Where did it all begin?

Let’s talk about one of the hundreds of elephants in the room when it comes to writing.
...
Setting.

You’ve got the perfect plot.
The characters are all lining up into place.
Something major is happening and you’re ready to begin writing your story except for one little thing.
Your action comedy about spies, that sounds familiarly of Mission Impossible, isn’t working out right in North Dakota.

Most people that I talk to in the line of duty, have switched the setting of their story multiple times. That’s what brings me here to ask a multi part question, that might require your thinking cap.

What location did your story start in? And where has it traveled to now?

Pre-handover Hong Kong --> Not Hong Kong (but it's Hong Kong) --> the New Territories --> Port Edward (basically somewhere I made up because I hate research )

@Blues how dare u, banned 5ever

For my LMS, it was initially set in ??? The Midwest??? Plains??? Montana??? but then it traveled to the Smokey Mountains because those are glorious, mysterious places to set a story about faeries and witches. Also because I'm American and live a four-hour drive from said mountains, so it's a weekend trip if I want to visit and enjoy the sights. ;D

For most of my stories, they're set in Nebulous Kind-Of-Florida Land which gets slowly smoothed out as I figure out just what's going on. Recently some of my WIPs have been set in Nebulous Kind-Of-Tennessee-Land instead, which is refreshing.

Lots of cities even though I've never lived in a real city and ??? how do city. So those eventually change to small towns or I just blunder my way through and screw up the city (50/50 on those).

For most of my stories, they're set in Nebulous Kind-Of-Florida Land which gets slowly smoothed out as I figure out just what's going on. Recently some of my WIPs have been set in Nebulous Kind-Of-Tennessee-Land instead, which is refreshing.

As a Brit, literally wouldn't even know the difference. I know they're different states and where they are but one has Hayley Williams/funny accent/country music and the other has Disneyland/weird criminals/Miami. What makes them different?

Lots of cities even though I've never lived in a real city and ??? how do city. So those eventually change to small towns or I just blunder my way through and screw up the city (50/50 on those).

See, my MC has moved to The Biggest Baddest City Of All Time from a small coal town and I have no idea what the move is like? I've always lived in cities with 5+ million people -- so when I moved to a (smaller, but still big by British standards) city with only 750k people I was like, but it's so SMALL?!