I might be a bit biased for my own state, but Oregon sounds like it could be right up your alley. Real estate prices have kinda settled down recently after the inflation we had the past few years, so you can find nice houses for 350-500k in the slightly-rural areas surrounding Portland like Gresham, Oregon City, Estacada or Sandy.

Nature access is excellent, especially if you were to live around the Columbia River Gorge like in Corbett. A drive to the coast is under 2 hours from there also.

Connecticut is always good. An hour to the shore, close to Boston and NYC. Bradley is a great airport and there are lots of remote jobs if yours doesn’t work out long term. Plus the best pizza in the world.

A little while ago, I read an argument that Traverse City, MI will be the next Portland. I think that's right. There's a lot of outdooring within a day drive, and it's pretty affordable.

Your main downsides are summer wildfire smoke will presumably be a regular thing going forward, and winters are cold with lots of snow thanks to lake effect. Michigan politics are interesting, and Traverse City is in a historically red part of the state - but I think that's changing.

500k will definitely get you a good house unless you want something extremely new or right downtown. That particular listing is also one block away from one of my favorite breweries of all time.

You may want to stay in the same time zone as work, or a close one.

If you love the outdoors, I recommend Montana and the Wyoming/Idaho border (Teton counties).

Depending how adventurous you feel MX is an awesome place.

Denver is a super nice city and, while it's NOT cheap, there are cheaper areas near by. Closer to the mountains it's all gentrified, but out on the plains, especially north east and south east of the city you can still find pretty affordable areas.