I lived in Olympia for a few years and I’ll say that the nature and beauty of the PNW is next to impossible to beat. Astoria and the surrounding area were my favorite places to visit and if I won the big lotto I’d buy a condo there. The summers, as brief as they are, were some of the best I’ve ever experienced and if there a regret of leaving it’s all of these things.
However, with most of the population in the Puget Sound area, as well as down in Portland, being mostly from other places who moved because of whatever reason I found the region to be cold and artificial. The friends I did make were born in the area with families who lived there forever, or had moved out that way decades ago. I love living in and exploring cities but Seattle and Portland just seemed uninteresting and as left leaning in my politics I am, how those regions are governed is a clown show.
I do have visiting central and eastern Washington and Oregon on my bucket list.