Hello,

My wife and I live North of Seattle and are wondering if Texas could be a good fit for us.

Keep in mind that outside of King County and the Olympia capitol area, places tend to be purple to a little red. My area had a couple hundred armed folks go downtown when there were threats of antifa visiting at the end of May. Of course, certain political types had a tizzy fit about that.

I have been active for a number of years in gun rights, e.g. an an NRA/ILA volunteer testifying at the capitol. I also ride (Triumph) motorcycles. My wife and I are book geeks very active in the local Catholic church. I work as a techie but the current job should be staying 100% remote. If not, some local tech jobs (data engineering, medical, some Azure cloud) being available would be nice.

We are wondering about places with non-left politics, friendly people and places to be active outdoors. I have been a match shooter off and on for years and hope to eventually get out hunting! Also interested in recommendations for state shooting and gun rights organizations.

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Don

Stay away from Austin unless you want to live with people that are from places like Seattle.

I love the Texas Hill Country and remote could work in Fredericksburg or Kerrville, but I would avoid Austin area to avoid massive leftists. If you want larger cities, the Dallas Ft Worth area has plenty of tech jobs, but like most large cities, they are turning blue with Dallas being there and Ft Worth still on the red side.

You'll need to be well outside any of the major metro areas these days to find it to be red.  The suburbs have been purple for a while and the cities solid blue since pretty much forever.

I concur.

Pearland, Texas is nice. PSC gun range is member owned and is on the edge of the city. If you like to fish it’s also near the gulf coast. I have lived here for about 12 years and I like it.

Edited to add that you should NOT move into Houston city limits or Harris county limits unless you want to be back in Seattle.

My wife and I moved from the Tacoma, WA area two years ago. We were tired of the absurd politics, the insane cost of living, the 9-months of grey rainy dreariness.

So far we absolutely love it here. We moved to Montgomery County, north of Houston, but far enough away that it is quite red. The heat in the summer is something else, but otherwise it is a huge improvement in almost every aspect. We sold our rickety Quadrant Home that was in a development of cookie cutter homes and was on a postage stamp of land (with a shared front yard with your neighbor) and were able to move almost laterally into a much nicer house on an acre.

The only things I miss are the mountains (its unbelievably flat around here), the Sound, and my parents who are still back in WA. Our son is 15 months old now, and with the pandemic my parents have only seen him once, when he was born.

I moved here a little over a year ago. I’m just outside San Antonio in Guadalupe County. Guadalupe County is red.

I picked this area because from what I read, Houston, Dallas, and Austin are being flooded with Californians, but the majority of people moving to San Antonio are native Texans. I don’t want to be surrounded by Californians. There’s lots of military here too. Traffic is a breeze, you’ll laugh when people complain about rush hour in SA.

My wife is a real estate agent. If you’re interested in this area IM me and I’ll give you her info.

Best pecans in the word come out of Guadalupe county. In Belmont there's a pecan shop where they have cracked pecans for $4/lb. Also, best wood for BBQ comes from there - post oak.
I'd love to live there again.

I know we are looking to escape kolorado and head that way.  Want outside of town but within commuting distance for work.  Wife was looking around Greenville but not sure where we may end up. May be this summer or late summer

Post Oak is great for brisket, but I like to use Pecan for pork or sausage and Mesquite or Pecan for any kind of bird.  There are some pretty great Pecans come out of Williamson and Bastrop counties.  Unfortunately those counties are starting to get too Purple because of their proximity to Austin.

I'm considering Bell or Burnet counties in the future.

Do you hate rain, and not want to see it for months on end?

West Texas might just be for you!

I live inner city Houston.  My neighbors are primarily republicans.  Even those that are liberals are still good neighbors.  Nice people, and frankly, politics does not really come up.  

I am 15 miles or so from a 600 yard range, plus trap/skeet/pistol range/100, 200, 300, and 400 rifle range.  

I can walk to my favorite pubs and numerous restaurants.   I am a cheap uber/ride share to most of the attractions.  

Crime is very low in my hood.  

Texas, overall, has a messed up property tax system to fund the schools, particularly if you own multiple properties.  You will get soaked.  

Our motto down here - from each according to his real estate holdings, and to each according to his offspring.    

It's hot AF. My wife and I went to the San Juan Islands for our honeymoon.  Your June weather is our March/April weather.  

We have far less public land than most places.  Texas is 95% privately owned.  Most of the big areas of public land are out west, and are administered far more strictly than BLM property.  There are some national/state forests in the eastern part of the state.  Point is, in most places you can't just hike out into the woods and go shooting.

Hunting is expensive, because private land.  Ranges shouldn't be too hard to find.  

You're less likely to have Seattle commie garbage people issues in Texas, but all the cities are liberal.  

Property taxes and sales taxes.  But no state income tax.  

It depends on what kind of weather you want. South Texas is hot and humid, but great if you don’t like cold weather.  North Texas is more mild in the summer with maybe 1-2 months of hot weather. The panhandle gets snow on a regular basis. If you want dessert, you can go out west towards El Paso.

There is this humidity line.   If you are south/east of humidity line, summers can be brutal.   If you are north/west of the line, its relatively pleasant.  

Sitting out on your porch in the shade in July - miserable in Houston, but kinda pleasant in the Hill Country even though the temps in the hill country might be 5 degrees hotter.  

Most of the good paying jobs are in the cities, and the commutes can be rough.  

I did 27 miles each way to downtown Houston for 20 years.   35 minutes at 5 a.m.  45 minutes to 1 hour at 6 am.  1.5 hours at rush hour.   That's with no major wrecks.  Leave at 6 each morning, and you burn roughly 9 hours a week, week in, week out, sitting in your car on the freeway.