Raleigh, NC is crazy humid in the summer (and my frame of reference is growing up in south Lousiana, which is a sauna itself).
I’m in Blacksburg, VA and we have a lot of the outdoor benefits, Virginia Tech is here, AND it’s mild and not too humid during the summer. And the Mountain Biking is a 10 minute drive 
[quote=“Clay_Nichols, post:83, topic:354”]
Raleigh, NC is crazy humid in the summer […] I’m in Blacksburg, VA […] AND it’s mild and not too humid during the summer.
[/quote]If I’m reading the humidity sections right, Raleigh is less humid than Blacksburg:
https://weatherspark.com/averages/29718/Blacksburg-Virginia-United-States
https://weatherspark.com/averages/31452/Raleigh-North-Carolina-United-States
The climate’s always changing, so perhaps you were here for a particularly bad summer. I will say I’ve never had to shovel humidity or been stuck at home because of it.
Looking at this super scientific website, NC seems to often come out ahead of VA temperature-wise: http://www.weather.com/maps/averages/normal-temperature (unless you like being cold)
http://www.researchtriangle.org/assets/education/universities-colleges
http://www.trianglemtb.com/map.php (actually I’m sure for mountain biking your location would win)
After being nearly 100% we were going to move to Boulder, CO, we ended up in Bend, Oregon. I don’t have a business I can live off of, but Bend is way cheaper than Boulder for housing, and I like the ‘up and coming’ feel I get here.
As for mountain biking… it’s awesome here! A few weeks ago, I did an 8 hour ride that was all singletrack. The road riding is not that great, but there are a lot of people, so it’s still fun to go out.
I am living in Russia, Kazan. 1200USD/month is enough here to raise a family and to travel 4 times a year. High-quality apartments cost about $100K.
I did a Google image search on Kazan. It certainly has some impressive looking buildings!
@Andy, thanks, google images do not show the district with high modern buildings, which built in recent 15 years. Only bad thing here is cold climate
How cold does it get in the winter?
looks like a true statistics for Kazan. problem is not in low temperature. problem is that in recent years we have about 5 months of “winter” and only about 3 weeks of “warm shiny” weather every year. so we have to travel to warm places.
A place of great history. Too bad I only being there for 15 minutes on the way to northern Siberia. I hope to travel there one day. NomadList tho doesn’t like it very much: https://nomadlist.com/kazan-russia
Bootstrapping from Craiova, Romania since 2003.
A city of about 270k inhabitants at 250 Km from the capital Bucharest. You can rent a two bedroom central apartment for about $400 per month here. A dinner at the restaurant costs $15 for one. We have an university and an international airport. Ford Motor has a factory here.
Romania is “known” for its gypsies throughout Europe but they are not romanian by origin and you don’t see many of them when walking through our cities.
All I can tell you is the 5 or 6 times I’ve visited it’s been brutally hot and humid there when it was pleasant in Blacksburg.
Hmmm… maybe I was attributing the heat to the wrong thing.
Blacksburg is 4 to 6 degrees cooler (for Hi temps) than Raleigh in the summer.
Raleigh sounds a lot lot Roanoke (they run a bit warmer).
I can’t tolerate the heat well so 6 degrees makes a lot of difference. and I work from home, so no shovelling. (I wish it snowed more b/c we ski here when it does)
Bend is cool. Tremendous rock climbing @ Smith Rock.
The daughter of a friend lives there as a semi-homeless 
She spends all of her time camping, climbing, and biking.
After close to a year in Bend, the two big drawbacks are:
I can second Malaysia as generally great, though for my tastes I prefer the wild island of Borneo
Been here something like 12 years now, still loving it.
It has it’s issues (monsoon season, sketchy internet, 100% tax on foreign cars…) but I’m pretty settled and happy. Keeps my clients happy too, as I charge a fraction of what I’d have to charge back in the UK
AC
Come to Fargo, ND!
Fargo lead Forbes lsit of best small cities for business.
There’s a very active 'trep community and a lot of local support for startups, even local incubators and VC’s.
Further reading about Fargo
emergingprairie
ndsuresearchpark
arthurventures
Valdivia, Chile
In case you’re ok with living at the world’s end, then here’s my short description of the place.
[quote]It’s a cute small city with all the necessary services (shopping, restaurants, healthcare, optical fiber with 10-15mbps to California) and a vibrant community created by hundreds of students from local universities.
There’re a coworking space, small tech meetups, and game jams. You can also take a one hour flight to Santiago for bigger tech events and meetups.
Renting a good house is $600-700 a month, the climate is mild (only rains in winter, no snow). Average lunch is $6-8, we spend about $350 for food and $150 for health insurance for 2 persons. Chile is quite safe in general but here we can walk in night without any worries. The city is trying to be bike-friendly, it just got some bike lanes.
Startup and business visas are too complicated here but you can get a “rentista” visa for any kind of passive foreign income or work visa for a contract with a foreign employer. There’re many expats coming, we know a team from the US building a tech village near the city.
Downsides: you will need to learn Chilean Spanish (though many young people know English, especially developers), there’s smoke pollution in winter in the evenings since wood stoves are used for heating.[/quote]
We’re originally from Russia and travelled a bit before but Chile feels like a great place to settle down.
SPb?
I see some mountains(?) on the Valdivia photos – I assume there is no snowboarding as you said there is no snow? (As another Russian, I say no-snow places do not have a right to exist )
Yes, from St.Petersburg. We’re happy with a winter where 3ºC considered a very cold day.
There is snowboarding in Andes for 2-3 months in the winter. Our friend just arrived for it but he says it’s very expensive compared to Austria and the local equipment is quite old.