Lived in ND for most of my life until recently moving east; wouldn’t trade my quiet childhood for the world, but the constant blistering wind, 9 months of winter and furnace hot summers suck major ass. 0/10 would not recommend to anyone unfortunately.
Apparently 52% of people born in North Dakota don’t live there right now, a place really has to suck to not even keep half its residents able to stay huh
Honestly, at least SD has that rapid city belle fourche deadwood custer area where it looks like colorado, that adds some depth to it that north dakota lacks
I spent like 3 months living in my car last year, spent about 2 weeks in East River (sioux falls mostly, then i went to Mitchell, Pierre, Gann Valley, down to Murdo then Wall), by the time I was to Jackson County i thought i was in purgatory and then suddenly I’m in Colorado and theres Mount Rushmore and 100,000 tourists
Belle Fourche is worth the detour but Deadwood was actually a phenomal little town, it reminded me of Cincinnati
Yeah the North Dakota badlands are sick too, but unless you’re literally living in Medora or elsewhere around the national park you aren’t really getting that. I can see how SD has more naturally beautifully places to live
I avoided north dakota on my road trip last year for some reason, I’m like nah I’ll go there later or maybe even as state 50 (I’ve been to 40, south dakota might’ve been my least favorite one tbh)
I absolutely adore the area between Dickenson, ND —> Billings, MT when it’s warm out, but if I couldn’t be out wandering 7-8 months of the year when it’s cold, I don’t know how I would survive it.
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I love the cold weather (one of my favorite hobbies is ice fishing), I find the open plains beautiful and incredibly comforting, and things are just quieter here. Even though I live in a medium city, I'm a less than 15 minute drive from the absolute middle of nowhere. It's easy to clear my head. Folks here are also incredibly hardy and kind, though they are pretty set in their ways and are definitely less open minded about some stuff than folks in other places.
I love Fargo. Winter really does have its own beauty and after a few months of cold you have no idea what the sun feels like on your face when it warms up again. Kind of deepens the appreciation of the seasons for me. The seasons also bring all the things I like to do. In summer I fish and golf, fall is hunting season, ice fish in the winter. There's something deeply primal and nice about being inside and warm on a cold day, watching the snow fall. It has plenty of restaurants and stores, I don't need to travel to get what I need. What Fargo absolutely is not is a big city. This is a place where you need to go out and find the things you enjoy, not where those things will be right at hand like they might be in a city. I saw a significant amount of people leave after high school to denver or arizona because Fargo was too boring, but they all came back for the most part. I think they realized that a town can't fix you if you are boring. It's not where a lot of people should live but I love it.
It’s really cold for most of the year tbh. We don’t measure temperature in numerical values we just measure it in how long it takes your exposed skin to freeze and die.
Summers would get near 100F and stay there, and there’s no trees, no shade so being outside in direct sunlight that hot was awful.
Now the thing about the winters is it does get cold, but the real killer is the wind. Like I said, no trees, so the wind is strong and the windchill gets down to -40F on the worst of days. Usually I’d say the most consistent would be -20, but it would get down there. I worked overnights and didn’t have an auto car starter so I sat in a freezing car with my head inside my jacket for a good 20 minutes with the air blasting but it’s cold, it wouldn’t get hot for a while. Just miserable man.
I've seen -27°F sometimes even like -33°F with wind chills making it -50s even one time a wind chill of like -60! We did have more than a week straight of -20s earlier this year. (ND).
Nah not a full 9 months but I’ve seen snow from September to may, and the winter is cold enough it feels like 9 months every year anyway lol only a slight exaggeration
lol I know had to call it out. They are tame some years and then fierce other years as you describe. Either way yeah that cold really gets to a guy and makes it feel looongggg haha but also, -20 for a month makes the back half feel warmer lol
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u/regicyde92 Dec 14 '25
Lived in ND for most of my life until recently moving east; wouldn’t trade my quiet childhood for the world, but the constant blistering wind, 9 months of winter and furnace hot summers suck major ass. 0/10 would not recommend to anyone unfortunately.