I’m fully on board with your comment, take my upvote… but if you’re suffering from the nonexistence of public space and you can possibly get out West before you’re stuck for good, that is one thing that everyone who comes here from anywhere east still tells me, that they can hardly believe how much public land there is.

On the other hand, though, to actually make use of all that public land over here, attempting to do so by making plenty of money and therefore having plenty of time and transportation options is a vicious circle that only leads to more frustration for most. The average Californian spends so much time in their own city, barely able to get a few clipped weekends off to enjoy the vast open and unpopulated areas that lie very close by. If you give up on your future (or “the” future) you can still live and work a shitty job in a small town and have lots of time to enjoy the wilderness. I went for broke and did that for many years. Now I’m back in cities because I can’t tell the difference anymore and a city is just a different type of wilderness, now that all roads seem to be leading to the same dark future.