Just spent the better part of 2 hrs reading this thread start to finish, and enjoyed it immensely. Learned a lot about your country I didn't know, although I've been there more times than I can count.
I live in the Okanagan region of BC Canada in a city of under 30,000. Grew up in a neighbouring province in a city of 1M people, moved out here after high school for 6 months before we ran out of money and went back. Spent 14 yrs saying we should come back here but had a good job that turned into a great career. The money wasn't making us happy, so my GF and I quit work, left our families and friends and have been happy ever since, just over 3 yrs. (friends and family come to visit and are consistently jealous!) We have 1000 lakes within an hr drive (but who's counting), the closest being a 10 min walk. Great ski resort 25 min up a mountain. I live on the side of a mountain. Thousands of acres of public land 10 min away with lots of places to shoot, dirt bike, camp, hunt (not something I do, but am going to start) and generally enjoy life. Weather here is definitely some of the best in Canada, there's only a few days a year that snow stays overnight down in lower elevations of town, but tons up at the hill. Summer is beautiful, temps hover in the mid 80s. We don't have the same amount of freedom up here as you do down there, but it isn't as dramatically different as some Americans think. I LOVE my country! Don't want to live anywhere else. Unless they build a decent ski hill in TX of course.