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Except the access to nature aspect. I mean, that is a broad and ambiguous statement, but not too many places are as beautiful as California.

If you were to take access to nature to mean, being within driving distance of nature sites that people travel across the country to experience, then the number of metro areas drops significantly.

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Look at a map of national parks. Most of the population of the US is within driving distance of a national park.

The Appalachian mountain range stretches from GA to Maine, and contains dozens of state and national parks that people travel across the country to see. Nearly the entire eastern seaboard is within range of one of them.

The only part that isn’t is Florida, and they have better beaches than California, swamps, lakes, and massive crystal clear springs.

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