I moved from Calgary to Salmon Arm five years ago. No knock on Calgary cause I loved it there too, but moving here is among the best choices I ever made.
Salmon Arm is about 40 minutes north of and about half the size of Vernon. Vernon is a bit drier and sunnier but the climate anywhere in the interior of BC is way different from Calgary. We get 4 distinct seasons. Summers are hot with regular mid 30s. Winter doesn’t really get going until Christmas and is usually over by late Feb to mid-March. Biggest culture shock was the lack of nightlife and good restaurants although that is changing and Kelowna and Kamloops are mid-size cities not far away. There are quite a few tourists in the summer. Most of these towns have had an older age demographic but the last few years have seen a ton of younger people moving here from bigger cities. Biggest upsides are affordable housing (compared to Calgary and Vancouver), great schools, recreation, weather, and sense of community. There is a also a much better jobs scene than people think. Salmon Arm has a strong manufacturing sector and roughly 80 tech companies (in a town of 20,000) and many of these companies are hiring.
Vernon does have a reputation as a bit of a rougher town and Maclean’s ranks it #44 in its most dangerous places to live (vs Kelowna #139 and Salmon Arm #188).
https://www.macleans.ca/canadas-most...s-places-2020/
For what it’s worth Salmon Arm was also ranked number 1 in BC and number 6 in all of Canada in Maclean’s 2019 ranking of 415 Canadian communities.
https://www.macleans.ca/best-communi...-ranking-tool/