Having to Move NEAR Orrville.... (Columbus, Cleveland: 2010, violent crime, Home Depot)

[pricea2010]

I currently live in Wisconsin and am going to school here, I'm a junior and just got an internship with Smuckers in Orrville Ohio. I have to move in early January and have no idea where to live for the 6 months I'm doing my internship.

Where is a fun place/city that is decently close to Orville so I can drive to work everyday?

Any suggestions? Thanks,

Autumn

[newmex]

Wadsworth 15 min, Wooster 20 min, Canal Fulton 15 min, Akron 30 min. I used to live in Orrville...nice town...close to Amish country.

[VO1ONE]

We were considering living in Orrville but ended up in Wadsworth. Worked out better for me as my commute is about half the time from there. One thing to consider is that since you will be here from January until June is that for half of that you could be commuting in the snow. The territory around Orrville is flat, open farm country and the road crews don't take very good care of the roads out there unfortunately and large drifts are a problem. Being from WI you may be used to winter driving. I used to live somewhere where it snowed 3 feet over a weekend and I find winter driving here more nerve wracking due to the area being more rural, the communities not having the same caliber of snow removal/ice treatment equipment and the road conditions being generally worse. If you're going to be commuting from anywhere, make sure you get a decent set of winter tires on your car.

As for a reccommendation for somewhere fun, I guess it depends what you like to do for fun. I'd suggest Wooster. With the college there, you'll be around a lot of your peers. Depending on what part of town you'd be in, it'd be about a 15 or 20 minute commute for you. It's a decent sized town at about 25,000 people. There's a decent amount of shopping, places to eat, movie theatres, grocery, etc in town. No mall though. You'd have to drive a half hour to get to a real mall, although most of the stores you'd find in the mall exist in Wooster in a shopping plaza. Wooster is further away from Akron and Cleveland than other options, but is closer to Columbus so if you plan on going to any of those places with frequency you should take that into consideration. On the positive side, I think you'd find accommodations there relatively inexpensive without the crime element you'd get with similarly priced areas in Akron. A friend of mine whose lived in both Summit (i.e. Akron) and Wayne (i.e. Orrville, Wooster) counties told me they got called for jury duty in both counties. In Summit, it was often for violent crimes. In Wayne, it happened a lot less often and it was more like somebody stole someone's cow.

Wadsworth is a nice choice as well. Might cost you a more money though. It's also 15-20 minutes from Orrville depending what part of town you're in. There's a growing amount of shopping in town (Target, WalMart, Lowes, Home Depot, supermarkets, etc) but you can get to Summit Mall in 15 minutes, downtown Akron in 15 minutes and downtown Cleveland in 40 minutes. Wadsworth is also a pretty safe spot as well. Nightlife? Well, they just built a 69 Taps and there was an okay amount of people there last time I went. There's the Rainbow...seems like a hole in the wall biker bar, not my kind of crowd. The other watering holes are mainly restaurants that have bars like Applebees. There's a bowling alley and a tiny, tiny 2 screen movie theatre. Not much of a nightlife. Akron has a bit of nightlife, but not as much as you'd expect for a city of it's size. There's a big university there (23,000 students) but many commute from outside of Akron. Wadsworth is close enough for you to get to those places easily. As for living in Akron, personally there's only a few parts of town I'd be willing to live in, but I probably wouldn't be able to afford it! I find you get more/better for your money in the 'burbs.

Hope that helps a little!

[Buckeye in SC]

Originally Posted by pricea2010

I currently live in Wisconsin and am going to school here, I'm a junior and just got an internship with Smuckers in Orrville Ohio. I have to move in early January and have no idea where to live for the 6 months I'm doing my internship.

Where is a fun place/city that is decently close to Orville so I can drive to work everyday?

Any suggestions? Thanks,

Autumn

I worked at Smuckers in Orrville a few years back, had a pretty good experience there. The city itself is pretty blah (about 8,000 residents), but a lot of young people who worked there lived in Fairlawn, Wadsworth, or Wooster which have a little more to offer. You may also want to look into Massillon which is roughly 20-25 minutes from Orrville, it is a city of about 30,000 people. If you're willing to drive a little bit (which was partially why I didn't stay at the company - had a long drive), you could check out Akron or Canton which depending on where you live in those cities would be 30-45 minutes to the offices. Akron's metro is a little smaller than say Milwaukee and Canton is similar to the size of Green Bay. What area are you interning in?

[pricea2010]

Thanks... all of those posts really really helped! I'm pretty clueless, but hopefully i'll have some time next wednesday while i visit to look around the towns before moving there this january!
I'm interning in the Packaging Dept. at smuckers, my first internship, so I'm hoping for some good experiences!
I'll check around the areas posted! most likely wooster?