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I bet this is a lot more common than you would expect. I have heard a lot of stories about retirees moving to places like Florida or Arizona and then not long after either moving back or moving 1/2 way back.
We had a corporate move and were all enthused about it. I absolutely hated it once there because it was so unfamiliar. I did not know where I was going, had no familiar friends/family, did not know where anything was located. The better weather did not make up for this disruption. It took two years to get somewhat of a comfortable feeling about the new place.
Now we know the difficulties we will face if we move somewhere else and there would have to be a compelling reason to do it.
Dont fall for the amenities unless you are already using them at home. For example a lot of people fall for the golf courses and then dont use them enough to make them worth the move. You can subsitute many things for golf courses.
Remember we all carry ourselves with us and a new location is not going to change our basic personality.
I did as much research as I could, and visited on numerous occasions and still found living in Taos (NM) was not like a visit or a graduate student thesis.
It was too small, too lay-back, too narrow in scope after living in NYC for ten years for me to appreciate or relate to on a daily basis.
However, I said to myself as I took that airplane last year, this is a penultimate adventure and not to be judged harshly if it fails to suit.
Now I am rootless, not the best feeling, but something I'll have to sort through after more research and much more adventure.
Hi, I completly agree with you. I moved here to Portland, even though I researched the place, and visited, visiting and living somewhere are totally different. I have lived here almost 2 years now, I never felt the feel of high crime and drug useage around me homelessness and the amount of illegal immigrants as I feel here. Its a nice city, with beautiful mountain view, but I do not understand the social problems here are of a city that would be much larger. Im finding one has to be careful where they move, if you start noticing things are much more severe than where you moved from, myself was a small town about 45 miniutes south of boston, then the place will not work for you. I read all the research and like I said I visited, but was not prepared at how fast Portland had changed, and its a small big city. It is cheaper to live here, and the weather though rainy is much less severe weather than Massachusetts, but I don't think the trade off was worth it.
Yes lets all make a adventure out of it, what the hell else can we do, except not make another mistake, and we don't want to do that. Thanks for the above 2 posts
I don't think one or two visits is enough - we have narrowed our search to two prospective retirement places and have been to each at least a dozen times...we hope to make the right decision.
We had a corporate move and were all enthused about it. I absolutely hated it once there because it was so unfamiliar. I did not know where I was going, had no familiar friends/family, did not know where anything was located. The better weather did not make up for this disruption. It took two years to get somewhat of a comfortable feeling about the new place.
These are all factors which I love about moving to a new place: the unfamiliarity, the exploring, the new people. To me it's refreshing and exciting to get to know new territory. For me, wherever I have a bed is home.
I'm planning a move to a warmer climate as soon as I retire, with the possibility of living overseas for awhile. The ability to be completely mobile for a time really appeals to me. If it doesn't work out in one place, I'll go somewhere else. I just look at it all as a big adventure.
The one thing I do not want is to be frozen by the fear of making a mistake. I'm willing to make a few in exchange for the thrill of exploring new surroundings.
We moved from SoCal to coastal southern Oregon. We were so excited about our new home and our new 'retired' life. We had been up and down the coast of Oregon several times but never lingered long in this town and when we did stay in town, we stayed at the southern end, not the northern end where we wound up living.
Not to make a long story any longer, but it wasn't until after escrow had closed on our home and we were in the final days of escrow on our SoCal home, that I found out we were living near --too near-- a lumber company that operated 24/7. I first discovered this 'problem' when I came up to do some pre-move cleaning on our newly purchased home and was astounded to hear the banging and whining and whistling and beeping of machinery and trucks ALL NIGHT LONG, coming from the lumber mill.
The realtor had never breathed a word about this even though it should have been disclosed, obviously. Furthermore, I told her one of the things I was happy to be escaping from (in SoCal) was excessive noise from neighbors and freeways, etc. That should have tipped her off that I might not welcome sounds similar to derailing-freight trains at 3 a.m. every night.
We sought legal advice after we moved in. Our only recourse was to rescind the deal. That wasn't feasible because in the months that had passed from offer to our moving in (close to 6 months), the house had appreciated in value. Plus, we had no home to return to. We looked around the area for another home, but have never found anything as nice or even close to the quality of this home for the price.
The reason I titled this "Kinda-Sort of" is because now, four years later, I have come to terms with the noise issue. I've worked hard to try to rid the area of it but ... well, you can imagine what I'm up against. The good thing is, the noise isn't too bad most of the time. It is really bad on 'off-shore' atmospheric nights when the wind flows east-west and brings the noise over us. We curse "OSHA" too, because the back-up beep-beeps of trucks is almost constant. But otherwise, we've come to deal with it and live with it, and the truth is, had I known about the problem, I would not have moved here. I probably still would be living in OC and hating it.
So, in an odd way, I'm very grateful for my ignorance of the area and the deceit of my realtor. I'm glad to be living here. It's the 'almost' perfect home in a not-so-perfect world.
Very interesting post, Yes lumber mills are a part of life up here, even though Im told the industry has died down quite a bit. There is a lumber miss on the Washington side of Portland in Camas Wash, I believe it is. It isn't the noise from that place that people complain about it is the horrible smell. With the winds that blow so strong from the Columbia gorge blowing east towards Portland, the smell is carried into the area by these winds, and at times it is a nauseating smell. I hope in time you find another home to your liking should that be the outcome of what you mentioned.
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Kinda-sort of!
