> Finnish residential areas almost always have forests with walking trails nearby. I haven't been to the Midwest, but my impression is that American urban planning doesn't like leaving large undeveloped areas everyone is free to roam near developed areas. That often leaves the residents with nowhere to go by foot.
That's the case where I am. 15 minute bike ride to reach the nearest park of any kind. There are no publicly-accessible forests within reasonable walking or biking distance (20+ minutes by car, largely on highways) and the ones that exist are few, tiny, and crowded because there's very little else around to do outside, as far as being-in-nature sorts of activities.
Most of our forests were destroyed decades ago by agriculture, and when we build housing developments we take all the plants off the land first, destroying any surviving trees and even stripping much of the topsoil (yes, seriously).
The nearest large region of sort-of-OK outdoor space we have is about 5 hours away by car. It's comparable to the worst parts of the Appalachian Mountains. You're looking at 12+ hours of driving to reach anything better than that.
Winter's definitely nicer than Summer, here. Uglier, but nicer. You can always wear more clothes. There's no beating the humidity, except to go indoors or get in water. Plus the mosquitos and ticks aren't out in Winter.
It's a little better if you own some rural land. At least you can go plink cans with a rifle or mess around on four-wheelers. Our forests have a way of developing nasty, thick, poison-and-thorn-filled underbrush that make them pretty miserable to be in if they're truly undeveloped, but if you manage to get some land with some trees on it and don't mind using some light-weight farm equipment to create and maintain some walking paths, that can be an alright time in Spring and Fall.
