting.

Including the following would have been correct:

"Amherst has a lot of truly great undergraduate colleges. But the best ones are liberal arts and not especially great for engineering or business (especially not for grad study). "

Of the colleges in your list, only UMass offers programs in business. Only UMass and Smith offer engineering, and Smith is probably out for the OP's boyfriend due to being a) a women's college and b) only offering an "engineering sciences" degree. UMass would be the only one with graduate program options for the OP's boyfriend (I'm assuming when the OP says "more degrees" they mean graduate degrees rather than wasting time and money on another undergrad degree) and it isn't particularly well-regarded.

So yes, kind of. Sort of.

travelgourmet, This thread is about IDEAS. Food for thought. Places she might not know about or even have thought about. No one asked us to pin down the exact 100% perfect move for them.

helpimmovingsoon, I gotta throw in the plug for the hometown here and say consider somewhere outside Philadelphia like Lancaster or Chester counties. You'll have some of the traffic towards Philly more, and you wouldn't have the dramatic scenery of the west coast, but there are plenty of great smaller parks, rivers, and easier camping/hiking spots. There's also tons more of that just to the west in PA and Maryland, including some great mountains and rivers.
As far as culture, somewhere like Lancaster would have plenty of that, along with a ton of variety and a really great arts scene. And of course if its not enough for you, Philly is still easily close enough for an evening dinner and show or gallery visit.

Washington, DC area - but either southern or central/western VA. First has ocean, other has mountains. Advantages - many young people settle there having been born elsewhere, so easier to break into social scene. Lots of universities. Lots of jobs. People of all political leanings. Culture, history, activity. Four seasons, but not oppressive snow. Winter really lasts 2 months, although summers can be quite hot. While DC itself does not have a lot of green space and immediately continuous counties are very densely populated, an hour or so out of city has hiking and other outdoor activities.

Disadvantages - very expensive.

Sorry , but IMO Hawaii weather is a LOT better than San Diego's and I've lived in BOTH.

The OP might be a one and done poster. A lot of questions have been raised and some feedback, particularly regarding timing and budget, would be helpful.

But as a former city planning teacher and practitioner, and, like Suze, a Seattle resident, let me make a general (thus open to plenty of "you're wrong" anecdotes) comment on traffic as a marker for quality of life factors.

Whose traffic are we talking about? Somebody like Suze or me, who live in central parts of the big city, or someone who moves from California or the east coast and wants a McMansion out in the burbs but wants to commute to Amazonia?

Traffic in Seattle (/San Francisco/Boston/Philly/LA/New York...) is bad if your choices force you to experience it. Other choices can be made to avoid it or certainly minimize its impact on your life.

That's very true. To live happily in Seattle try to have your residence close to where you are employed. I live 3 miles from my job (Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square) and 8 miles from the fitness studio (Capitol Hill to Roosevelt District). Somewhat minimizing the time sitting in the parking lot that is the I-5 freeway!!

As so often happens with the Seattle weather debate that often happens on this forum, I can only look out my window and say... it's a sunny day in Seattle... today.

Charleston, SC has all the things on your list other than the snow. My husband I were both born and raised in the Northeast and are products of fancy educations and we raised our children here in Charleston and feel so fortunate to have found it.

Then again, people have started discovering our secret place and now people who have never lived anywhere else are complaining about traffic. They don't know REAL traffic, but this area is in the middle of a development boon so the traffic will only get worse.