Smaller, less "glamorous" cities are often the best option for remote workers in my opinion; there are a lot of cities out there in places like e.g. Ohio or Wes

Smaller, less "glamorous" cities are often the best option for remote workers in my opinion; there are a lot of cities out there in places like e.g. Ohio or Western NY that are looked down on as "boring", but which actually have a lot of culture and fun things to do, and are still large enough to have a decent amount of nice restaurants/amenities/etc... And at the same time, they also have very low cost of living and avoid a lot of the overcrowding problems you see in bigger, trendier urban areas. Personally, I live in Rochester, NY, and I absolutely love it. There are definitely some neighborhoods that I avoid, but there are also extremely nice areas in the city with beautiful yet affordable housing and lots to do. There are all kinds of fun events, concerts, and festivals going on all year; lots of nice restaurants, bars, and coffee shops; an assortment of beautiful parks; the list goes on. The community of friends I've met here is also much more tight knit than anything I've encountered in bigger, busier cities. I think a lot of people tend to gravitate toward extremes: I see a lot of answers in this thread pointing to very large cities, or super-rural areas out in nature, or far-away international metropolises. There's definitely something to be said for picking a middle ground, though - I feel like I get to have my cake and eat it too, and if I want to occasionally go to a Michelin star restaurant or climb a mountain, I can always do that on vacation (which, of course, is easy to fit in the budget too, given the amount of money I save by living here).