I'm from PHX, wife is from Provo, we lived all over the country, but came back
to Utah. VA is awesome and we would move back in a heartbeat. San Diego was an incredible place to live Austin is one of my favorite places in America. But all of those are 2x the cost of living in Utah....and if you can figure out the finances so that you make the same in Utah that you would in another state....well you beat the system.
FWIW, our next move is to spend 6 months a year in Hawaii, 3 months in Utah and 3 months in Europe every year.