For a nice part of California, the area is very reasonably priced in terms of real estate. And it's about 2 hours from SF, and a whole world away, it's more like Texas.
The other area I pondered is over the line around Tahoe, or even Carson City.
My wife is a "big city girl", so here we are.
I get to make all the BIG decisions though, like whether Ukraine should sign the peace plan and how the President should think about education, etc.