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My wife and I will be visiting Albuquerque in a few weeks. We will have about 2.5 days including a weekend to get to know Albuquerque. If all goes well, we will be planning a move next summer.
We like city living better than suburbs, and plan to go without a car as much as possible. I've read about a couple areas that have plenty of restaurants and stores within walking distance, like Nob Hill. There are probably a few other individual streets or intersections that would have enough local stores and restaurants, and provide sort of a busy community feel to them. I saw some favorable comments on locations in NE Heights, like the Eubank/Juan Tabo/Montgomery area.
My ideal location would include a small grocery store or local market, thai, greek, and mexican or southwestern restaurants, and a couple little coffee shops (not Starbucks). A bonus, but not a requirement, would a location be close enough to bike to some good off road bike trails, like those in the Sandia foothills. We'll mainly be doing a few drive-bys and stopping in for food or drink. Any specific hot spots we should visit?
We won't have our bikes, but we want to take a look at a couple bike areas anyway. I like intermediate trails with a few roots and rocks. My wife likes longer rides with few obstacles. Paved trails are OK for that, as long as there is adequate room to separate bikes from pedestrians. Are the Sandia foothills the place to go? Elena Gallegos park?
We like local markets, so we will probably visit the downtown market on the Saturday. I haven't found info on other local markets, if they exist. There is an arts festival in ABQ that weekend, so we will probably stop there after the downtown market. Looks like there are a few choices for bus routes downtown from our hotel location in Uptown.
I'm looking for suggestions on other areas to visit or must do activities to help decide whether or not to move there - i.e. not really looking for tourist destinations. Suggestions?
My wife and I will be visiting Albuquerque in a few weeks. We will have about 2.5 days including a weekend to get to know Albuquerque. If all goes well, we will be planning a move next summer.
We like city living better than suburbs, and plan to go without a car as much as possible. I've read about a couple areas that have plenty of restaurants and stores within walking distance, like Nob Hill. There are probably a few other individual streets or intersections that would have enough local stores and restaurants, and provide sort of a busy community feel to them. I saw some favorable comments on locations in NE Heights, like the Eubank/Juan Tabo/Montgomery area.
My ideal location would include a small grocery store or local market, thai, greek, and mexican or southwestern restaurants, and a couple little coffee shops (not Starbucks). A bonus, but not a requirement, would a location be close enough to bike to some good off road bike trails, like those in the Sandia foothills. We'll mainly be doing a few drive-bys and stopping in for food or drink. Any specific hot spots we should visit?
We won't have our bikes, but we want to take a look at a couple bike areas anyway. I like intermediate trails with a few roots and rocks. My wife likes longer rides with few obstacles. Paved trails are OK for that, as long as there is adequate room to separate bikes from pedestrians. Are the Sandia foothills the place to go? Elena Gallegos park?
We like local markets, so we will probably visit the downtown market on the Saturday. I haven't found info on other local markets, if they exist. There is an arts festival in ABQ that weekend, so we will probably stop there after the downtown market. Looks like there are a few choices for bus routes downtown from our hotel location in Uptown.
I'm looking for suggestions on other areas to visit or must do activities to help decide whether or not to move there - i.e. not really looking for tourist destinations. Suggestions?
Well first off I must say I agree with the city comment. I was born and raised in Chicago and loved it. I moved to Las Cruces a couple years ago and it was boring boring boring! I visited Albuquerque from time to time and really liked it. It wasn't too big but wasn't too small. If you like shopping and local markets I suggest checking out Old Town and maybe even making a stop in Santa Fe. All my other suggestions are touristy so I'll leave it at that.
We like city living better than suburbs, and plan to go without a car as much as possible. I've read about a couple areas that have plenty of restaurants and stores within walking distance, like Nob Hill. There are probably a few other individual streets or intersections that would have enough local stores and restaurants, and provide sort of a busy community feel to them. I saw some favorable comments on locations in NE Heights, like the Eubank/Juan Tabo/Montgomery area.
My ideal location would include a small grocery store or local market, thai, greek, and mexican or southwestern restaurants, and a couple little coffee shops (not Starbucks).
Looks like there are a few choices for bus routes downtown from our hotel location in Uptown.
Can't help with Nob Hill, but if you're looking at the NE area, Montgomery/Eubank is a good spot to start your search and branch out from there. Lots of restaurants and the Montgomery bus route is a good one. Lots of apartments on Eubank, especially from Montgomery and going north on Eubank. There's a shopping center at Juan Tabo & Eubank with a Smiths, post office, health club, gas station, pub, and more. Lots of nice apartments in that area. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the Eubank bus route. Hopefully it's better than the Wyoming route. For some reason, the E/W routes seem to run more often (and more dependable) than the N/S routes in the NE part of town.
There's a transit center in the Uptown area so you should have access to quite a few buses.
If you like Greek/Mediterranean food, check out Athens while you're here. It's at San Mateo & Academy, in the shopping center behind the Village Inn Pancake House. There's also a Wild Oats in the S/C. Very good food.
The best Greek food can be found at the Olympia Cafe on the 2200 block of central near UNM just west of Nob Hill. It has been there for years and has received many awards.
If you like Greek/Mediterranean food, check out Athens while you're here. It's at San Mateo & Academy, in the shopping center behind the Village Inn Pancake House. There's also a Wild Oats in the S/C. Very good food.
I read that the best Thai food restaurant is at San Mateo and Osuna. Is that a pretty good area in general? Looks like the population density is pretty high in the Del Norte area. I'm guessing lots of apartments there.
Do yourself a favor and rent a car for three days. You don't say where you are coming from but it sounds like maybe somewhere in a highly populated, but small in area, city in the northeast. I'm afraid the reality of living in the wide open spaces of the west, where the cities are spread out instead of up, means that a car is almost a necessity...in fact most people in the west have one car for everyone in the family old enough to drive. Public transportation in most western cities is not very adequate. I no longer live in Albuq., so maybe I shouldn't say anything, but I have spent most of my life in the west in cities like Albuq. It is the only city in the west (besides little old Santa Fe) that has had 300 years to build infrastructure like, say New York or Boston, but no money (or need) to do it; so no subways. Albuq. like all western cities except San Francisco, sprawls out over a large area that most easterners can't even imagine. But, I don't want to jump to too many conclusions since you might be from Phoenix or Denver for all I know. As far as bike trails, when I did live there, and I assume it's the same today, you can ride all across the city on the arroyo trails. Going down to Old Town on a bike was a lot of fun. Having the wife's bike stolen while we were shopping, and having to ride as fast as I could back up to the Northeast Heights, about 1000 feet gain in elevation, in the rain, to get the car, and go back to pick her up, was not. I also hope that the Elena Gallegos Park is still there and hasn't been paved over; that was a favorite place to ride too. This part of the world, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and the west in general, is the mountain bike capital. Elena Gallegos Picnic Area & Albert G. Simms Parks - Open Space - City of Albuquerque
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