And there are cultural differences. I have had excellent service with car troubles in both Durango and St. George but I felt a lot more comfortable in Durango.

Born and raised as I was in Utah, I’ll weigh in a little: The whole state has come a long way, and Salt Lake City by now has just about anything most people could want. The liquor laws, while a bit odd, are certainly far less restrictive than they are in dry counties elsewhere in the country. Most of the time they amount to paying a few extra bucks’ cover charge to be a “member” of a “private club” for the night. Restaurants can have full beer/wine/booze service, just like … everwhere else. No hinky complications or cover charges. The wine buyers for the state liquor stores tend to be really good, and there are loads of very good microbreweries.

(I don’t know why any explanation of “Utah’s okay, really” always has to begin with the liquor law thing.)

Southeastern/central Utah is very different from southwestern Utah—the side closer to Vegas is much as Matt describes, though as soon as you move either north, toward Delta and the west desert, or east, you approach the kind of high desert that can plummet in temperature during the night—even in summer.

As for the desirability of living within a couple of hours of southern Utah: Don’t tell anybody, but [redacted] and [oops] are pretty close. The state is working like crazy to capitalize on tourism post-2002, which means that most conceptions of the Mormon closed society are pretty outdated. You’re far more likely to encounter the conservatism that comes with ranching and mining—which you’ll find nearly everywhere in the small and mid-sized towns of the western US —than anything overtly religious.

And it really is a spectacular part of the country.

Southern Utah is extremely socially and politically conservative (SLC is a liberal hotbed, by Southern Utah standards). Most academics aren’t.

I think it might be more common among classical liberal academic types, but that might just be a case of projection on my part.

And for Mr. O’Donnell—I’m all too familiar with the esthetic strand. But I don’t think that’s actually along the coast proper. I do recommend the little towns and the rivers as being rather more interesting than their equivalents in CA —much as I love Eureka. My Ramones bakery tee-shirts have always been good conversation starters.

Here I am biking around southern Utah a few years ago, near Brian Head. About nine hours driving rather than two, though.

Well, for one, I noticed too much logging in parts not far from the road: often there’s a strand of trees for “aesthetic purposes,” immediately behind which is a denuded piece of land. Also, the air smells a bit different (have yet to figure out why: the humidity?) and the weather along the coastline can be more extreme. However, I do like much of the coast of Oregon as well, but probably am biased due to a “mere exposure effect” and something akin to an availability heuristic. I’m sure my tastes here are idiosyncratic and I doubt I could rationally justify them. Perhaps the virtues of the Oregon coast are just a bit different and I prefer those peculiar to California (of course the geo-political border is not quite definitive here).

And, Patrick S O’Donnell, what goes wrong with the Coast after you pass the Oregon border? Maybe too many new golf courses around Bandon, but other than that it’s a charming place. Although my kids may strangle me if I drag them to see another Darlingtonia (or whatever the singular would be).

As Joel says, the North American west may have the best balance of civilized urban living and access to wilderness anywhere…in the Alps, cities are even closer to the mountains, but the Alps are no longer even close to wilderness.

Even something as grueling and mostly-stupid as playing flight-deck mechanic during war games at Twenty Nine Palms was rewarded by get-away hikes to Joshua Tree (just across the highway) and night runs through the high desert.