Austin is really nice. It's very artsy and also a sea of blue in a very red state, and I wanted to move there after college.

I won't recommend here since you'd probably want to die during the winter. :)

By the way, if that Big Tech Company is the one I'm going back to, lots and lots of people telecommute. I found out that they're given a tax break by the state of California for allowing people to avoid commuting. So you wouldn't necessarily have to live somewhere in particular to work there, and if you need to go into the office for something, they have field offices all over. There's at least one near you.