Relocating ~ need feedback! (Portland, Eugene, Salem: apartment, lease, community college)

[bohosoul]

Hello,

My husband and I are planning to move to the PNW next year and are primarily considering Oregon. We're looking for:

~ A small -to -midsize forest town with lots of redwoods or really tall trees.
~ Close to the coast.
~ However, we don't necessarily need a beach.
~ Rain is more preferable than heat.
~ We love outdoors but don't fish or hunt.
~ Within driving distance to a city with good medical / art culture / dining / airport.
~ Ideally looking for a little acreage, but will probably lease an apartment at first.
~ Community college is a bonus.
~ Reliable, fast local Internet provider (I work online).

Do you have any recommendations?
Thanks so much in advance!

[PNW-type-gal]

A couple of quick things:

The only good-sized airport in Oregon is in Portland. Eugene and Medford have smaller, limited airports. Other cities have very small airports.

Outside Portland, most cities are small. Salem and Eugene have populations around 150,000, but everything else is pretty much under (or well under) 100,000. As cities get smaller, community college offerings get small as well.

There is either ON the coast or on the other side of the Coast Range and around an hour from the coast (roughly). The coast is divided from the Willamette Valley (Oregon's population center) and the Rogue Valley (Ashland, Medford, Grants Pass) by a mountain range.

With the exception of the middle stretch of the Willamette Valley (say around Corvallis), there are tall trees (although perhaps firs instead of redwoods) everywhere.

[hamellr]

Redwoods is going to restrict you to the most South Western parts of Oregon. As PNW says, there are a ton of tall trees across the western part of Oregon in the way of Douglas Fir and Spruce.

What do you consider good dining, medical, and art culture? There are plenty of OK places to eat up and down the coast. If you're looking for 4-star+ quality food then you'll need to hit one of the larger cities. Art Culture is a bit harder to define, there is a bit of it all over the coast, but you're not going to have a full symphony with a famous conductor, or nightly art showings with wine and cheese while the artist explains their motivation and inspiration.

Internet is going to be your hardest thing. Most rural towns are going to be lucky to have DSL outside of town. It's not cost effective for the companies to run miles of cable out to serve a few dozen people on their farms. Within city limits you'll probably have at least one choice though.

[Larry Caldwell]

Take a look at Astoria.

[Nell Plotts]

Your best Internet option would be via Comcast (not that I am recommending them). Make that your #1 criteria.

[WolfBoy914]

You might want to look at the Applegate Valley, maybe closer to Applegate Lake. It's an incredibly beautiful area and pretty close to dining/shopping/culture in Ashland, Jacksonville and Medford. If I didn't need to be within a few minutes of work I'd be living out there.

[Hawk J]

I had dialup internet fer several lustrum. Then frontier.com got high speed internet, so i switched...

[paramore309]

Originally Posted by WolfBoy914

You might want to look at the Applegate Valley, maybe closer to Applegate Lake. It's an incredibly beautiful area and pretty close to dining/shopping/culture in Ashland, Jacksonville and Medford. If I didn't need to be within a few minutes of work I'd be living out there.

I will have to look them up, thank youWB

paramore

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Hawk J

I had dialup internet fer several lustrum. Then frontier.com got high speed internet, so i switched...

Yeah, I'm on Frontier DSL too, but 1 megabit doesn't qualify as high speed any more.

[Hawk J]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

Yeah, I'm on Frontier DSL too, but 1 megabit doesn't qualify as high speed any more.

This is 'Heaven' to me, compared to the dialerup i had fer 20 years.