Humboldt County, California is so beautiful that I have thought about retiring there. However, I haven’t for one big reason: You tend to have to do a lot of long-distance driving to get your basic needs met, but I am moving into an age group where that doesn’t sound very prudent.
Even the northern, more urban parts of Humboldt are pretty car dependent. For example, the above photograph was taken from the lovely coastal hamlet of Westhaven, which is nine miles north of McKinleyville, 13 miles north of Arcata and 21 miles from Eureka, which has the most services in that region.
According to Google maps, you could ride the bus if it fits into your schedule, but it would take as long as 70 minutes to get to Eureka.
Back in the 1980s I rode the bus a lot when I was a mostly carless student at what was then called Humboldt State University. However, I was young and healthy, so I didn’t interact much with medical providers.
In recent years locals have reported that it can take as long as a year to see a primary care physician, and specialists can be so scarce that one may need to use telehealth services or travel to larger cities outside of the area to find one (oliverwithatwist, 2025).
It’s true that there’s a local airport, but its flights are limited and service can get interrupted because this is reportedly the foggiest airport in the U.S. (Music, 2023).
Once upon a time there was a train between Eureka and San Francisco, but the tracks kept on getting washed out and business stopped being strong enough to support continuing to repair them (humboldthistory.org, 2022).
So let’s say I lived in Westhaven. If I couldn’t find a local dentist with openings (which the locals say is likely), I might need to go east to Redding, south to Santa Rosa or north to Medford. That’s at least a three-hour drive each way, often through winding mountain roads. There goes a whole day for one appointment.
I am in my late-60s and don’t mind driving long distances now. But what about in a decade? It’s not like I would have younger family members in Humboldt who might help out.
The seasons can add another layer of uncertainty. During winter the mountain passes can get snow and torrential rains can wash out lower-lying highways. Then, during summer and fall, wildfires could disrupt your travel plans.
In other words, doing something as routine as going to a dentist could be much more of an adventure if I were living in Humboldt than where I am now, which is in a western Washington suburb. Here we have had shortages of medical practitioners, but it doesn’t appear to be nearly as big of a problem as what locals report in Humboldt. And even a drive to see a specialist in Seattle can take as little as an hour.
I share all of this to illustrate how transportation policy-making can get quite complex. Urban Humboldt has reasonably good bus service, and the college town of Arcata even offers access to free bicycles. So if you are now a student you could get by without a car even more easily than back in the day. However, that may not be possible if you are older or have significant medical issues.
Fixing that problem may not be easy. The U.S. has shortages of medical providers such a doctors (Medford-Davis and Malani, 2024). In addition, Humboldt may not be a particularly attractive locale because it is so far away from urban amenities, yet a typical home costs $402,700 — which is 19 percent more than the national average (Bestplaces, 2025).
That can lead to awkward discussions on the local Reddit threads, where visitors routinely ask about moving to Humboldt and the locals tend to try talking them out of it — unless they are a badly needed professional (oliverwithatwist, 2025).
One Reddit commentator who works in end-of-life care concluded, “I love Humboldt with all my heart, but this is not a good place to get old and die. This is a place for the young and the healthy. As hard as it is for me, I’m considering leaving for that reason” (stressed-depressed20, 2025).
The automobile can allow us to visit cool places, but it can also tempt us to make life choices that may not be wise.
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RE:SOURCES
- Bestplaces; 2025. “Humboldt County, CA Cost of Living.” Accessed April 13.
- humboldthistory.org; 2022. “Trains Into Humboldt.” The Humboldt Historian. Posted June 17.
- Medford-Davis, Laura and Rupal Malani; 2024. “The physician shortage isn’t going anywhere.” McKinsey & Company. Posted Sept. 10.
- Music, Lisa; 2023. “Local airport touted as the ‘foggiest airport’ in simple flying article.” Redheaded Blackbelt. Posted Jan. 24.
- oliverwithatwist; 2025. “Preempting all future ‘Should I Move to Humboldt?’ Posts.” r/Humboldt Reddit. Posted March 30.
- stressed-depressed20; 2025. Commentator in “Preempting all future “Should I Move to Humboldt?” Posts.” r/Humboldt Reddit. Posted April 1.
I was a native San Diegan who was disgusted with what both San Diego and California in general had become. I was able to retire a bit early due to Covid, no tragedy, I was burned out and ready to go. We ultimately chose the Boise, ID metro area, it was much smaller and less dense than San Diego, it was also close to fairly decent medical facilities. So far it has been a good fit. I’m enjoying living in a place that has real seasons and not too much snow.
I have relatives who moved from the Seattle area to Idaho and have been enjoying the more relaxed pace, four seasons and lower housing prices. That has some appeal to me but I like to be near the ocean. That’s despite the west coast being due for a big earthquake. You pays your money and takes your chances.