pixelbend

Hi guys and dolls,

My wife and I are considering moving in the near future (probably in a year or so) and we are wondering where is the best place to live that is still affordable. Currently, at the top of my list is Austin, TX. We've been there on vacation and really love the area. Has a small town feeling with city amenities. It just has that funky feeling that we really like. But the only problem is, the company my wife works for doesn't have a location in or around Austin. If we can find a place where they do have something, they are great about hiring within the company and would probably even pay for moving expenses (not that we have much to move except two overly healthy cats).

Right now, our other choices look like the Atlanta, GA and Charleston, SC.

Open to any other suggestions that you might have (but we would like to stay away from the west coast and overly cold weather). I'm in IT (getting my CCNA) and my wife has a degree in wildlife biology, although she has been working for a pharmaceutical company for the last two years.

We are looking for urban amenities with outdoor activities available (hence Austin).

Thanks all,
Pixel

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Willravel

Would you consider anywhere outside the US?

pixelbend

Are you kidding?! We finally got Bush out and Obama in and you want me to leave now?

I would saw it's possible, but not probable. But hey, I'm open to persuading.

Oh and by the way, currently we live in southeast Missouri (Cape Girardeau). Read small town, high humidity and large mosquitoes.

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special_k_77

Well I for one live in Austin and love it so apart from the no location for the wife to work thing, I think you have already landed upon the best locale to go.

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World's King

Denver, CO



I've been around the world... And I always come back here.

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lostgirl

San Francisco......oh, you said affordable.

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SabrinaFair

Personally, I love where I live--Louisville, Kentucky. A lot of people I've met who come here for the first time say that Louisville is one of the country's best-kept secrets. It is a city of contradictions--rural and urban, Southern and Midwestern, big and small. It is very affordable, as well. For instance, I live in a one-bedroom apartment that is of no mean size that is just a few blocks away from the city's best bar/restaurant neighborhood, and pay less than $500/month. The only real downside (at least in my mind) is it's definitely not a pedestrian city, and mass transit isn't what it could be. Other than that, I think it is the best place to live. It's the kind of town that's big enough to where you can go to the grocery store and not run into a dozen people you know (like the town I grew up in), yet small enough to where strangers say hello and people feel safe walking at night. Louisville also ranks like 3rd in the nation for restaurants-per-capita, and has some good schools.

The respondent rests. :-)

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pointbock69

Dallas is really affordable and just short jaunt from Austin. Unfortunately, Dallas is the Anti-Austin, but it is getting better and more people are chilling out now, more than they used to around here. The outdoor life is no Austin, either. I love outdoor sports, like biking, but unless you want to be road rash, there's really only White Rock Lake for safe riding in Dallas, no bike paths in the city at all. There are several excellent mountain bike runs in the Metroplex, you just have to drive a bit to get to them. There are plenty of lakes within an easy hour drive, and some good fishing on more remote lakes from Dallas like Lake Fork. Dallas has tons of companies and chances are your wife has a location here. I had no thought about moving here and hated it for a while, but it grows on you (haven't left after 12 years!) and if you don't like the weather, wait until tomorrow, it will be sunny and 80!

thespian86

Nova Scotia, Canada. (Maybe Halifax)
A small city/town in Mass. or Maine; like Freeport Maine.
Oregon

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pixelbend

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Keep 'em coming.

Dallas - We drove through Dallas on our way to Austin, and from what we saw, it's way too urban for what we are looking for. I'd have a hard enough time trying to get my wife to drive in Austin, much less Dallas.

Denver/Nova Scotia, etc. - I'm sure that all of these are great cities, but I think we are trying to get into a warmer climate or at least not any colder.

Louisville - We live relatively close to Louisville, but I've never been, but I do really like the area. That is one we may have to check out.

I'm really curious if anyone has had any experience in the Charleston, SC area. After looking into it, that may be edging up behind Austin in our search.

Thanks everyone,
Pixel

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dlish

all ya'll are just saying the city you live in.

ive travelled a bit. and ive seen many beautiful places, but nothing compares to Sydney.

no i dont live in sydney, but its still the most beautiful harbour city in the whole world. flying in is amazing...and its got every outdoor activity imaginable, except maybe skiing or something..then yeah maybe colorado

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special_k_77

Yes Austin is the city where I live, (not really I am in a small suburb just outside of it, called Dell Rock (oops wait I mean Round Rock, small town taken over by Dell)but I have moved away before and wanted to come back the whole time, I have lived in California as well as other cities in Texas, but always liked Austin by far the best witch is why I surrently reside there, here.

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World's King

It's January... It's 65 degrees... In Denver... It was almost 75 yesterday.

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snowy

I've traveled around the United States quite a bit, and yet I have no desire to live anywhere but the Pacific Northwest (within the United States). Everywhere else is too cold, too hot, not liberal enough, not outdoorsy enough, and lacking in diversity of landscape. I can literally go ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon. Plus, you can't beat the local quality of two very important beverages--coffee and beer.

That said, I don't want people packing up and moving here. We have too many Californicators as it is.

So, please come visit Oregon, but don't stay here. As Gov. Tom McCall once said, "We want you to visit our State of Excitement often. Come again and again. But for heaven's sake, don't move here to live. Or if you do have to move here to live, don't tell any of your neighbors where you are going."

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Baraka_Guru

Hey, do you live in the Pacific Northwest or Coastal British Columbia?

It's hard to tell.

Vancouver, ftw!

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ASU2003

The one place I've never been to is the pacific northwest. I have a strange feeling that I wouldn't leave if I did go there though.

Austin would be ok, the only thing that it is missing is a beach. Which Albuquerque, Denver, Phoenix and Las Vegas are also missing. San Diego and suburban LA aren't too bad if you don't need to drive very far for anything. Miami, Key West, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville have occasional bad weather, and some hot and humid summers, but it isn't bad in the winter.

Sydney would be my first international pick, and I think it will be hard to find a better place to live. It is what I judge other cities on now. It's just too bad that it is on the other side of the planet. Canadian cities like Vancouver (I haven't been there yet) might be similar, but it needs to be moved to the same latitude as Mexico and have similar weather patterns.

What all of these cities need is a way for you to feel like you belong there. A sense of community. It happened in Washington DC last week. There were 2 million people and everyone was nice and happy. It was like I was in Canada. I think Austin would win this category out of the US cities I listed. Maybe it was the people I was traveling with, but I felt like I fit in there and had fun going to the dirt race track, bars, and some other places.

FlatLand Flyer

I have been there a few times. Had a great vacation 20 minutes south of there on Seabrook Island last summer.

The problem with Charleston is that it is very expensive housing wise and the parts that aren't expensive, I didn't even like driving through much less willing to live there. It is also very hot and humid there. Lots of big and weird bugs.

I just moved from the Charlotte, NC area and from what you describe, it might be a perfect fit for you. Lots of outdoors stuff yet urban and very reasonable housing.

Raleigh/Durham area is big in tech jobs and I imagine your wife could find something in the area also.

cj2112

Please do not move to Southern Oregon. My county has an unemployment rate of over 10%, we don't have 24 hour staffing for our county sheriff, our library was closed for a few years due to lack of funding, it's now privately funded, it's fairly conservative and rural.

Why do I live here? Clean air, incredible scenery, the sense of community, and the fact that it is rural. Even for all of it's problems, this place is ideal for me.

roachboy

i've lived in alot of places.

my favorite is paris.
i like the microscopic town i live in now on the coast of masssachusetts too: it is a dialectical inversion of paris. seriously.

i liked looking at san francisco but not living there. at all.
i liked living in philadelphia but not looking at most of it.
when i was young, i liked boston but now it feels like someone put a real city in the dryer when the directions attached clearly said no machine dry.

mostly, though, i live inside my head. it's nice there usually. no mosquitos. the rent's cheap. the view is sometimes interesting. sometimes it's a little smoky though.

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dlish

Classic!

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Xerxys

Ohh gosh..... YES..... PARIS is the place to be!!! It is my favorite city in the whole wide world, and your talking about a guy who's lived in four different countries.... Paris tops it all.

But you said affordable so I have to ask, are you rich.... earn $60+ yearly?? then go be a king and live in any coastal African countries. I recommend Mombasa in Kenya. Just lovely...... I promise you will love it. Think about the white sands of Mexico, now remove the emigrants and the crime. I betcha your pet peeve will be the tourists!!!

pig

Well, I'll say that Charleston is a pretty bad-ass place to live, and if I had a job down there I'd strongly consider it. It's not Austin, but it does get a decent amount of music / art / culture through it. It's rife with history, although not all of it is pleasant...then again, when is history ever "always pleasant." Nikki or sailor could give you a better description, but I personally really like that town. It can definitely be expensive, but a lot of people actually live up 26 in Summerville and commute to the city for work. It's got some great food, and of course the proximity to the ocean is a plus..if you like the beach, of course. The downside, as previously mentioned, is that it is outrageous to buy real estate in the city itself...I think Charleston is annual one of the, if not the, most popular place for rich people to retire to. The medical school of South Carolina is down there, and so is the Citadel and Charleston Southern University...and the restaurants and the tourism...and the tourism...and the TOURISM...but what is generally not there is a strong non-tourism/restaurant job market. If you can do your job remotely, and your wife can shift internally with her company, and you can spend some time looking for real estate with the possibility of a 30-45 min commute, I would say that it's a winner. I personally love the city itself, and had some friends who lived down on Beaufain Street for a while. I loved going out down there when I visited - they decided to move after a few years to get away from the high real estate costs, the tourism, and the lack of jobs. The people I know who are employed down there tend to really love it.

My standard response to anyone wanting to move to the South is to discourage them with tales that every bad stereotype of the South is absolutely true, so I'm going out on a limb by being honest with you. The last thing we need is more people moving down here.

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pixelbend

Thanks for all the information guys. If we did move to Charleston, we would probably settle in Goose Creek. The house prices there seem pretty low and it is only about 15 minutes to North Charleston.

It seems like it may come down to Austin and Charleston, but we are still open to just about any place. Still need to look at some of your suggestions a little more closley. Keep 'em coming.

Thanks
Pixel

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dippin

Personally, I love Atlanta. Yeah, traffic sucks and living in the suburbs is dreadful, but if you can afford some of the places within the perimeter (decatur, virginia highlands, midtown, etc) you'll be close to lots of entertainment, great restaurants, and lots of parks. And it is just about the cheapest metropolis in the US, and certainly one of the more diverse.

Tully Mars

You could but it would be a really long day.


Yep, my Dad worked for McCall I remember him saying it- "Welcome to Oregon- now please go home."

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