Dude, my clutch went out on Friday and I'm ready for that thing to be running again. Even a beater car is worth it. Plus, it sure helps when you can drive to the gf's house, knowamean? Get that 1993 Geo Prism and put a bike rack on it.

boulder

Going carless and you lose out on the experience of driving 450 miles on a road trip in a vehicle you barely trust enough to get you to the grocery store. Oh, the nights driving home in the dread of night staring at the temperature gauge and seeing it creep up higher and higher. The sick, depressing sound of a dying starter on a cold morning. The ill feeling of a clutch pedal going to the floor and staying there.

And what, you are trading that for stiff bike seats, numb palms, and grinding bike gears in the rain? Yeah, it hasn't rained on me yet, but it's coming I'm sure. Ha ha ha.

It rains on me quite a bit up here, but you get used to it. And you buy rain gear.

Thanks for all the responses. I guess someday I'll have to check out boulder....It sounds like thats the only viable option in the states. Squamish/Vancouver does sound cool, but those 6-8 months of rain get me down. I'm definitely going to look into Switzerland and Barcelona some more.

My ideal setup would be somewhere where I can have a decent job and access to the amenities of a city or at least a decent town, and not need a climbing gym to climb every day. I like owning a car, and I like driving, but I think it is stupid and a waste of time and resources to drive everywhere all the time.

May be too small for you but Durango is an option. Awesome in town bouldering, East Animas a short ride away.

Maybe a coincidence he lives in Seattle, but there is a really cool story about temporarily living without a car and still getting outside.

www.pupuplatters.com/pupuplayer/pro/pupuplayer_pro.php?id=33>>>

Google: "Dirtbag Diaries: No Car No Problem" if the link doesn't work.

Boise... If you live up on table rock

Or you can ride your bike to several hundred basalt sport routes...

The bus stops all along Boulder canyon, you can walk to the flatirons from town, biking to eldo is easy.

Any place in Europe will beat even the best place (Boulder) in the US.

Colorado Springs, pretty easy to ride a bike to climbing and I'd bet there's work for an architect

If you've opened it up to anywhere in the world, when I was living in Tokyo, i climbed atleast 2 days a week and 3 weeks ( Christmas/ New Years timeframe, Golden wek the last week of April and Oban ( respect for the dead week) in August.) along with my vacation time. Using the train system and sometime buses, i was always getting out rock, ice or alpine climbing....

South Korea: koreaontherocks.com/

Public trans here is great and there are a lot of English teaching jobs that don't require you to speak Korean.

Chamonix, perhaps. Forget buses; take the Midi cable car from town to go climbing.

Stateside, North Conway deserves a mention for being very close to rock.

boulder fit your criteria. You can jog from downtown to the flat irons in 10 min. If your willing to jump on the buss and bring your bike along , you can catch a ride to Nederland on the N line, and coast down boulder canyon to any crag you care to stop at, the traffic makes this a bit sketchy but still reasonable. Getting to Eldo becomes a bit more complicated though

There are lots of crags in the Frankenjura that are accessible by bike, train, or a combination of both and there are lots of cities here (Nuremberg, Bamberg, Bayreuth, Forchheim, Weiden, Amberg, etc.) which have great job opportunities. I only have experience with taking the train from Nuremberg to the crags, so I'm not sure what it's like from Bamberg or Bayreuth. Bamberg is probably crap, but Bayreuth is probably good. I've taken my bike on the train once to reach one of the further-away-from-the-train-stop crags and it was rough because the hill was brutally steep with that pack on. But otherwise, there are several crags accessible from the train stops - take a look at the Frankenjura site here to see some examples (it's not fully developed yet). Having said that, having a car here is even nicer because you're not limited anymore to only what you can reach by train. But I know it's possible since I lived here 1.5 years before buying a car.

the valley!!!