I look around for this all the time trying to decide what the next best place to live is. A place I like to look is Nomadlist. You can filter by region, price, and other interesting factors. I have the paid version from some sale though I don't know if it's more limited now in the free version. Another trick you can do is to look for college towns. Usually these are quite pleasant to live in if not a little rambunctious (but just the right amount usually). This usually keeps you in good restaurants and airports.

So you can do something like google search[0]

and then start filtering ones that sound interesting through nomad list and Zillow or another real estate site.

Pretty much everything is going to look cheap compared to SF but you can get even cheaper by moving your search out by one suburb. Then it gets novelty cheap. Obviously you still want to check out the area and make sure it's a place you'd want to live. Google maps street view is a good way to start getting clues. Subreddits for the town are a good place to check too.

[0] https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/50-best-college-towns-ame...