Here's the thing about the question "where is everyone then?"
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
-Douglas Adams
We have had the ability to receive signals from space for roughly 100 years. 100 light year radius is NOTHING. Then there is the problem of the inverse square law making broadcast radio signals really hard to detect from that kind of distance.
100 years is an infinitesimal amount of time against the backdrop of the universe. Time is the great enemy here. Space and time are brutal masters.
To physically travel to the very closest star to our own would take over seventy thousand years at speeds we are currently capable of.
Space is almost entirely empty. The great filter could simply be trying to leave one's own planet for any length of time. We are forever isolated, forever tied to the planet from which we arose.
For me? Spain is my primary choice right now but Costa Rica or Belize could also be options. Nowhere is perfect just need to find something that has a chance at least.
Portugal is supposed to be another good option but I have yet to go there.
We haven't even been able to eliminate religious thought patterns, human minds attach to stories not facts. We are a sad alpha version of sentience and I sincerely hope the next version isn't so fundamentally broken.