Critical Criteria

One of the things we thought about during our "down days" as bloggers (But, have you noticed how things have suddenly "picked up"?) was what we want in the town in which we choose to land and set up our home base. Until very recently, we would simply immerse ourselves in each town and get the feel of the place. Kerrville felt good. Santa Fe didn't. (Though it's an awesome place to visit!) Gunnison felt very good, in the Summer, of course. With each town we've visited over the past three years, we've departed with an intuitive sense of whether or not that destination was a place we'd like to settle down in someday. The whole process has been loads of fun, but far from scientific.

Until now.

Since about the time we crossed back over the Mississippi River last month, we've been working on our list of "must haves" for the town we will choose as our home base. The first on the list was that our place will be west of the Mississippi River! Of course, there are a multitude of wonderful places we love to visit east of that big river. But, one thing we've learned in our travels is that we are, at our core, Westerners.

With that little piece of self-discovery, we narrowed our search from "anywhere" in the country to "somewhere." Over the last few weeks, we've added to the list of criteria. Heck, I even put it on a spreadsheet. Yesterday, I looked online for a bit of help.

Find Your Spot.com features a quiz designed to help you find cities and towns that are most likely to appeal to you, based on your answers to an eight-part quiz that inquires about everything from the weather to culture, education, medical care, transportation, recreation, size, safety, location, home prices, taxes, faith and personal fit. Before you click on this link to the quiz, let me warn you, after you take the quiz, and before you get your list of 24 recommended locations, the site asks for a bunch of personal information, which I opted not to submit. Even without getting the answers, I like the quiz for the things it make you think about. Once we know what we want, we don't really need a list. We'll have great fun finding the place that's right for us on our own.

I'll share some of our critical criteria here, but I want to make it clear that these are the factors that appeal to us, and only us. Any list like this will be unique to each individual going through this process. There's no right or wrong to it all. And, like our travel plans, our list is definitely written in chalk, subject to change at any time.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here's a look at some of our criteria, such as they are today.

We'd like to "land" in a town that:

• is west of the Mississippi River, but not in California
• is part of a medium-to-small SMSA (300,000 people or less)
• features natural geographic beauty
• has lots of opportunities for outdoor activities (hiking, biking, geocaching)
• is livable year-round 
• is within a short drive to a major airport
• is within a day's drive of Kansas City (It can be a long day's drive.)
• is a college town
• is within a short drive of friends and/or family
• has quality services (medical, vet, shopping)
• offers safe and affordable living

We have a few other items on the list that are a bit more personal. But, this gives you an idea of the kind of things we're thinking about and looking for. We think it's a pretty nifty list!

In our travels, we've noticed a handful of states where we really feel at home. Kansas is obvious. There are parts of our adopted state of Texas that speak to us, but we haven't been there in Summer! Colorado is another. We've always liked it, but last Summer we absolutely fell in love with Gunnison. It's not livable (by our standards) in Winter, but there are several other places in the state that we are eager to explore and consider.

We're heading to one of those places in a week or so. Fort Collins is a town we've only driven through. But, we're looking forward to spending a month there this summer and checking it out. Whether or not it makes the cut doesn't really matter. Either way, we know it will be a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, we'll keep working on our list.