When Greg Ahlswede posted his training videos online, his friends could’ve sworn he was in Norway. Nope, he was right here in NEPA. The mountains and forests proved to be top-notch terrain for orienteering, a sport where competitors race to different checkpoints using a map and compass.

As a member of the National Orienteering Team, Greg has trained and competed across Europe. After living for five years in Spain, the Philly native decided to come back to the States and find a new spot to call home base (preferable somewhere without the crazy traffic and sky-high rent). During a quick trip up to Scranton, he discovered the perfect balance of city life and the great outdoors.

Greg works remotely as a Spanish-to-English translator, so he could really live and train anywhere in the world. But he ultimately chose the Electric City. We sat down for a coffee and had to ask… why NEPA?

How long have you lived in NEPA?

Since November.

What brought you to NEPA?

When I came back from Spain, I moved back into my parents’ house initially just to come back to the country and get back on my feet. What I noticed in Philly was that the traffic was getting worse and rent was getting more expensive. Then for the sport I do, I was like, “Why am I going to keep living in a big city?” It doesn’t make sense to do something like that. Initially, I moved to East Stroudsburg, and it’s a cool town, but I wanted a bit more city. I took two or three days at an Airbnb down here in South Side to check out Scranton, get a feel for it and stuff. I came through here and was like, “This is actually a decent downtown.” It’s tiny. It might be one neighborhood in New York or something, but it’s cool. Then I started checking out all the different forests around here. It’s really tough because words do fail me. I can say spectacular. I can say world-class. But it really is just something special. I have a lot of friends from northern Europe who want to come here for what we call a training camp, just to come here for a week and really train hard on the terrains. My orienteering club is in Philadelphia, so they’re not too far away, but no one ever expected to find terrain like this out here.

What’s your favorite thing to do in NEPA?

Well, obviously, orienteering [laughs]. But even going out for hikes. I’m in East Mountain. Here, I can walk from my house to trails. I can drive fifteen, twenty minutes in the other direction and find spectacular stuff. There’s a tract of state forest just east of Mocanaqua. It’s new in the sense that they just bought it a few years ago for the state forest system. It’s old coal mine terrain. The Earth Conservancy did a lot of work to reforest it. It feels like you’re in another world—just massive depressions, huge hills. And it’s all hidden. That’s the thing about the East Coast, especially Northeast Pennsylvania. We have so much stuff, but it’s hidden by the forest. You actually have to dig a little bit.

Did anything surprise you about NEPA?

I never experienced, especially in the United States, having city and nature so close to each other. Another thing that was bothering me about Philly was how the suburbs kept expanding and eating up everything until it feels like you’re just in a suburban jungle and you can’t get away. Here, you have this urban strip in the Valley, and then you jump out, and you’re right in nature. That’s really special. The other thing is about the people that I’ve gotten to interact with. There is such a community. I think a lot of people, when I’ve spoken with them about it, they feel tired of it. Like, everybody knows what you do. It’s kind of that community, right? But it is really cool in a way too. Like, my mechanic knows my name and we’re friends on Facebook [laughs]. And, like, the super traditional restaurants, the Northeast PA pizza culture. I think something I felt like I was missing out on in Philly was kind of a sense of community and tradition. I think, especially in Philly right now, so many new people have started moving in, which isn’t a bad thing, but it lost a lot of the old-time character. There’s still the traditional restaurants, but it’s not quite the same. You guys have that here.

What’s next for you?

That is a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time. There’s a lot of factors. I’m super happy living here. There’s a strong possibility that I’ll move back to Spain. I mean, just working as a Spanish translator. I also have an Irish passport, so I can live in Europe no problem. It’s easy to go back and forth. So there’s a possibility I’ll go back to Spain, but I think I’m pretty much decided that if I’m in the US, I’m probably going to be here as far as my home base.

Where do you see NEPA heading in the future?

I think there’s going to be a lot of people like me. I don’t know if you can say it’s going to be a massive migration of people, but with all the telework now with COVID, I think there’s going to be a lot of young, remote-working professionals coming in. They’re going to come and see the same thing I did and say, “Oh, wow, there’s actually a downtown section and restaurants and a bit of nightlife, when we can do that stuff again.” A lot of those people are mountain bikers or hikers or runners. All of this stuff is really spectacular for that. I think you’re going to see a bit of a revival, to be honest.

Why NEPA?

This is where I can live. And when I say “live,” I mean not feel like I’m just getting by. Like, live. I mean, I have a good salary with the work that I do with translation, but it’s nothing special. I have a friend who lives in the Bay Area in California, and if I tried to live out there on my salary, maybe I could rent a room somewhere and have massive loads of traffic. And for what? To sit in traffic all the time and maybe get out to the mountains every once and a while? For me, the forests in Northeast PA are exactly what I need. It’s spectacular woods. I can go a half-mile from my house and feel like I’m in the wilderness, and I don’t have to work all the time to make it happen. I can actually save money. It’s tough to encapsulate it all in one little thing, but I’m pretty excited to be out here.