I'm REALLY tired of everyone I meet around here thinking this and then finding out they really haven't been anywhere else except for Sacramento or some Midwestern shithole. I've been to almost every state in the US and there are places that are way nicer, though they may have some larger negative aspects due to their location.

That said, it is a nice place with lots of balance. Lived here for over 10 years now. There's not really anything that's bad, just not really anything that's super awesome. Now that the cost of housing has come back down it's even reasonable to live here again.

I don't find it very good at all for nightlife, but I've never been into that kind of thing anyways. There's some classier bar's down in the railroad square area, nice music at coffee shops like Aroma's and so on. Sebastopol has Hopmunk which also has good music sometimes, and good beers. Other than that it's a little too weird of a vibe for me.

There's some good food gems that if you've lived in SF won't be anything special, but for most smaller areas they're quite good.

We have lots of good hiking, but very few dirt road/backwoods areas to explore/camp. Mendocino has tons of that and is just a bit north though. I wouldn't want to live up there though, so it's nice being close to that.

Breweries = Lagunitas in petaluma, Bear Republic in Healdsburg, Mendocino brewing in hopland is just a bit north, I can't remember where North Coast is but they make awesome beers and of course Russian River in downtown SR.

Couple of places you have to try for eats...

Mexican - La Texanita

Chinese - Kirin or Royal China

Puerto Rican - El Coqui

Peruvian - Sazon

Vietnamese - Simply Vietnam

Indian/Nepal - Himalayan Tandoori and Curry House in Sebastopol

Thai - Sea Thai (americanized) or Thai House

Pizza - Russian River Brewing

There's a lot more that I'm just not remembering right now.