[manacit]

Very much agree with this, I know a number of people that commuted (pre-pandemic) to the East Side (Redmond/Bellevue) that live in North Bend, Monroe, Sultan, etc. These are all cities that are very much part of the 'Seattle area' and are not really considered rural, but would tick many of the boxes.

If you want to go farther out, there are plenty of parts of WA that are really rural - but you might not find things like high speed internet are very accessible.

The one thing you won't get moving into any of those places is lower housing costs, however. These are all priced with the fact that high-earners are living in these cities and commuting into Seattle/Bellevue/Redmond and getting paid those salaries.

[geocrasher]

I live in Rural WA, between Olympia and Aberdeen. I live right in town and there's no problem getting 100mbps Internet via Comcast. Centurylink is very nearly a scam. If you go 2-3 miles out of town, things get more difficult, depending on the direction you take. Several friends are on DSL or worse. Hughes-or-whatever-they-are-now is awful for anything except very light use. Starlink is an option. Rent is expensive like anywhere else, but still less than the Seattle metro area. But, this is becoming a closet community for Olympia and Lacey, driving up housing prices.

If there's a tech "scene" here, I'm unaware of it.

[toast0]

Yeah, the housing prices don't really lower until you're looking at a 90 minute commute. I feel like 'semi-rural' is an appropriate term for these places that aren't anywhere near as dense as suburbs, but also aren't mostly large lots of farm/forestry/wilderness/open space or even a patch of homes surrounded by that.

[tjr225]

Houses in North Bend are well over a million dollars.