Florida, which is way more diverse and dynamic state than Washington.
The cultural/physical gradient in Florida (from north to south): Kenny Chesney-land in Florabama, Deep South "Old Florida" based around Tallahassee, khaki country in Jacksonville, the hipsters of Ybor and Grand Central, the best beaches in the country in Southwest Florida, tropical New York presented in WPB, Wilton Manors, Cubano-Haitian Miami, glitzy Art Deco South Beach, and then Ernest Hemingway's Key West. Of course I skipped over the unsightly welt on the state that is swampy Orlando, but still sounds pretty cool to me.
Washington is pretty much a single, over-priced, boring post-industrial neoliberal city (home to the most evil corporation known to man, btw) while the rest of the state is inhabited exclusively by rural hicks. No thanks.
You're doing WA a huge disservice with that overgeneralization.
WA first of all has a massive edge over FL with regard to geographic diversity. It has more biomes than any state in the country other than CA: sweeping coastal beaches, the lush temperate rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula, the islands and fjords of the Salish Sea, the agricultural river valleys which carve into the most prominent mountain range in the Lower 48, the flat farmlands of the Columbia Plateau, the otherworldly rolling hills of the Palouse, the great gorges of the Columbia and Snake, and desert vistas and sand dunes in the South Central. FL has one, maybe two biomes, all of which are flat, hot, humid, and either forest or swamp.
Culturally, WA isn't as diverse perhaps, but there's plenty of variation in WA. Yes, there's the tech-driven megalopolis of Seattle, but there's also a strong military and manufacturing tradition across the state; plenty of Native American influence and presence; unique German, Scandinavian, and Dutch pockets; highly Hispanic areas on the Columbia Plateau reminiscent of CA's Central Valley; large Vietnamese, Japanese, and other East Asian influence both in the Puget Sound and in parts of eastern WA (not even counting Canasians who flock to our malls); links internationally to Canada and across the Pacific Rim; tons of religious diversity...
Yes, we've got "hicks", but FL laps WA in that regard; it's called Florida Man for a reason and not Washington man (except that one guy in Enumclaw). Yeah, we've got some large, monopolistic corporations, but that's because WA is a great state for business and innovation. Boeing, Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Costco. What does FL have? Outback Steakhouse? Burger King? I'll take WA's contribution to the world over FL's seven days a week.
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