> I made two visits to Canada last year, and bought gas at random outlets. At no point did it feel significantly more expensive than California prices - I conve

> I made two visits to Canada last year, and bought gas at random outlets. At no point did it feel significantly more expensive than California prices - I converted in my head every time I filled up. This is another point. Canada is a huge place, where gas prices vary wildly even within provinces. Gas in north Ontario is often much more expensive than south. Sometimes the price in St. Catherines is 20 cents cheaper than gas in the GTA because of the 'gas wars' their stations are famous for. > I compared prices from the same outlet: Costco. That's as apples-to-apples as you can get. You can cherry pick information to say whatever you want. You compared a single daily station price in Vancouver to a single daily station price in CA. Costco also requires a membership and they use cheap gas to lure people in, it's not a traditional gas station (though I may look into a membership now...). This is also a time in history when gas is unusually cheap. I suggest you look at averages. There is good reason for the price difference. Although Canada produces a lot of crude, we refine almost none of it so we import pretty much all of the finished product. That money you're saving on the apartment in Vancouver vs Mountain View basically works out to that 10k USD extra you would spend on tax you worked out earlier as well (but of course you would not make anywhere close to the same salary in Vancouver or Toronto). If you want to move to Canada I encourage you to do so, it seems like you would be happy if you did. But to go back to my original point, if you move to a major Canadian city from a major American one with purely financial motivations, you will be sorely disappointed. Also I wanted to work this in somewhere: https://xkcd.com/180/ https://xkcd.com/180/