[fructa]

Hi

I'm originally from CT (Sherman / New Milford) and, like many others, vowed I would never come back to the state because it was "boring." Now I'm 30 and married, and got a job in Bristol... and am pretty happy to be coming home. But my husband (also 30) is not from a small town, and loathes suburban life (he grew up in suburban Atlanta). We'd like to be somewhere with a reasonably short commute to N. Main St. in Bristol, but where he (he works from home) can go out to a coffee shop / bookstore during the day, walk around and feel like he's living somewhere that's... lively. Also, we're definitely looking to rent, not buy a place.

I see a lot of threads talking about school districts or the best places for families, but those are not our criteria. We'd like: a walkable downtown, with people-watching and things to look at - galleries, restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, independent movie theatres, interesting people, etc. We're also suckers for fairs. A younger population wouldn't hurt, nor would adult leagues of maybe soccer or kickball, so we could meet people. A bar or two would be nice, though we don't really hang out in them so much. I know where to find some of these things in western CT, but I'm a stranger to this area...

Advice? Thanks!

[KH02]

I'm in the area myself.

I would recommend West Hartford, with a GREAT little downtown with shops and restaurants. About a 20/25 min commute or so to Bristol and it has ALOT of rentals so it would be perfect.

My only other suggestion would be looking into Middletown, CT which gives you the same thing as W hftd only on a smaller scale. But it can be a great place to sit and people watch as you said.

I'd try West Hartford first though. It sounds like it would be a perfect match.

[hvexpatinct]

I would say West Hartford. Middletown may be a possibility, but would not be a fun commute back out to Bristol.

[ChristineCT]

Unfortunately Bristol is surrounded by "wooded" area type of towns. There is no extremely short commute to any urban town. Some of the surrounding towns have a make-shift downtown area but you would get bored quickly if walking around downtown was your thing. I agree that West Hartford is the closest city with that type of atmosphere. But with the abundance of rentals and the lower rent prices, Bristol really is a renters dream. You may want to rent in Bristol and take a drive out to West Hartford on the weekends, rather than the other way around. Also Bristol has rt 6 and is not too far from rt 10 which neither are really pedestrian friendly but offer PLENTY of shopping restaurants and bars. Unfortunately in this are of the state, no one town has it all, but luckily the state is small enough where you can just drive one town over for a night out, nothing is really too far.