Tell me about small towns inland of SD? Please help. alpine, ramona, etc?? (Los Angeles: home, neighborhoods)

[TheMindMuseum]

So I am a 31 year old musician and my wife is a 31 year old doctor. We have 2 sons both under 5. We are currently living in Scottsdale, AZ and we are looking to relocate to the San Diego County area in under a year. We both lived in Los Angeles for 5 years and loved the culture there, but decided after moving here to AZ where traffic is good and it is more quiet we are going to avoid living right in the city of San Diego. Being huge fans of the amazing small artistic towns in northern AZ like Sedona, Jerome, Flagstaff we were hoping to find a small country town inland of San Diego that has beautiful weather. It gets to 120 degrees where we live now so somewhere that stays in the 80's and low 90's in summer would be AMAZING. Also somewhere that has a laid back or new age hippy vibe would be amazing as well. I want to commute into San Diego on the weekends with my kids to take them to art galleries, sporting events, etc but retreat back to my quiet home away from the chaos where it is peaceful and green.

People have told me about these cities: Pine Valley, Julian, Alpine, Lakeside, and Ramona.

Can someone give me a run down on what these cities are like? I really appreciate it very much for you guys to take some time to give us some pointers. My next scheduled visit to CA is in 2 weeks and I wanna check out 1 or 2 of these places.

Much love.

Josh*

[Clevelandgal]

Well, nothing is green unless it is heavily watered. The desert here can get very hot so you might want to look at the more mountain like communities. Where will your wife work? I know a lot of Ramona residents come into Poway for medical care ( ie palmarado hosp). If you're like many of us, you cannot fully appreciate the scale of San Diego County until you are here. It's pretty important to consider commutes when choosing a community. I live close to my office, but have to travel around the county some days as part of my job. It can take close to 1/2 a day to go from end to end depending on the traffic. Maybe more. Luckily it is on work time and in a company car, otherwise, If I spent that much time on the road as part of a daily commute....It would not work for me AT ALL.

[barryg]

It would depend where your wife works-
Ramona-ruralish, considered a bit rednecky/beatniky. It's defnitely not cultural or artsy. But it should be quiet and away from it all.
Julian-great motorcycle route but that's like an hour north east of San Diego. Don't move there if you or your wife work in San Diego. Definitely a small rural town.
Pine Valley-Also further away like Julian-dunno much about it nor Alpine.

[SDbeachbum]

Depending on where your wife will work, her commute would likely be horrendous from all of those areas. They are all small town, rural type communities.

[bradleyyo]

None of the rural areas of San Diego County have an artistic vibe. they mostly all have that conservative Christian redneck vibe. That is one thing that turns me off as an artist type guy myself. Julian is nice but it's too far and isolated from everything.

[NYSD1995]

Ramona, Lakeside, Alpine, they're not really towns. They are more small exurban cities with fairly significant commercial development and sprawl. They have a rural visual quality but really it's more of the light industrial agriculture type stuff. Pine Valley and Julian are more isolated and residential with minimal services and little new residential and commercial development.

The key challenge, beyond the extreme risk of wildfire, is the level of geographic isolation due to presence of high rocky ridgelines and the subsequent limited road access. Since many people need to commute into San Diego, you are freeway-dependent for many services like healthcare, access to jobs, shopping, etc.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

OP, those are nice areas. To throw more confusion into the mix, there are also some other areas like Jamul, Bonita, Fallbrook and Granite Hills (El Cajon) that might fit the bill.

[AADAD]

As they say....you really need to be here. Communities are full of neighborhoods some good some bad. None of those you mention is anywhere close to the organizational level of Scottsdale. Eclectic zoning, hilly and elevations from 500 to 3500 feet. Julian and St Ysabel are the prettiest however internet can be an issue. Alpine and the others are hit and miss.

Perhaps consider Poway more rural however close to services and some of the better schools.

As a person said commute may dictate quite a bit as the areas you mention have two lane roads (Ramona Julian) while Alpine is off the Interstate 8.

Be here and see for yourself I would suggest a 4 day Marriott stay and look around?

Good luck...It's not Scottsdale. Did I say that =)??

[Clevelandgal]

From my last post on, I agree with everything. We don't exactly do artsy rural here. Artsy urban, or artsy coastal, yes we do quite well...but rural is really classic rural love it or hate it... Then the rest is the scary "exurban" as sassberto mentioned. I would think most artist types would explode(implode?) in the exurbs. I have a hard time coloring in the lines myself, so living in the exurbs would be hell for me, even if I had spawned.

[TheMindMuseum]

Thanks so much for your input. This makes me wanna just move to Sedona or flagstaff haha.. We are definitely planning multiple weekends to hunt around. I will also look into the other areas mentioned. From what everyone said Julian sounds really cool! To bad the commute out of Julian is not better! :/