Transplants - Most Pleasant Surprises About Area (Raleigh: how much, new house)

[itscolduphere]

I'm very interested in what you transplants found positive about living in the Triangle once you relocated here. (I don't have kids, so you can omit school information & kid-friendly things). I'm talking about places you like to go, things you like to do, things that have made your day.

PS: You may omit all things Beach & BBQ as I have already received much info. on those from other threads.

[ljd1010]

Been here a year:
1. Thought I was going to miss New England Autumn, however, Autumn is beautiful here too, leaves change color, it just occurs about a month later.
2. How easy it is to make friends here. We've made wonderful friends and our social life is much busier here! Neighbors actually knocked on our door after we moved in - much friendlier (and we lived in our last neighborhood in RI for 20 years!
3. How clean everything is kept - unlike littered highways/roads where we came from.

[NewUser]

You said "surprises", so I'll skip things that I knew would be better. . . .

Been here almost 3 years:

1) I found it easier to make friends here too. We lived in our old neighborhood for 9 years and we barely spoke to our next door neighbors. My wife didn't even know their names. We've been in our new house for less than 2 years and already know half of the people in the neighborhood.

2) Even though it does get hot here, it cools off nicely once the sun goes down behind the trees (of which there are many). It was 90 the other day, yet we still had dinner out on the deck and it was very comfortable. I'm used to having concrete and asphalt soak up the heat all day, and radiate it back out all night without much of a drop in temperatures.

[Priorityonecb]

Our biggest surprise was at how friendly everyone is. Where we came from, neighbors kept to themselves and kids didn't play freely outside. Here everyone in the neighborhood knows everyone...we chat on front porches and wander around talking and the kids are constantly outside playing for hours and hours on end. A very pleasant surprise!

[douknownam]

Yep, people are very friendly here... moved here a year ago and was shocked that a stranger would wave as we passed--NEVER got that in S. FL

[joey2000]

Originally Posted by ljd1010

Been here a year:
2. How easy it is to make friends here. We've made wonderful friends and our social life is much busier here! Neighbors actually knocked on our door after we moved in - much friendlier (and we lived in our last neighborhood in RI for 20 years!
3. How clean everything is kept - unlike littered highways/roads where we came from.

Funny I don't find people any friendlier here than farther North. Not that they're unfriendly, but no friendlier. eg I've waved at the neighbor across from me several times w/no response, and no one has approached me neighbor-wise - if I say hi they respond, but generally don't take any extra effort to be friendly themselves. And I've yet to have a single stranger wave.

As for clean highways/roads, you can't be serious-?! I found them worse, if anything. That was the hype when I moved here ie "it's so clean" - what a crock - it's not horrible, but it's no cleaner here than other places, certainly not the roads.

As for pleasant surprises, I'd say the kid-friendly stuff and the BBQ.

Hey OP said I may omit them, not that I had to

[he's so hott]

Been here 3 yrs and was somewhat surprised at how friendly people were..................surprised that it took me close to two full years to begin to establish friends or find a group of people that I have the potential to be friends with. For comparison it took me about 6 months or less in the several cities I lived in prior to moving here to establish a good circle of friends.

How tall the trees were and how much I actually missed seeing "big sky", meaning that the trees are so tall that sky doesn't appear as big.

[playnice]

The blue sky is a treat. Wander elsewhere, look up and even after just a short time here, you will yearn for your Carolina blue sky.

[CHTransplant]

I have to say that most of the surprises I experienced were of the unpleasant variety, although they tended to be minor stuff (and still well outweighed by the many positives here - they just weren't surprises). Things like:

I was surprised that:

• Houses weren't as cheap as I expected.
• Downtown Raleigh wasn't really the central hub of the area, and can be a bit challenging to get in and out of.
• There's not much use listening to traffic reports, except to tell you what you already know - you're stuck on I-40 - because there really isn't much in the way of good alternate routes here.

[Waterboy526]

Originally Posted by CHTransplant

I have to say that most of the surprises I experienced were of the unpleasant variety, although they tended to be minor stuff (and still well outweighed by the many positives here - they just weren't surprises). Things like:

I was surprised that:

• Houses weren't as cheap as I expected.
• Downtown Raleigh wasn't really the central hub of the area, and can be a bit challenging to get in and out of.
• There's not much use listening to traffic reports, except to tell you what you already know - you're stuck on I-40 - because there really isn't much in the way of good alternate routes here.

That's weird because I have the exact opposite impression that you have. I wouldn't say housing is as cheap as some people think it is, although even with the huge downturn in areas of the mid-atlantic and northeast, it's still cheaper here.

I find downtown Raleigh so easy to get in and out of. Free parking on the weekends in the warehouse district/Moore Sq. area. Cheap parking in Glenwood South. It's SOOO much easier to get in and out of DT Raleigh then it was to get into DC when I lived in the NoVA suburbs.

I also believe that there are tons of alternate routes here compared to where I came from in Northern VA. Maybe it's because I live in North Raleigh, but there are just endless combinations of ways to go to get the to same place. I felt like in the NoVA suburbs when you were stuck in traffic, you were stuck! Also, traffic is not as bad here, although it's growing and I could see how people say it's bad. Overall though, there are just come concentrated areas of bad traffic here as opposed to the DC area where you could not escape it no matter where you were and rush "hour" lasted 5-6 hours. Where as I find traffic down here clears out pretty early and does not last until 8-9pm in the evening like up there.

I do think people are a little more freindly here, but most of my neighbors keep to themselves and I don't even know most of them.

Overall I really like this area and I could see me and my family staying here for the long haul, although I do wish I was closer to family. At least they're only about a 4-4½ hour drive away.