Moving to Vienna, Va/Fairfax VA area (Roanoke, Reston: real estate, apartment complexes)

[tcourt]

Can anyone tell me if this is a decent place to work/live? Just got back from job interview but no time left to look for apartment, so I will have to rent one sight unseen. Kind of scary, but that's what I got to do.
Thanks for your comments, Tom, Michigan

[itchybana]

Hi,

I lived in Vienna from 2002-2005. It is a very desirable suburb of Washington, D.C. There are two Metro stops nearby (Vienna and Dunn Loring) on the Orange Line. Vienna's "main street," Maple Ave., has lots of charming restaurants and shops. Housing prices have skyrocketed in Vienna in the last couple of years. I hope you'll be happy with your stay there.

Jill

[Mike from back east]

Real estate prices in Northern Virginia have risen dramatically in the past two years; don't know how most people can afford it. Traffic in the area is dreadful, use the Metro if you can, it's a great subway system. Still, Vienna is a very nice area. We lived in Chantilly, VA for 25 years, but left last year to move to Colorado. We love it here and we aren't going back east.

One quaint place in Vienna to have a beer & a burger is the Vienna Inn. The place is a landmark, noted for serving food on Melmac plates, etc. The big newspaper in town (The Washington Post) used to have a restaurant column called "Crummy but Good" and the Vienna Inn was one of the first places they wrote about. It's worth a visit.

Probably the best camera shop in the region is Vienna Camera, a short way down the street from the Vienna Inn. I hope they're still there.

[jerseygirl]

Hey Mike - do you know anything about Charlottesville? I'm thinking of moving to VA but I'm not sure where to go. I don't want to live on the coast and I definitely don't want to live too close to DC and the traffic. We're an AA family with school-age children and my husband is a truck driver. We're looking for a diverse community with good schools. I'm looking for a real town with a downtown and parks and maybe corner stores - I don't like the new development housing. The cost of housing in NJ is outrageous and the taxes keep getting higher and they seem hell bent on using every inch of available space. Any info you can give would be great.

[Mike from back east]

Jersey Girl: Hello. I've been to Charlottesville to look around. Nice country, but not a lot happening, a college town, not much else. A "cute" walkable in-town shopping area, a bit touristy or yuppified as it draws the parents of the college kids. Some people actually commute from there to DC each day.

If your husband is a long distance truck driver, I suggest looking at the I-81 corridor, he'll thank you later for that, as it's a huge truck route. Almost any small town along that route is a good bet, from the WV line on the north end all the way down to Tennessee.

At the top, Winchester is a large town now, and fast becoming a bedroom community for DC, but it still has some flavor. East of that is the small town of Berryville, with an old style downtown, grain mill, etc.

Going on down the Shenandoah Valley, which is lovely, there are small towns like Strasburg, Woodstock, Mount Jackson, New Market, Luray, Harrisonburg (huge college town, busy), Staunton (good sized town) and Lexington (a good choice, at it gets him on both the N-S and E-W Interstate highways). A lot of small old towns are along Highway 340, the old pre-Interstate route. Luray is especially nice. Be careful of being right on the Shenandoah River, it can flood sometimes, but it is gorgeous country.

Continuing on down the valley, Roanoke is the major city, an old railroad town with lots of old stuff in the downtown. Probably too big.

With all these towns, you only have to go outside town a few miles to find wide open spaces and quiet lifestyles. You could spend a lot of time walking around a lot of those small towns deciding what you like best.

I can't tell you anything about the schools in that area, there must be a website somewhere that gives relative rankings of school systems and achievements. That data may be here on city-data, but I haven't looked yet.

Now, another fine point. I'm using Mapquest to follow I-81. Note that east of I-81 you see "Blue Ridge Parkway" or "Skyline Drive" as routes. These are mountaintop tourist routes that run along the peak of Shenandoah National Park. Point is, the I-81 corridor is bounded on both sides by mountain chains, and also the main routes are primarily north-south, running parallel to the mountain chains. It's very scenic, but the mountains are a bit of a barrier with not that many crossings east-west. The further south of Strasburg you go, the further away you get from the influence of DC prices. I've touched only on the towns along I-81, as I've been thru many of them, but you can go 10-20 miles on either side and probably find a gem of a place that time forgot.

Also, along I-64, WEST of Lexington to the WV line, there is stunning scenery and nice small towns, like Clifton Forge, another old RR town with an oldtime downtown.

See my tips and techniques in the "other" section for some ideas on how to research these areas.

[MLC]

Vienna if very nice - there are ok apartments on Gallows Road and also near the Vienna Metro station - I am not aware of any really bad apartment complexes. There is a lot of traffic, so be careful that you select a location that near your office if possible.

[mither]

I just want to echo the warning about traffic -horrible! The roads are being worked on everywhere and there are lots of trucks carrying equipment, lumber, etc to all of the massive amounts of building projects (developments) going on in the area. There are many, many aggressive drivers.
This week I traveled to Fairfax down I-66 and traffic was stopped at 2:00PM presumably for construction blasting. I was finally two blocks from my destination when traffic stopped dead again because workers had a phone line down. On my way back, I-66 westbound was closed because of a truck accident littering the road with lumber and truck parts. They diverted traffic off of I-66 and all the secondary roads were horribly clogged, which happens often when I-66 has a problem. Traffic is a constant problem and gets many people crazy-literally!
I lived in Vienna years ago when it was still a little town. Now the main road through is a heavily-traveled four-lane road. But, Vienna still has some vestiges of its old charm.
You will be very close to D.C. and to the Tyson's Corner shopping complexes with lots of restaurants and shops. On the other hand you aren't far from more rural Virginia areas where you can drive out on a weekend and take a break at a winery or horse steeplechase or one of the many area festivals that occur in fall and spring. There are lots of great ball teams Red Skins and the Nats, George Mason's Basketball and Univ. of Md's girl's basketball. Something is always happening in Northern Virginia or D.C. or the surrounding countryside so you won't get bored!

[PatBrown]

I live in West Springfield which is a little farther from DC than Vienna. When I moved here 18 years ago I could not afford Vienna.Will you be working in Vienna?Overall I like Fairfax County. The schools are good. If you are younger(and single) the night life is good. There lots going on. My son and his girlfriend find plent to do.You might think about a 20 minute commute to save on rent. Good luck.

[jennibg]

Reston is a great place.

[amd678]

I was born in Fairfax Hospital to a woman who grew up in Vienna. She went to O.L.G.C., Thoreau Middle School, and James Madison High School - She was determined to raise me in the same environment. I then went to all the same schools. I began acting with the Vienna Theatre Company in 1985 - before the Community Center had a stage! Vienna has grown... The traffic has increased... The sense of community is STILL the same. This is why Vienna became one of the top places to live according to Money Magazine. The traditions on 4th of July, Viva Vienna, the other town events keep the "town" spirit alive. When you move to Vienna, you are just moving into a house - you're moving to a new life.