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iheart, Long Island has been pretty cold as well, this afternoon I wore a hooded sweat shirt, jeans and boots and was still a bit chilly, don't get discouraged it is just a cold weather trend.
Thanks for the encouragement Glen! I wasn't discouraged though, I guess it's the cold weather trend this year.
You're moving off the island too?
I think Vermont is beautiful to people who haven't lived here all their lives. I am so sick of living here that I am litterally depressed. I think about moving everyday, the truth is I don't know where to go. I have thought about VA, NC, Maine, and tonight I starting thinking about Rochester.
Im an hour from Albany, go there a lot since there is nothing here LOL
Hi Merrie, where are you in VT? I've only been to Ludlow...(I think that's the name of the town). I can see it can get depressed if someone is looking for more of a city environment. I heard Maine is a nice state and Rochester also.
Iheart, I live in Bennington it's about 35 miles from Albany, we were there yesterday at the red lobster on Wolf Road.
I am looking into Maine, I went there a couple years ago and loved it. Totally forgot about my computer, it was nice. I am also thinking about Northern Vermont, Burlington area, there is a lot to do there and the hubby might be able to get a transfer. I think I also might look into tennessee and Kentucky. The truth is, there are so many options and Im sure we will be taking lots of trips next year to get a better insight.
I think Vermont is beautiful to people who haven't lived here all their lives. I am so sick of living here that I am litterally depressed. I think about moving everyday, the truth is I don't know where to go. I have thought about VA, NC, Maine, and tonight I starting thinking about Rochester.
Im an hour from Albany, go there a lot since there is nothing here LOL
Hi, I am originally from the Rochester area and moved to NC 11 years ago.... to make a long story short, I am moving home to Rochester in the next few months, it's just a great place to live. The only caveat (sp?) I have is not making the decision to move back sooner. Suburban Rochester has some of the best schools in the country, and compared to downstate, is EXTREMELY affordable. It's even more affordable than NC in many cases. It gets a decent amount of snow durring the winter, but it is usually not a bother. The streets get plowed usually within just a few hours of a big storm (which contrary to popular belief, don't very often, usually just nice calm snowfall, not blizzards). The summers and falls in Upstate NY are arguably the best you could find anywhere. It doesn't get nearly as muggy as it does on the coast or down south, and the fall collors are brilliant. Job market has seen better days, but the economy upstate is in a transitional period right now from manufacturing to more high-tech industrires; so it will see much better days in the future as well. Biotech and alternative energy companies are scouting upstate new york to build high-tech clusters, and Rochester is home to a growing photonics cluster. The best thing about Rochester and the rest of upstate though is by far, the people. Some of the friendliest and most community oriented you can find. Block parties are still common in the urban and suburban areas, and there are tons of nice festivals throughout spring summer and fall in the country. I don't think NC is a bad place, I just think it is very overrated and really don't want to live here anymore. I also think that Upstate NY is extremely underrated and I want to go home. I'm coming up in a few weeks to visit family and look at houses VERY EXCITED.
i'minformed,good for you.I think your right about upstate NY.Evryone is running not walking to the South,we too have considered SW VA(at least they get some snow)but would be hard pressed to leave the north east.Evrything I've been told about upstate NY seems good(except the jobs).I know some one that lives in Rochester and he says the taxes are high,but we're also looking for a more rural area.Please post what you find when you come home.I read "Moving To A Small Town" by Lisa Rogak,in it she compares ME,NH,VT and upstate NY,she says NY is a well kept secret,that people just associate upstate with downstate and it's more like New England.
Basic, the only thing, and I mean literally, one thing, that so far has prevented us from moving upstate is the job situation. I've sent out, over the past year, about 30 resumes to Rochester and Albany regions (mostly Albany), and even some to Maine. I have not gotten back a single response. I sent 3 resumes to Virginia, I had 3 interviews, and two job offers. I turned one down so far, because I am really holding out for upstate. There is a reason people are moving south. Sure, some people really can't stand snow, but I really think unfortunately the jobs in this country are going south. Maybe we'll see a reversal ( I hope soon!), but as a 30 year old guy with a family to support, a job is the number 1 concern.
VA was nice, especially the Shenandoah Valley, but nothing in my mind compares to the rural northeast. There is just something about upstate that both me and my wife really love. We could see ourselves surviving in VA comfortably, but we could actually see ourselves living the life we always wanted in NY.
Originally from NJ too. Moved to Buffalo when I was a kid, then to Virginia for grad school in 1984; lived here ever since. Virginia is mostly great, but we don't like our very Appalachian part of it. Our town is both isolated & over-run by 24,000 college students. Ugly (lots of 1970s expansion) & there's little to do. These mountains smother. But even if we lived elsewhere in Virginia, we'd want to return to upstate NY. "Balance" sums it up. You've got everything there: lovely lakes & rivers, hills, farmland, vineyards, orchards, wilderness, the Adirondacks & Catskills. And SO many beautiful old towns and villages, where things don't change just for change's sake. Also, big cities within a reasonable drive or train-ride: Toronto, Buffalo, Albany, NYC, Boston, etc. Important well-preserved history. And the people are among the friendliest we've ever known. I've got some theories why. 1) The tradition of helping each other through sometimes tough winters. 2) The closeness of a shared secret about a wonderful part of the country and planet that most people don't know about. 3) Many residents are 2nd or 3rd generation Americans shaped by their parents' appreciation their new country, with a deep loyalty and civic spirit. 4) The layout of the towns and villages themselves is profoundly civilized. Village greens. squares, and parks, often beside lovely lakes and rivers that they respect and protect. 5) The *scale* of things is very human here, with small or moderate business sections surrounded by nicely laid-out and generally unspoiled neighborhoods. (The number, variety, and affordability of the great old homes up there is amazing.) 6) The architecture nudges you into interacting. The stores have sidewalks in front of them, not vast and barren parking lots. They're often near the village green. And a lot of the houses, with their big porches, are pretty close to the sidewalk even if the yards are very deep, making neighborhoods very sociable. 7) People do a lot of walking to get to things; keeps 'em interacting and caring. Yes, winters can be long. But there's great food, coffee shops, taverns, big ol' libraries to cozy up with a book or friends--and a real tradition of doing that. And plenty of people hike, hunt, ski, skate, sled, snowmobile, walk the dog in the snow (beautiful in all the big old Norway spruces and white pines up there). And the summers are just great. The whole Great Lakes region--remember, you've got Lakes Ontario & Erie and the Thousand Islands nearby--enjoys summers more than any other area I've ever seen. I saw this clearly last summer. I had to travel over much of the US by train and car. For hundreds and ultimately thousands of miles, I rarely saw kids out playing, even on days that weren't terribly hot. It was weird and depressing. Then my wife and I zig-zagged through central NY, from Bath to Cooperstown. And kids were everywhere--riding their bikes, playing ball, swimming, fishing, getting ice cream downtown, sneaking cigarettes in the village green at dusk, even building tree-forts. Concerts on the village green, fund-raising picnics for the volunteer fire dept., ice-cream socials. It's like how Canadians and Scandavians cherish their summers. Everybody slows down to a very serene pace--you don't take a summer day for granted, or have so much heat that you have hide in air-conditioning. Yes, taxes are pretty high, but not that bad. And the state helps on property taxes. And you can deduct both these and state income taxes from your federal taxable gross income. The public services and shools are generally very good. In EVERY ONE of the 20, 25 towns we visited, every time we said "Nice town you have here," people's first reply was, "Oh, you should see our new high school" or "We have great schools, too." And no one knew we were teachers! You've got a ton of choices for colleges, too, and an excellent state university sytem that's still affordable. The state helps kids from poorer families attend. (I was one of them.) Had we known just how great this area is, we wouldn't have moved to Virginia. All we're waiting for now is to build enough equity in our current home to move to our dream-home in NY state. We'll miss our friends, but we know we'll make more up there, and our friends here will be eager to visit us up there. Last two bits of evidence: My sister lives in a mansion in Florida in a fancy gated "community," tons of shopping and new "development" all around, money and "importance" in the air. She's pestered me to move back to NY state so she can visit "Where," she says, "people know how to live." And it's the place that we want to shape and linger in our kids' character and memory. It's a place OF character and memory.
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VA is ok, NY is for us
