You have to take the pup, he's family. You are downsizing big time. We had another poster(OAG) once who moved from city to city and rented furnished apartments. Looked like an interesting lifestyle as he moved around all over the country. He even had a blog about his adventures for a while. He was a little on the strange side though. Got banned from this site and his blog disappeared so don't know if he ever settled on a particular area. Wasn't trying to compare you to OAG, just meant your plan seems like a good way to go in finding the area you want to settle. Good luck.