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Greetings...I don't live there, but have fallen in love with the Treasure Valley, and visited several times.
May I make a suggestion? If you have the time, and inclination, visit the Botanical gardens by the old prison, if you have kids, they'll get a kick out of it and it is quite lovely.
Also, the Warhawk Air Museum is pretty interesting, inexpensive and the owners are very well versed in history!
Thanks Syringaloid, wild trout right in the city sounds like a living hell! Still planning our trip and it sure would be nice to wet a line in town a bit. appreciate all the feedback!
We came to see if the Boise area was someplace we'd want to live. I sat down and made a list of all the things we would do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and made sure we did as many of those as we possibly could. We also made it a point to talk to a real estate person before we came, letting her know that we only wanted an idea of what was available at what price. We managed to complete our entire list and then try other things too, but we were here a lot longer than your 3-day stay. You really need to make a list like that, it helps immensely and keeps you from wasting valuable time on things that dont really count. If you both work long hours and do all your everyday things on weekends, then make sure you try running all your errands on a weekend with the additional traffic, etc. If only one parent works, then spend at least 2 days of your visit over the work week so you can experience that.
So, bring your lists, a GPS, a map, and a notebook to keep track of what you've done and your thoughts on it at the time. Trying to remember everything at the end of the days doesn't work well....since everything is so new, it gets confusing. If at all possible, I'd extend your stay a few days longer.
I've done a couple of these exploratory trips already, and plan a couple more. One thing I've done and need to do for a couple more areas is drive the commuting drive at peak times to see what they are like. Something motomac suggests above.
I've seen some very conflicting information & Google Maps has given me some more data points, but I've found first-hand experience is best of course. Compared to Seattle and its environs, I almost have to use the quotation marks when I talk about Boise "traffic" so far. Eagle Rd is frustratingly stop and go at peak times, and other areas are heavy but nothing as bad as what I experience almost every day in the Seattle area.
We came to see if the Boise area was someplace we'd want to live. I sat down and made a list of all the things we would do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and made sure we did as many of those as we possibly could. We also made it a point to talk to a real estate person before we came, letting her know that we only wanted an idea of what was available at what price. We managed to complete our entire list and then try other things too, but we were here a lot longer than your 3-day stay. You really need to make a list like that, it helps immensely and keeps you from wasting valuable time on things that dont really count. If you both work long hours and do all your everyday things on weekends, then make sure you try running all your errands on a weekend with the additional traffic, etc. If only one parent works, then spend at least 2 days of your visit over the work week so you can experience that.
So, bring your lists, a GPS, a map, and a notebook to keep track of what you've done and your thoughts on it at the time. Trying to remember everything at the end of the days doesn't work well....since everything is so new, it gets confusing. If at all possible, I'd extend your stay a few days longer.
Thanks for the feedback Motomac! This is just the type of recommendations I was looking for. I am hoping to extend the time but with travel and the time off work its tough. Good idea of booking a realtor and I'll bet that would give me an idea of the neighborhoods and layout of the city and surrounding areas. I'll keep the list idea in mind too when we finally nail down the trip. I had ideas of travelling from the Caldwell area to downtown Boise during commuting hours to see how bad that would hurt in a regular basis for example. The travel time to grocery shopping and regular errands is a great idea too.
Thanks again!
-Glen
I've done a couple of these exploratory trips already, and plan a couple more. One thing I've done and need to do for a couple more areas is drive the commuting drive at peak times to see what they are like. Something motomac suggests above.
I've seen some very conflicting information & Google Maps has given me some more data points, but I've found first-hand experience is best of course. Compared to Seattle and its environs, I almost have to use the quotation marks when I talk about Boise "traffic" so far. Eagle Rd is frustratingly stop and go at peak times, and other areas are heavy but nothing as bad as what I experience almost every day in the Seattle area.
Thanks for the feedback BrianX! I've also had horrendous 3-4 hour round trip commutes for years (mostly due to the distance I had to drive to be somewhat comfortably removed from SF), as well as next to no commute in town. I never want to do the big commutes again, it eats ones soul.
appreciate the feedback, good to hear you made the move!
-Glen
Glen, small correction - we're still in the transition phase ourselves. My wife has accepted a job in Boise which means we're going for sure, just not yet. I'm still in the Seattle area, with 2 +/- hour round-trip commutes common. Your commute sounds much worse! Soul-eating is one of the terms I've used for it too.
I have no idea how y'all survive those commutes. Only once in my life have I had to put up with commutes like that (Washington, DC) and swore never again. So far, so good.
You're correct about Eagle Rd being bad, but that's when compared to other areas around here. There are also a few more areas downtown that get a little backed up too. Overall, when compared to what y'all have, it's really nothing. Since I'm retired, I rarely have to put up with any of that traffic, and even that is usually when I come back into town on a Monday afternoon dragging a camper behind my truck. It's not hard to avoid Eagle Rd if you don't mind going out of your way a bit.
From what I can tell, there are usually grocery stores within reasonable distance. I have two large grocery stores (Fred Meyers & Albertson's) within 2 miles of my home (I live in Nampa) and we use my wife's motorscooter to get there through residential areas. There's also a couple of farmer's markets within a mile, so we can get straight-from-the-field fruits & veggies from them.
Traffic from Caldwell to downtown shouldn't be bad at all. We're having a bit of a rough winter this year, so there have been slowdowns and whatnot, but even on bad days the interstates doesn't apprear to drop much below 55mph (excluding accidents, etc).
Contacting a Real Estate Agent.... I spent a lot of time on realtor.com and zillow.com checking out houses and neighborhoods. Using Google Maps to get street views helps a lot, since some of the real estate photographers can be quite "creative" in what they show/don't show. Looking at a lot of houses online helped us make up a list of "must-have/nice-to-have/who-cares" features to give to the realtor so they'd know what we were interested in. Once our trip got close, I sent her a list of for-sale homes I wanted to see - from the realtor.com site, so some were not from her portfolio - and it worked out perfectly. We spent over a week looking at homes, but your visit will be short and therefore fewer chances to look. Seeing the homes in person that we'd found online really helped us understand what we could expect when we started to look in earnest 2 years later. Fortunately this was in 2009, so the market was slow, many homes up for sale, and the agent had plenty of free time. Coming from the Bay area or Seattle, you'll find that you can get a LOT of house for much less money.
If you want a fairly large yard and like to keep it green, look for houses that have access to irrigation water. You pay only a single flat fee in the springtime for the irrigation water, and it is available from approximately April to October. This was is filtered but not treated (so is not potable), and comes into your property via separate lines. Most people who have irrigation water access, also have sprinkler systems.
One thing people do notice after living here for a while is that Boise is pretty far from everywhere. I have 2 sisters in Seattle, some good friends in Vancouver, WA and further down the west coast of OR, and it's a pretty long haul when driving to any of them. The Boise airport has a good number of flights to many of the regional hubs in the northwest, so that helps.
Overall.... We've been here just a bit over 2 1/2 years and have not regretted it one single minute so far.
I have a very good way of dealing with the traffic on Eagle:
I never drive on it unless I absolutely have to, which ain't very often.
I cross over it once in a while, but haven't driven down it in many months.
Plenty of ways to avoid it.
I've been looking at homes in and around Boise, both on-line and IRL for over 3 years now, planning my "escape from L.A."
Have subscribed to several RE websites, set my parameters, and receive emails once a day with listings that fall within those parameters. Prices seem to have gone up a tad recently, and not as much "stock" available as when I first began looking.
One thing people who are considering moving to the Treasure Valley should know, that they may not deal with in the current location...many housing developments in the area (TV) are part of HOA's, with monthly, quarterly or annual fees, along with transfer fees.
Of course, most condos here in the greater LA and OC areas of CA have HOA fees, houses, not so much...so this came as a bit of a surprise to me.
As did the water rights! But that I like!!!
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Still planning our trip and it sure would be nice to wet a line in town a bit. appreciate all the feedback!
