and half the nation goes over to the mountains on the weekends,

Well of course, we're the alpine slavs. This isn't even a stereotype hahaha, literally everyone I know is hiking at least a few times per year, according to their facebook and instagram.

Health care is currently a hot political topic, there's the usual issues with state funded medical care systems. There's some corruption on the supply side and health care worker wages being too low. Also, for example, the state health insurance company says "you can do exactly 10000 knee surgeries in this hospital in 2025" and if you're the 1001st person on the list, you have to wait 1 year, because they don't approve more budget. That's why some of us simply pay out of pocket for things that we want solved, I personally have paid for dental and physical therapy sessions. Because when something hurts you really don't want to wait 3 months, if you can just pay 50€ to get booked literally the next day. But arguably, you will not go bankrupt or into debt, like in other countries with state health care. You're not worried about emergency care or life saving operations, because that is handled.

I can't really say anything about the people, because I'm more of an introverted type, but I doubt this is much different to other places. We don't have that famous cliche of americans smiling or being surface friendly everywhere (like stores or the sidewalk). But since you mention hiking, just last week we went hiking and everyone says hi there, I even had 2 short conversations with random people walking in the opposite direction. We live in a bigger city in an apartment and yea, we don't really hang out with our neighbours, we say hi and are courteous, but I don't have much in common with most of them so I don't feel the need for anything more. My parents live in a house and there people usually know each other more, also because they are outside working around the house they get more chances to talk or help each other.

For me the biggest downside is the economic (and tax) policy. Current politics aside, we are a small country, so you cannot hope to come here and make a huge company or take over the market. We are an afterthought for multi national corporations, which I guess is also good in some ways. For example we only got KFC a couple years back and we're getting Taco Bell in the next year I think. Since we're part of the EU and eurozone this isn't a big deal, because you can just easily import anything you need that may not be available here. And not in the sense that we're a third world country without the items, but for example graphics cards or comptuer parts in general are just more expensive here because of the low volume that importers work with. So it's simply cheaper to just order it from like Germany and get it shipped in 3-5 days instead.

As for taxes, I don't wanna go into details or the left/right debate, but the system here kind of forces you into being average. We have one of the lowest inequality rates in the world, but that just kind of means almost everyone is between minimum wage and average wage. You're not going to see a six figure job here. If you want to make it, you have to start your own business and become a tax (loophole) expert to go beyond the middle class.

Then there's real estate, but that isn't a surprise to anyone and isn't limited to just Slovenia.

So in short, if you're not a hustle bro that wants to make millions and bang more chicks than Andrew Tate, I'd say it's a very good choice, only topped by places like Switzerland. I've heard from a few people that it's particularly nice for young famillies, putting children through school and such. Even Slovenes who go abroad to earn more money like to return back home to raise their famillies here.