What's the farthest you've lived from where you were born?
3I was born in San Diego, California and lived there for 20 years of my life before heading an hour or so north to Orange and LA Counties. Then I puttered around for a while until I found my way to Texas. As they say...
Anyway here's how far I moved:
1,358 miles -- respectable but not all that far, I assume I'll be beaten pretty handily.
Late Edit: Also mention the place you've liked living the most and why.
- 46 comments, 45 replies
- Comment
Born in Baltimore. Lived in Turkey for a short while.
@Teripie
5522 miles give or take, not bad.
I was born in Munich Germany and I live in San Diego now, so I guess that's the farthest I've ever been from where I was born.
Over six thousand miles away.
About 6700+miles: distance from NW Arkansas to Dongducheon, South Korea, which beats my earlier 5000 mile move to Nuremberg, West Germany.
@rockblossom 2ID?
@nathanK Yup. Bad job, but the location is amazingly beautiful. Most gorgeous sunrises in the world.
Can I count when I spent a year at Al Udeid AFB Qatar? Well that country was home base to several other countries in the area. Some I wish to never return to...
@derek17j From Worcester MA, aka snowiest city in the US.
@derek17j Yes. I certainly think so.
I moved a lot. A bunch are repeats (The Woodlands three times, Midland twice (13 years apart), Colorado twice (7 years apart)). Despite all roads going through Dallas, this is the first time I've ever actually lived here.
layfayette indiana
Los Angeles, CA
via OH, NC, SC, FL
i prefer lala-land. i have some great friends. i live next to mountains, but also under an hour to beach. really the only thing i don't like is my family is all east coast, so visits are stupid expensive and require planning.
i HATED orlando. everything about it, people, weather, disney, the lack of tree diversity, how flat hte land was, toll roads everywhere.
Atlanta to Boston - 1,077 miles
The winters are a pain in the ass, especially right now, but it pays off from spring to the beginning of winter. It doesn't get as hot, tons of green space, and you can walk everywhere.
If only there was a night life here.
@The_Baron It's not fair, in the winter, Boston is always warmer than Worcester, then in the summer you are cooler. We lose all year.
I'm not going to give out my birth city - but my longest from home is where I live now 2,834 miles from my birth city.
20 or so miles.
@juststephen Same here. Good old central PA won't let me go (even when I've tried to leave!).
I was born in the US, grew up in Western Europe, came back to the US, spent a couple years in North Africa, then back to the US. So, farthest distance is 6,123 miles.
7300 miles: born in the Philippines and moved to Los Angeles for 6th grade.
Then I crept up the California coast for undergrad -> grad -> work. My favorite place to live was Santa Barbara, CA for grad school.
@Odi Do I spy another Gaucho?
@hollboll Yup! Was a Bruin for undergrad, but instead of doing the 5 year BS/MS program there, my GF was a Gaucho so I also applied there. Applied for MS and was admitted as MS/PhD at the admission chair's recommendation
Paltry 1700 miles from where I was born. I liked Wyoming the most (which is neither where I was born nor where I am now), but am happy here. Seasons are a good thing, and I appreciate the convenience of being close enough to shop in large cities without having to live there.
My husband was born in a hospital on El Cajon Blvd in San Diego. He grew up in El Cajon, we got married and live a quarter of a mile from where he grew up.
Like @juststephen, twenty miles max.
9980 miles, lived in Australia for 1/2 a year. Lived on the ocean in RI for years and it was my favorite! Live about 500 yards from the house where I grew up :)
I was born ~60 miles from the geographic center of the contiguous United States, and have lived within the boundaries of the aforementioned since. So, I am at a disadvantage on this one, as I started half-way from anywhere. They did mention my hometown in passing on "Better Call Saul" last night . . . I called a distant relative still living there after the show . . . He said that's about the most exciting thing to happen to them since the local Corn Queen turned 18 and ran off with one of the High School football coaches last year.
Van Nuys, California to Gaithersburg, Maryland: 2631 miles
However that isn't quite fair because it was only for a couple of summers to do internships. Apart from that, it would be to Raleigh, NC, for 2552 miles.
I don't think I have a singular favorite place, I've gotten lucky with locations I've lived matching my age and mood. But I do have a most hated place: Hartsville, South Carolina. Did not live there by choice, just happened to be where a boarding school was located. Whatever you do, don't even go there.
I traveled to six of the seven continents but Scandinavia was the farthest I lived from Texas.
Born in small town new hampshire. Lived 10 miles away, 25 years later never left.. Besides when I went to college about 100 miles away, but that was just living on campus.
Just shy of 500 miles between NC and NYC. NYC was lots of fun and I'd probably move back in the right circumstances, but NC will always be home. Although if I ever had a chance to live in Vienna, Austria...
A small town in northwestern PA to Buffalo to D.C. to Tel Aviv to Cincinnati. So farthest, 5,850 miles. Now, about 350. No favorite because different places at different stages of my life.
@pooflady I'm in a small town in northwestern PA as well.. Which county?
@kadagan Erie
@pooflady ahh, as northwest as you can get :). I'm in Beaver County
@kadagan And the town is the most northwestern in PA.
@pooflady Nice. I'm sure the weather is fun up there ;).. I'm on the border between Lawrence and Beaver counties..
@kadagan wth, I am in Mercer county. All our sidewalks are ICE! Was raised mostly in Lawrence (I think that was it, New Castle area).
33.3 miles from my childhood home in suburban NY to where I spent my late teens-late 20's. My home now is 27.5 miles from my childhood home. What can I say, I'm one of the weird people who likes the freaky NY weather. Besides that, I start twitching when I get south of NJ.
Born and lived in the UK, loved in Phoenix AZ for over 15 years, not sure of the distance but I wouldnt want to walk back....
As my facebook profile says; I was born in New Caledonia... and now I live here.
15.6 miles. Southern California is awesome!!
I've lived in New York City (for school), Tucson, Arizona (for school) and Chicago but the furthest away I've lived from my hometown was Reno, Nevada -- 1,751 miles. That was only for a summer (also for school).
I'm actually thinking about moving somewhere far away though. I work from home, which can be anywhere with an internet connection. So I'm thinking about being a digital nomad.
I forgot to add that I also lived on the south rim of the grand canyon for 3 1/2 months. But Reno is farther away.
I think the real question should be ... how many schools did you attend between K-12th
@unixrab 8
@unixrab 6
@unixrab I was in the same school system for 15 years. 2 years of preschool, missed the birthday cuttoff to start kindergarten the first year, then K -Senior. There were 4-5 of us in the graduating class.
@Mavyn @Pavlov @Headly
12
@unixrab 9. Mascot highlights include: Buffalo, Challenger Spaceship, Highlanders, and Eagles three different times
@unixrab 3. My parents still live in the house we moved to in 1968.
@unixrab 9
@unixrab 3
@JonT My first two were in Tustin and then Irvine ;-)
@unixrab 5
@unixrab 1. Inside the front cover of my senior yearbook was our class picture. Inside the back cover was our kindergarten picture, most of us standing in the same places.
@pooflady wow. I bet you've had friends for life from school ;-)
@unixrab 10
@unixrab Does a change in the school district's name and therefore my high school's name count as more than 1? My class ring, purchased as a freshman, has the old (and original) name for my high school. My sophomore year we gained a hyphenated name. Somewhat recently we gained another hyphen.
In my dreams I live 238,900 miles from where i was born. The reality is more like 2,100 miles. Indianapolis to Orange County, CA.
@Headly you want to live on the moon?
@unixrab I do. Still waiting for Moonbase Alpha to be built.
@Headly I'm waiting for Mars. DOOM2 and I have unfinished business
Eastern PA outside of Philly to Phnom Penh, Cambodia
8838 miles
In the USA I have lived in Key West also in the Virgin Island, Boston Harbor (on "tall ships"), Northern Maine, Northern Idaho, NW Ontario, various places in PA, OH, NY, IL, MI, MA, MS, MN, NJ, FL, OK, VA, MD, VT, and likely a few more places I have forgotten. England, Scotland, Netherlands, Germany
@Kidsandliz Wow! I'm impressed...thought I was a nomad. Though I suspect you're in the military. I'm not. I moved on my own volition.
@YahSah15 Nope not military. I used to take people camping for a living and those jobs are seasonal. I used them to travel. The last 16 years IL to OK to northern ID to MS (and I hope to get the hell out of MS as this is my least favorite place ever)
From waay south to Anchorage (after NY & TX).
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness." Now living back south.
@YahSah15 Collards Please! With some White Lily biscuits and honey
@unixrab Eh..? What did you say? I can't hear. My eardrums are busted from clicking on one of your links while wearing, on high volume, really efficient ear buds! :)
@YahSah15 I lol'd twice. Thank you! "What are you laughing at" says wife ;-)
I like purple.
Traverse City, MI to Alameda, CA. = 2,432 miles driving.
If living aboard a USN ship counts than my "house" was on the other side of the world.
@Mehrocco_Mole if ships count, then it's 6500 miles for me, more or less.
From where I was born? 250 miles, when I was in college. From where the most of my childhood was spent? 183 miles, same time. I'm living in my childhood home, which is 69 miles from where I was born.
I was born in Fort Riley, Kansas and have lived on both sides of the states for equal parts of my life.
After I was born my mom and I had only stayed there till I was 3 months old, never been there since, but I really want to visit sometime.
I was born in New England, bounced around the northeast in my early 20s, moved to LA because a family member had a free bed, so that's the furthest. Then I shortly moved to the place people go when they realize they hate LA, Phoenix, AZ!
My favorite place to live was Boston. It's a great place to be when you're young and want to live with no car and a tiny apartment. I think I would hate to live in the Boston suburbs and have to drive to get around, though. I just like the city area.
I live slightly under a mile from my childhood home, where my mom still lives (and has since 1984).
Unless College counts... then I was 82 miles from home.
The greatest distance was 7,762. It's a tie for the greatest cultural distance between the 7,762 miles and the 137 miles between St. Louis and the spot in rural Missouri that I lived for a year.
@glindagw Rural Illinois here. SO DIFFERENT.
@MsELizardBeth People kept saying, "Oh, you're from Missouri, it must be nice to be back home."
@glindagw "No, It's not. It's really really not."
@glindagw Yeah… cultural difference… living in the southern half of MS, might as well measure the difference from the moon to anywhere else I have lived. If you had told me it was like this before I moved here I would not have believed you.
I lived in Australia for a few months, but Santa Barbara, CA will always have a fond place in my heart.
About 5200 miles. I was born in California and spent a year in Oslo for work. Now I'm a more-comfortable <150 miles from my birthplace.
I went from Grand Prarie to Arlington.
~2600 miles
I envy people who have lived outside the states. Outside the contiguous states even.
born in Ahmedabad, India. lived in oswego, il. 7797 miles
Born in Appleton WI and now live in Green Bay WI. So all of 15 miles... Both aren't all that interesting to be honest.
294.8 miles from where I was born to where I attended college, but only 84.5 miles between where I was born and where I've always lived/considered home. (Mom being in a high-risk category = me being born in a larger and not-so-local hospital.)
Kailua, HI to Northern VA (4800 miles). I guess I lived in Rhode Island for a year, which is farther (5060 miles).
born in the bronx ... lived in southeast queensland (surfers paradise) ... now living in san francisco.
couple miles