Numismatic Deserts - Who Lives In One?

@Sel,

I have good mentors here!

It is very difficult to resist the urge to buy the super cool coin on E-Bay! LOL

It sounds like some of you guys have it way worse than I do.

I live in a suburb of Los Angeles County and my closest B & M shop is about 10 miles away. I rarely go to B & M stores to buy coins anymore..only to sell my bullion when the time comes.
Majority of my buying and selling is done at shows or ebay.

We have about 3 to 4 coin shows a Month within about 15 miles of me. More coin stores than I could imagine. Also, Pawn shops that deal with coins and many flea markets where coins are sold too.

My nearest coin shop is over 300 miles away.
Except for a mere hand full I buy ALL of my coins online.

I feel that I'm very fortunate to have 3 B&M shops within driving distance of my house.

There's a big hobby mall with lots of numismatic stores, and a big flea market with lots of coin sellers, both within 5 miles of my home (20-30 minutes, with all the public transit). There's one more hobby mall, and a small but popular numismatic-oriented market, within 10 miles (40-50 minutes).
I'm not even counting all the antique shops, the high-end coin shops for tourists, and the random overpriced commemoratives that are sold in every other newspaper kiosk. (Is it still kiosk in English? Oh, whatever.)

I know there's such a thing as online purchase, but I've only ever got one coin online (a few years ago, on a site that doesn't exist anymore). I also got many coins as gifts from CCF members (some, but not all, of these being Secret Santa), and a few from various friends and family who went on vacation to other countries, but for the most part, the coins in my collection come from the places above (okay, a few had been bought at similar places in other cities).

I'm in the SF bay Area and I'm sure there are more shops than I know of but the ones that I have been to are not very friendly and rarely have the 'low value' non-US stuff I try and collect. I don't buy much silver so finding common circulation coinage from other nations at local shops is pretty much a waste of time. Unless I'm willing to overpay for some US silver, the shops Ive been to don;t even want to unlock the door for me. I try an hit a show or two each year but the majority is gathered form on-line sources

I might have one or two coin stores around, but if so they aren't well known. Essentially I go to the bank & hopelessly search for coins in the rolls (annoying the feminist bank tellers -a hobby of mine to put them in their place, aka the place they had in the 1800s), I also use ebay a lot, & I have one nice coin store in town, about twenty minutes away, & my father & the owner know each other well so at least if the price is bad the service is still good. Though it's mainly antiques, not coins, so there's a limited selection.