Do any other Californians feel this way?

[Mr.Bill]

Whenever I leave California, whether tp go on vacation or visit a relative, I feel like I'm almost in a foreign country. I feel a lack of security and contentment. Nothing horrible, and it's not keeping me from travelling, but something just doesn't feel right. I've travelled a lot in my lifetime, and been to about 40 states, and it's never felt like this.

[honeylady]

1. I've lived in California since 1975

and I love living in San Diego. I really don't have a clue about what your'e talking about.

[kimbutgar]

2. Going to Arizona next week

I always feel nervous going there. With the stand your ground laws and all those racists I feel constantly on notice to watch myself. I am a light skinned black woman and I get looks from people trying to figure out if I’m Hispanic, Jewish or Black. My brother in law is a friggin racist who barely tolerates me. But my beloved mother in law is getting up in age and it’s harder for her to travel. Living in SF I never feel that way. So I hear you.

I feel safer traveling in a Europe than the US nowadays.

[ailsagirl]

16. That would make me very nervous

You just don't know what's up with some people

Sorry to hear your brother-in-law is a friggin' racist!!

Glad I live in the Bay Area!

[kimbutgar]

20. I know I never feel fearful in the bay area

Grew up and still live in San Francisco used to being around several races. My brother inlaw has the white male priviledge but I am doing better than him financially and career wise. My sister in law wanted me to co sign on a $65,000 loan for their son to go to pilots school. We said no and it caused a family riff.

[Phoenix61]

3. I don't know but would love to find out

Recently went to NM for Thanksgiving from Florida. Definitely felt like a foreign country, in a good way. Blue feels better than Red.

[violetpastille]

4. Yes.

I'm a native Californian now in the PNW, I know exactly what you mean.

For instance:

When I get a chance to drive in CA again it's like flying through clouds. The other drivers would rather live than die. What a feeling!

It's a palpable sensation of safety being around a less depressed population, or at least people who admit depression and seek a remedy.

[Tikki]

5. We rarely cross the Rockies, and we feel more at ease traveling within the Western States..

for our excursions.

We don’t seem to visit Idaho or Utah often, but find the Coastal States, including British Columbia, relaxing.
We have plans to visit Nevada and New Mexico in the near future.

The one thing that we find is that it can be hard to find radio stations that aren’t
religious based in certain parts of the whole Country.
We learned to search out different stations before our trips or bring along our favorite CD’s.

We travel by car on our vacations.

The Tikkis

[roscoeroscoe]

6. Yes Sir

Active duty Army here, since 2010. My wife has had to come along with me to Georgia, North Carolina, Hawaii, and now Maryland.

Georgia & NC are places we don't look forward to going back to, no offense ya'll. But we had some incidents. My wife was scared out of her skin while I was on duty; a Bubba-style 'deputy' pulled her over, ragged on her about being from California, and tried to find any possible thing he could charge her with. No luck, a-hole. Another charmer was our real estate agent, I kid you not, who couldn't simply rent us a condo without going on and on about hating California. What an idiot! I had to bring him back to earth with some of those dreaded 'facts'.

And don't even, people, get me started about the 'war of Northern agression'. They shut that noise down pretty quick when I pulled up the southern states' declarations, with the language about slavery etc.

I also tossed in how the southern states were manipulated into secession to weaken the U.S.

So, you're going to find those people. But apparently, you can find plenty of them working at Tesla in the bay area. There's an element everywhere you have to be prepared to deal with.

[Mr.Bill]

7. And don't get me wrong,

In my lifetime I have also managed to find good people everywhere I went, in many states.

[procon]

8. Last year I traveled to Utah with other family members visit one of my nephews.

He had just bought his first house and added his first child to our clan roster. So off we went as a large group in a big rented passenger van. We stopped at a convenience store in Utah and got the stink eye like we were a gang of crooks about to rob the place instead of eager customers spending about $100 on snacks and stuff, plus buying gas.

We stopped at some roadside vantage points to take photos of the truly spectacular vistas, and at one place cops blocked us in and held us for nearly 2 hours while they interrogated us and ran id checks on every adult... No explanation, no apologies.

I was never so happy to leave Utah and get back home to California.

[Mr.Bill]

10. Did your rental van have California plates on it?

I think some cops in other states like to zero in on that.

[procon]

14. Yes, it did, and the name of the rental agency was on the plate framework.

Three adults over 55, two thirty somethings, three preteen kids, and 2 sweet little Cocker Spaniels... We were definitely a nefarious and suspicious bunch. LOL!!

[Polly Hennessey]

9. Home in California.

The only place to be. Last trip I made outside of California was to Missouri. The sameness, the stifling boredom, and the oppressive, muggy weather was too much. Do not like traveling outside of my home state. Dear Missouri and any other state east of the Rockies, I do not like you. It’s okay with me if you don’t like California. Better that you stay away from my Golden State.

[AZ Jim]

11. I am a California native

There are many now but when I was born in 1936, very few. I left California upon my retirement from General Dynamics in San Diego. I left due to the horrible invasion of newbies which brought about the highly inflated cost of living, Real Estate prices, Taxes and the crime they brought with them. I have been back several times and was saddened to see the result of too many people and crime and graffiti. I will always cherish California in my memories as a wonderful place to live in the 30's,40's, 50's but I'll not again live there. It was just to good to keep secret...

[Mr.Bill]

12. I arrived here at the age of eight in 1961 in San Jose.

In '91 I moved 150 miles north to Lake County. I know exactly what you are talking about with it getting too crowded. But at my age (65) I now prefer the small town life. It is still available and affordable in California. It does have it's downsides, too, like being evacuated twice for fires in the last few years.

[Tikki]

15. Those who believe you can't afford a home in California haven't looked...

beyond property near the Coast.
I get it...some feel like ‘why should they move’ if they can’t live near the Pacific Coast.

There are comparable home prices, to just about anywhere else, in many places in California.
California is a really large, topographically diverse State.

Tikki

[ROB-ROX]

13. S.F. native

I have lived in California my whole life, but I have worked or visited other states. One time in Fort Smith Arkansas I tried to order "sour dough" toast. Everyone in a restaurant with 20 people stopped talking. The guy I was with who was from Texas asked me to order "whole wheat" toast. Then everyone started talking. We had a rental car from Fort Smith so it was not a car thing. I have been to Hawaii many times but California is more relaxed for me. I have been east to NY, NJ, SC, Ga, Tx, NM, etc. My father has traveled world wide, but he lives 30 miles (S.F.) from where he was born......Summers maybe hot but the people are casual except them "R" people

[Auggie]

17. I feel at home in western Washington State, parts of Oregon and New York City

Besides Ohio, I haven't traveled outside of CA to anywhere else in a long time. Last trip to Ohio was 18 years ago and it was depressing as hell. Seattle, N.Y.C., and Oregon coast were okay.

[yuiyoshida]

18. I have traveled to many national and

International places, but I always have to come home to my CITY BY THE BAY ! LIKE THE song says:

[Haggis for Breakfast]

19. I lived in SF for 10 years, back in the 1990s.

And I know EXACTLY how you feel. I worked for the feds at the time and had to travel quite a bit. So many things felt wrong every time I went back east, but worst was the sullen, angry, highly-opinionated people, who upon finding out where I lived, were compelled to make sarcastic, unenlightened comments about a state they had never visited much less understood. I was always desperate to get home to SF. As soon as the wheels hit the tarmac at SFO, I always breathed a huge sigh of relief.

We used to say that the only thing SF was intolerant of was intolerance.

We moved farther north to WA at the end of the decade, but I STILL miss SFO every day.