Does a place like this exist?

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way to go AliceInOz, though Tim sounds like a nice person so maybe we could let him in.

the pacific northwest is relatively liberal with a reasonable cost of living, - citys like seattle and portland though, towns like grants pass, and bend oregon come to mind. so does olympia washington

I love the Tree kangaroos OMG Soooo cute.

You like Kangaroos?

What about white albino tree wallabies?


and...

Numbats


and

Platypus

[

They are sooooo cute!! wish I had one for a pet.

Thanks Gavin, yes, perhaps we could make an exception for Tim. Mustn't let the secret out though, must we? I kinda like our little (not so little) hidey hole down under.

There's always the blue-ringed octopus to discourage people... Yeesh.

And these little darlings too... http://www.xs4all.nl/~ednieuw/australian/Spidaus.html
hee hee

Portland, Oregon is an awesome city, and although the entire Pacific Northwest is a seismic zone, the Willamette Valley tends to have somewhat less of an earthquake risk than someplace like Seattle. Taxes and cost of living are relatively low (no sales tax in Oregon), and the people are mellow as hell.

Any medium-sized college town might be worth considering as well... Think places like Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Ann Arbor, Michigan; or Ithaca, New York. Cost of living is generally low, and there's usually a healthy intellectual vibe where weirdness and eccentricity are celebrated instead of scorned.

New York City is also pretty awesome, despite the high taxes and cost of living. No matter how weird you think you are, there's always somebody across the street ten times weirder. Nobody makes eye contact with anybody here, and there's a certain refreshing bluntness and lack of pretension among most New Yorkers; you usually know where you stand here. The noise and the cost of living are the biggest problems for me, but you get used to the noise (or find ways to avoid it), and salaries tend to be much higher here as well... Especially considering that you don't need to own a car.

In keeping with the fear of natural dangers, the Pacific Northwest, west of the Cascades, seems to have the safest insects and reptiles. I've been warned to watch out for brown recluse spiders but that's about it and I've never seen a brown recluse spider. So if you see a critter or insect that you''d like to befriend around here, don't worry. They won't hurt you.

Also, wonderful as Australia looks, they have a killer drought right now. I hope that it's not a global warming thing. I hope things get better over there soon.

In keeping with the Australia theme... I have to note that a friend of mine from the Sydney area said that they don't even have screens on their windows, since there simply are no bugs around where they live. I dunno how that could even be, but that's what he said in all sincerity.

As for safe critters in general, I find that anywhere where the winters are bad, the bugs are good. Roughly (does NOT apply to mosquitos). For example, on the U.S. East coast, north of Maryland, there are no poisonous critters. Maybe a couple of rare snakes, but hardly anything in terms of poison. And no grizzly bears, no lions, no nuthin' from the animal kingdom that is likely to kill you should you encounter it. No really nasty plants either. Poison ivy is about as bad as it gets, unless you go munching on strange berries, of course.