The best places to live with the possible coming events, specifically Climate Change (which affects water access) and War, is paramount to successful living. No matter what happens economically over the coming years, there will always be a place that makes sense, based on your job. But when we take Climate Change into account or even War, this changes a whole slew of factors. These 5 criteria will help you decide if the place you are living now, is the best place in the future for you and your family.
Water rights
To actually decide the best places to live, we need to look at several factors. The first, on my mind, is what the outlook is like in terms of water. In California, they have billboards that read “Food grows where water flows”, and this is very apt. It means, if you don’t have access to water, then your chances of growing food slims considerably. So water is the most important factor to consider. Does it rain, is there access to a well, is there a stream nearby, do we have access to lake frontage? If the answer to any of these is yes, then we can move on to the next set of questions.
Warning: Some neighborhoods have set agreements that you cannot capture rain or use a well. This is usually the case when people agree to use city water over alternatives. Check with a realtor in the area you are choosing the best places to live before you buy property.
Good Soil
Good soil is probably another thing to keep in mind when selecting the best places to live. Good soil can be created from dirt, but very difficult with rock, pebbles, and sand. To create from dirt, you will need to add bio-matter to the dirt, and ensure the proper pH balance is set. One such way that people use to turn dirt into soil, is to add mixtures bought from nurseries or home improvement stores. But the homesteader might just burn some non-evergreen tree limbs and then plow it under.
A way that farmers will sometimes use to nourish the soil, is to grow alfalfa (when it grows), and then to plow it under instead of drying it out. It is possible to turn dirt to soil, but asking at a nursery should be done first, before assuming you know the best way.
Pro Tip: Take a soil sample with you, when you go to a nursery, so they can know what you are working with.
Climate Zone
Your Climate zone is going to determine what you can grow and what you can’t. For example, if you live where it gets hot and dry, then you need to grow in the winter. Heat kills roots. Meanwhile, if the climate zone is cooler and wet, you may need to grow in a greenhouse so that your crops do not get too cold and freeze, or too wet which can cause other problems such as fungus.
To determine the ideal climate zone and the best places to live for what you want to grow, we suggest following this link, which will tell you which zone you live in. Keep in mind, it’s also a good idea to grow native plants to an area. If you grow non-native plants, they might not get pollinated, which means you might need to do so manually if you want to propagate them. If you are hoping for further information on what we can expect in changes in the coming years for climate zones, which should be considered when choosing where to live, click here.
Pro Tip: Look for an area that will be cooler (North). Warmer areas hold more moisture in the air, so it will rain and snow less. In fact, the storms will become more powerful, and slower. We can already see this effect happening. Hurricane Katrina moved very slow, but was Powerful. This will happen more and move as the Earth warms up.
Pollinators
Having access to pollinators will help to determine where you are, deciding where to live. Most people think that bees are the only pollinators, they aren’t. There are over 15 different pollinators that are working at all times. Refer to the list here. Which is why when they use various fungicides or a few years back sprayed insecticide to kill off all the mosquitoes (carriers of the Zika virus) that I could see a possible decimation of life in those areas.
In actuality, when choosing the best places to live understand that Bees 🐝 are pollinators, but so are moths, butterflies, and some birds, but there are more. Each of them can determine the difference between fruits and none. The best places to live should ensure that there are some locally, preferably wild pollinators, but even beekeepers and their services are great for having access to them.
Water Levels
If all the snow and ice melts, then we can expect the levels of the oceans to rise. Not all the water will get into the oceans, however a large portion of it will. The maximum expected rise in sea level is 60 meters, or about 195 feet (ca. 59 m). So, it is an excellent idea to find a home that’s at least 220 feet (ca. 67 m) above sea level (Source). Some reports suggest it will be much lower, only about 2 meters or 2.5 yards (2.29 m). The bulk of the news agencies will use that latter figure to not scare people. However, those of us in the “know” will be able to plan for it.
Best places to live
Hopefully, this guide on the best places to live was found early by you. If you read this when it was published in early 2023, you had a huge advantage to anyone who reads this in 2025 or later. It’s expected that we can see huge water shortages in desert areas, after all there are over 300 rivers and lakes that are already drying up.
What this essentially means is that the best places to live will be the extreme North such as Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Russia, or the extreme South like Argentina. The temperate zone of South Africa will not, in fact, be a good place, as it is too far north. This also holds true for New Zealand, despite the rich’s purchasing of holdings there. However, another option is off the Great Lakes in North America. 90% of all Canadians already live in this area, but only a few percentages of Americans do.
