Near Seattle and I love/hate it. Planning on FIRE somewhere tropical in a few years.
The area has money pooring from the sky if you know how to code well. You can have 3+ jobs at the same time making half a million dollars if you are willing to put in the effort just coding or one high level position if you love office politics and/or selling yourself. All the non tech people complain a lot as they are getting pushed out of the area due to high housing costs.
The area is VERY beautiful. There are many days I just stare at the mountains (there are many of them) with the clouds half covering and after several decades am still in awe. During the summer is it probably one of the nicest places on earth and there is every climate you can go to within short drives and basically experience every outdoor activity known to humans.
Weather is depressing half the year (or more) and I mean super depressing. People have been known to blow their heads off with shotguns. A month can go by and I never set foot outside a single time (garage to parking garage) because the cold rain sucks. I used to bike in the winter and with the right gear that was fun, but there are so many distracted drivers you will eventually get run over and hospitalized, espeically with the huge influx of new drivers who have their first car ever and the super important text messages people need to read because their life is much more important then yours.
Alergy season (late spring, half of summer) is enough to make you want to cut out your eyeballs to aliviate the pain while there is massive tree and grass sperm everywhere.
No income tax!!! There is high sales tax but it is a regressive consumption tax which benefits savers a lot. Politicians are always trying to change this now, but keep failing at it because there are too many smart voters that are not falling for the lies saying it is good for everyone.
If you are low income it is HANDOUT craziness! The amount of free healtcare, lunches, housing vouchers, free college, etc is amazing. Growing up my family had access to a lot of help which can keep the crime down compared to other states. One benefit I really hate is we also have safe injection sites if you want to get hooked on those type of drugs to reduce the needles on the sidewalks and parks. You can even get free needles which can save you a lot of money. Very few laws are actually inforced here except maybe domestic violence and drunk driving, but shooting up is perfectly acceptable and pot is legal here so many people are more relaxed, but we have a major homeless crises. There are tents and RVs that do not run lining the streets everywhere, no exageration, it is beyond crazy.
Traffic... well it's really just a very slow moving parking lot, something like leaving a stadium after a crowded game, but everyone is pissed off instead of drunk and in a hurry, and it's like that every single day. 10 miles can take you over an hour of stop and go and pissed off people everywhere in a rush but cannot move. There are days it hurts to get out of the car since you have been sitting so long because some days my 10 mile commute can take 2+ hours with no obvious causes. You start to hate humanity and the politicians incompetance to fix the problems. You may find yourself fantasizing putting a bulldozer blade on the front of your car and push everyone out of the way, or some laser that can vaporize the traffic in front of you so you can get home sooner and tomamrow will be better with most of those people burned off the earth (those 5 people should have not cut you off, fuckers!). You also find yourself running red lights because it may be 10+ minutes before you get another chance to get thru one again since everyone else is running the same lights from the other direction and block the intersection. Some days it is faster to walk (like the walker in office space) and almost always faster to bike which is great, but again, you will eventually be hospitalized by one of those commuters that thinks their time is much more valuable then your legs (or life). Eventually you even get jealous of the bikers because they are passing you but at the same time, you feel sorry for them as you know it's only a matter of time before they are under a car and nobody goes to jail for driving over you like a dead possum that happened to run across the road in front of your car. The bus system is equally impressive, the schedules are constantly missed, full, smell, suck, and well... not fun. If you work for a big tech firm, however, you can ride in a very fancy bus that has a full time internet connection, comfortable, and awesome and at least get some sleep. They even have bike racks on the front so you can mix your commute. The only problem with them is they are usually full and you need to reserve your space months in advance.
