Thinking of relocating from Philly to San Diego (Orange, Marina: apartment complexes, lease)

[nos92lx]

Hello everyone,

I have been to SD a few times and fell in love with it and am actually going to head out for a weekend in few weeks to check out the city and some apartments.

I was hoping someone would be able to answer some questions I had about the city:

1. Do I need a car to get around? I travel all week for work and am only home on the weekends, so I do not need a car that often. (Philly has ZipCar and PhillyCarShare so I can rent a car for a few hours if I ever need one now. Does SD have any service like that?)

2. I would probably want to live downtown. Is that a decent place for a 30 yr old single male professional?

3. How is the tennis scene in SD? Are there courts anywhere near the downtown area? Are there leagues or tennis groups to join?

4. Can I get a short-term (month-to-month or 6 month) lease on any apartments out there?

5. Which is the best hotel to stay out (location-wise to downtown). The Courtyard San Diego Downtown or the San Diego Marriott Gaslamp Quarter

Thanks in advance for any replies

[nos92lx]

Few things I forgot:

- My price range is around $1300-1800 if that helps with any apartment/area suggestions

- I would really likea fully-furnished place if they are even available

Thanks again

[f_m]

San Diego has flexcar which apparently is now zipcar. If you want to play tennis, then you should be near Balboa park (although there are other tennis clubs around), they have Balboa Park Tennis Club with about 20 courts and a league. Downtown is just southwest of Balboa Park. I was at a loft apartment in downtown (located a few stories above House of Blues) for a dinner party, and there are definitely tons of young people walking around at night going places. As long as you don't mind the drunk yelling at night with people wandering around outside.

[jksouthbay88]

Your questions have been answered in other posts.

[nos92lx]

jksouthbay88 - I went through 30 pages of posts last night. Thanks for the helpful reply though

f_m - Is Balboa Park walking distance from downtown? I live in the city in Philly now so loud noise, including drunk people late at night, don't bother me

[mewzikguy]

You can walk/ bike to the park from downtown

[nos92lx]

As long as I am within walking distance of some tennis courts, I am cool

Thanks for the reply

[sav858]

Originally Posted by jksouthbay88

Your questions have been answered in other posts.

Lay off the unnecessary negativity; most answers to questions on here could be found in many other posts, but just like everyone else probably wants responses to his personal tastes/needs. I can't believe he actually went through 30 pages, I would have started a thread after just looking through the first page.


anyways, to answer your questions:

1) generally you want a car in SD. But downtown and the area around there are some of the few places you can get by fine w/o car. That whole car sharing thing didn't quite work out downtown. Flexcar became Zipcar and Zipcar only has cars at UCSD in La Jolla and Hillcrest now and not in downtown anymore. So you'd probably want some cheap, reliable car for the weekends. Transit on weekends, especially Sunday is not nearly as frequent as weekdays. If you want to go exploring to areas that don't have transit like the mountains, deserts, some parks, North County (transit sucks up there) etc... you'll need a car. Plus if you go to LA or Orange County for the day or weekend you'll need a car there too, the transit up there is worse than here.

2) downtown, Little Italy, etc...are great places to live for a young professional. I'm been thinking about moving there from Pacific Beach for a more urban setting.

3) I think the tennis scene is pretty good, you can play year round and it's almost always comfortable enough to play anytime whether in the middle of winter or summer. Not too sure about courts downtown besides some big hotels but there are public ones in Balboa Park by Morely Field like someone else mentioned. In Pacific Beach people are always playing at the public courts and apartment complexes and there seems to be plenty of leagues.

4) You can get month to month or 6 month but might have to pay higher rent. It depends, most places want 6-12 months but there are places that offer month to month.

5) Both hotels are close to it all but the SD Marriott Gaslamp is right in the middle of it and overlooks Petco Park. There is also a cool rooftop bar that has great views of Petco. So if you're in town during a Padres game you can watch the game up there for free. That location is better in my opinion.

That's a pretyy good price range and you should be able to find some apartments down there for that amount, newer ones will be pricey though.

[nos92lx]

Going through the 30 pages wasn't fun. When I started to get back tp posts from the middle of 2007, I called it quits.

I decided on the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina Reservation. It is about 1/2 mile away from those other ones and will cost me 1/2 the points. I need to get outside, walk around, and explore anyways.

Is downtown it's own section or is the downtown broken down into different parts (like Little Italy for instance. Is this part of downtown?)

[j760]

Originally Posted by sav858

Lay off the unnecessary negativity; most answers to questions on here could be found in many other posts, but just like everyone else probably wants responses to his personal tastes/needs.

Yeah I agree, if everyone is supposed to just use the search function why even keep the forum open? Might as well just shut it down since some people think every question has been answered already.

Sure, many are answered over and over, but this forum is very helpful for a lot of people. If someone gets tired of answering stuff then don't reply, simple as that. Questions should always be welcomed though from anyone.

To the OP let me say welcome to San Diego, I hope you'll choose to make this your home as it's a great place to live. I think you'll also enjoy the winters here much more than back in Philly.