I currently live in a quiet suburb of OKC, maybe 20 minutes drive from downtown. Rent is cheap, around $0.75/SF/month. Bandwidth isn't terrible, but it's not like SF or NYC.

I'm a freelancer. If I wanted to, I could probably cover all my "necessary" expenses working one or two days a week. Instead, I work 6 days a week, and save almost all my money. I want to move to SF or NYC once I have some serious savings.

To be honest, I just don't like the culture here. Although I've grown up here and have friends, gf, etc. here, "professionally" I feel alone. I'm one of only very few tech-minded entrepreneurs. I hack alone. It's not uncommon for me to go 48 hours without leaving my apartment.

I was in SF on business last week and it struck me at just how easy it was to get contacts and network in a place where there are other hackers. There's no awkward "So, what do you do for a living?" conversations where you have to start at "what is a web application". Even for a hacker, I am really, really independently-minded. That said, it would be great to have a partner on a couple of things. But I won't find one here.

tl;dr If it's a short-term thing and you're tight on cash--go for it! But you'll get lonely after awhile.

The fact that a week ago, I decided to randomly google 'tech meetups' and find one that was meeting the next morning with 20+ high quality entrepreneurs was ridiculous.

It sounds like you need to put in more effort to find other hackers in your area. Scour Twitter and search for user groups in your area, or start your own! In the OKC area you're bound to find some if you look hard enough. Remember, most hackers take the passive quiet-path (like you) and may not leave their apartment.

There's plenty here in the Midwest, you just have to look a bit harder for it.

I moved to China a few weeks ago and was amazed how this place is an ideal place for startups/freelancers. First, the cost of living is extremely low AND you get a similar (if not better) quality of life than what you can get in the US. I live in Shenzhen, a very young city with a booming economy and the world's capital of electronics manufacturing. The population density here is much higher than even the largest US cities, which means: a lot of 24/7 restaurants, night clubs full everyday of the week / hour of the night, convenience stores around every corner, cheap taxis (3$US can get you far), etc. There are very few foreigners but it can be a nice thing at the same time because when you see a fellow westerner, you are tempted to socialize very quickly and most of them have interesting stories to tell. Ah, I was about to forget: Chinese girls love westerners.

China is also ideal for startups. The economy here is growing very fast and the domestic market is huge. The software industry here seems to be lagging behind the US by a couple years. This means that people knowledgeable about the western market have a significant edge because they are able to foresee the trends that are likely to take place in China. That's why there are so many Chinese clones of popular western websites.

I could go on and on... Get in touch with me if you'd like to ask some questions.

EDIT: Some pictures from my apartment http://www.flickr.com/photos/50425387@N06/

I'd also point out that China's not just great for techies who want to start a business. If you're interested in a non-wired business, there is a low minimum wage and lots of capital seeking investment here. Plus, earning in RMB means you'll get richer over time vis-a-vis your American counterparts simply due to the yuan's appreciation.

Charging less is attractive for commodities. When you are buying toothpaste or cola, there is not that much difference from one brand to the next, so having the lower price can help make the sale.

For tech work, the difference in skill among programmers can be an order of magnitude. Also, there is some information asymmetry--it is hard to know which programmers are good. So your rate is one indicator that people use to evaluate your skill level. If you are a highly skilled programmer but charge low, you may be sending a signal that you are a novice programmer.

Furthermore, if you charge too low you may attract clients from hell. These are clients that don't know much about programming and think that it's easier than it is (which is why they are looking for below market rates).

So don't charge less in order to attract clients. Rather, demonstrate (show specific evidence of) your superior skill and then charge a competitive market rate.

Also note that it might be harder to find clients if you move away from a large urban area.

However, have you lived in a semi rural area before? It's not necessarily Walden Pond. Half of my childhood was spent growing up in a semi rural area and most people who live there are into snowmobiles, hockey and going to church. You most likely need a car. The quaint rural villages that you really want to live in can be as expensive as living in a city. "Real" rural america is usually more like a truck stop than it is a french farming village. I'd be interested to hear where you are considering. Personally, I would like to move to Maine or Vermont, but also enjoy the city... it just gets exhausting.

Grass is always greener at the other side of the fence; I'm in the opposite situation of having worked for years in a semi-rural area and thinking about getting back in a city.

Like the OP said, there are upsides and downsides to everywhere. I think if you want to try this, you want to set some milestones for the various scenarios, like at what point to bail out if you don't like it, at what level of savings should you start looking for work again, and so on.

Main or Vermont are definitely possibilities. The winter sounds horrific but I was in Vermont in the fall a while ago and it was totally stunning. From what I understand Vermont and Maine both lean much more to the left politically so it would probably be less of a culture shock.

Only problem is property values - the prettier low-density towns that happen to be close to the city (Weston, Lexington, Carlisle, Concord, Bedford) now have houses that are going for $1M+. If you're willing to live an hour or so outside of the city, though, you can still get some really affordable stuff in Groton, Pepperell, Bolton, Acton, Littleton, etc.

I'm kinda wondering if there's anything similar in other metropolitan areas. The Bay Area is pretty much a lost cause: if you want forests, there's Portola or Woodside (for like $5M a house), Marin (ditto) or the Berkeley hills (tritto), while if you want something halfway affordable like Dublin or Pleasanton, it's suburban strip malls all around.

Portland, OR maybe? I know there's an urban growth boundary, but are there any pretty wooded neighborhoods in the Portland area? At least property values there haven't skyrocketed, last I heard.

Here in California, it's spring all year round, and so we sit at our computers and ignore it most of the time.

Indeed, it goes away if the sun goes behind a cloud. Even better when you have kids, and have to make sure the baseball field is dry and safe for them. You'll be shoveling mud into wheelbarrows, transporting it to a mound of dirt, and coming back with wheelbarrows-full of dry dirt. Heavy work. More rain. So you do it again. You. Well, and the mosquitoes.

I agree that there are glorious days in the spring here, but in my view they don't a season make. But all-around it's still a fabulous place to live for the climate.

The computers worked fine. A computer can tolerate cold better than heat.

I visit the Bay Area often for friends and business, and I don't mind it there, much, but I'm always happy to get home again -- despite being a wanderer from 18 to 27 or so. I wholeheartedly recommend living in a beautiful natural environment.

It's not super super cheap here, but close enough: my girlfriend and I live in a great modest home with a shop and small yard, and awesome neighbors, for $795/month.

We do get snow, though.

EDIT: And if you're interested, I'd be happy to take a day out to show you around and introduce you to people.

There are plenty of places 10 or 15 minutes from town that are really isolated: little dirt roads in and out, and neighbors that you might meet but never actually see. You can pick your climate too; beautiful, chilly Tahoe forest a short drive up highway 20, or rolling grassy hills without snow in "south County". (Both of those have a lot of trouble getting broadband though.)

If you feel like you need a more social night out, Auburn is 30 minutes away, Roseville is an hour, and Sac'to is just a bit beyond that. If you get to missing the Bay Area, it's just 2.5 hours away.

Or, if you want to really get away from everyone for a bit, just drive up highway 20 to the Grouse Ridge area, or highway 49 to Downieville (another beautiful small town) or Sierra City, with some gorgeous 8,000 foot crags and lakes.

So yeah, come check it out!

The most important rule of freelancing/consulting/selling-to-companies: your customers aren't paying with their own money. There are plenty of things that are more important to them than an abstract dollar number.

There is an incredible creative scene in the city covering, music, the arts and an amazingly supportive technology community. There are also a couple of very active seed-stage funds (though nothing compared with Silicon Valley and not much of an angel network, I'm afraid)

The best part is that cost of living in Montreal is among the lowest in North America, yet you still have access to amazing infrastructure, stunningly beautiful architecture, and beautiful friendly ladies - seriously.

I am actually looking to trade places with you and am planning to leave this wonderful city to go check out San Francisco for a bit (I have my reasons), but I cannot recommend Montreal enough. Oh, and I'll be back!

Monthly living expenses for me can top off around $1000/mo comfortably. I have a car but don't pay for the insurance (though I do pay for repairs, gas, etc.) so $1500 is definitely doable. Rent for a single person can be had for $300-$400 with some looking, and not necessarily in bad conditions. $500 will get you plenty of space. You will likely need the car, though the town bus system is very good (supposedly one of the best small-town public transit systems in the country). It's a college town so you have a younger population than some rural communities--it's not quite "truck stop", in other words, but having a large student population has its own problems. There are quiet parts of town, where families and grad students tend to live, but the "student ghettos" have loud parties, crappy apartments, and predatory lending practices aplenty.

The next town over, Moscow, ID, is about 8 miles east. It's also a college town, plus it has a nicer downtown (complete with hippie food co-op). Haven't lived there, though.

If you like variable weather, where the temperature goes from -10 to 110 over the course of the year and you see wind, rain, snow, hail, and sunshine in the course of about the same week, you'll like the area. Speaking of seasons, summers are a lot nicer and quieter than the school year, at least in Pullman.

Not sure I'd recommend living here to anyone, to be honest, but if you want to feel isolated from the real world for awhile it'll do the job.

there are a lot of rural colleges where living is cheap and parks are close. i went to school at clemson, and the situation is quite similar.

plus, if you're working on a project and want to hire people, there are lots of students who would jump at the chance.

My wife, my 2yo and I moved last month away from Paris/France to a rural location in S/W of France (1h away from Bordeaux the city).

We gathered savings before doing this, and we're doing remote consulting and working on new ideas to generate income.

We're living "low-profile" money-wise, and we're pretty happy with it.

A lot more time to give to ourselves and our kid, too :)

The main risks I can see are that it may be harder to connect with people in your industry, and you may find few jobs willing to let you work remotely (this tends to be available only to very experienced people, e.g. CTO can live in the mountains if he wants, and the company says OK). Then again, if you're trying to avoid 9-5, not even having a job for a few months is still good stress relief.

On the flip side though, I'm beginning to see the opportunity costs of a 9-5. It's hard to find the energy to spend another 3 hours hacking on my own ideas after working in front of a computer all day and the company I work for puts a lot of roadblocks in front of open-sourcing any of my work so I'm increasingly cut off from the open-source community and all the job networking that comes with it.

My ideal would be to find a way to spend no more than 6 months of the year working to pay the bills and to have the other 6 months free to work on my own ideas. I'd happily trade a lot of material comforts for the freedom and time to follow my own muse.

Clovis, CA has a population of about 100k. Recently it has been trying to bring the technology atmosphere, for example a couple of days of go we had 59daysofcode conference (http://59daysofcode.com/). Quite exciting!

1. Oaxaca, Mexico - I lived there for a year while working on a startup and loved every minute. It's really cheap (my wife and I spent about $1100 a month in total, and had a great lifestyle). It's a beautiful city, with lots to do, and is close to some great hiking and only about 5 hours from gorgeous beaches. It's also very safe these days. The drawback is being completely isolated from the tech community.

2. Missoula, Montana - This is a great little college town about 3 hours away from where I grew up. I stayed a couple of nights there in 2008 and was blown away by how much it had changed in the time I had been gone. It's super cheap, gorgeous (great hiking, skiing, biking is all around you), the people are genuinely friendly and laid back, and there are great micro-breweries and pubs everywhere. Again, the drawback is being isolated from the tech community.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

It is post industrial in the sense that the economy has moved on from industrial type stuff like steel manufacturing -- the economy is very tech/service oriented, with lots of computer/tech/robotics startups and so on, as well as a large health care sector (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center runs their own health insurance which covers a significant portion of the entire state of PA). It was one of the cities least hit by the housing crisis and the economic backlash from that.

As for dangerous -- there are some bad areas, like in every city, but for the most part it's very safe. Safer than any big city in CA for sure.

It's not horribly post-industrial anymore, although there is a significant contingent of mildly hickish people left over.

I have lived in places at the extremes of size. From NYC to where I am now: a small farm in Minnesota. It's easy to live on $1.5k in a nice part of Minneapolis. Even with a mortgage and car payment my monthly burn wasn't much more than that when I lived there.

I absolutely love it out here and never want to live in a city again. But have you ever lived outside a city or suburb before? There are drawbacks that aren't immediately obvious: no or very few good restaurants if there are any at all; everything is spaced farther apart; if you have an emergency help may not be close at hand; trivial things like making sure your car has enough gas become important when there isn't a gas station on every other block.

There is a campaign running now in the Duluth area called "Offshore to the North Shore" or something like that which plays up that the North shore of Lake Superior (most beautiful area of the state, BTW) has a low cost of living and well trained people and can be cost-competitive with offshoring. Maybe they can offer some relocation literature?

Not to be a booster for my state, but Duluth, MN is the gateway to enormous tracts of unspoiled wilderness and has plenty of affordable rental housing, culture, an international seaport and a few colleges. Might be worth a look.

If you're looking for something really out of the way, West Texas is a really good choice. For instance, Alpine, Texas is right next to Big Bend National Park. If you want something a bit more arid, try Fort Davis.

If things go sour in my part of the world I will definitely find some small but rapidly growing desert town to monopolize. Hope this didn't come off too cynical but it's really not that bad of an idea.

Do-It-Yourself Downsize: How To Build A Tiny House http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1281092...

Or Berlin.

Vienna's pretty great on a budget, too - that's where I live. But Berlin is cheaper and more "happening" (though Vienna is in every way nicer itself).