living close to Menlo Park or Mountain View? (Los Gatos, San Carlos: where to stay, apartments)

[lostforchoice]

Hello everyone!

We are planning to relocate to CA next year and would like to ask for your advice on where to stay.
We are looking for a place within 30 minutes driving distance from either Mountain View or Menlo Park (we want to send our son to a German American school and, you've guessed it, there is one in either neighbourhood). I am not really a city person, more the rural type and would like to live somewhere, where nature is within walking distance. I grew up in a village in Germany and within 15 minutes you are out of the village and in open space with fields and such, while another 15 minutes walking will get you into a forest. Is there such an area so close to the schools?

Hoping for your comments/suggestions. Thanks a lot!

[OwlKaMyst]

Go west....Portola Valley.

[jaypee]

Belmont/San Carlos hills

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by OwlKaMyst

Go west....Portola Valley.

Yes, absolutely. But the price to live there... it's one of the top 5 highest income cities in California. And Woodside, Los Altos Hills.. same deal. It's all going to require not just money, but huge money.

[charmed59]

South Los Altos near San Antonio preserve. You can walk from your house right into the park. I used to live in Los Altos, and a bike ride would take me through the little downtown into the hills and up to Portola Valley and the preserves there. From Mountain View there is the Steven's Creek trail that leads you out to wetlands on the bay. It's not forests but its definitely nature.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by jaypee

Belmont/San Carlos hills

I'm with Jaypee on this one, Belmont is the less expensive of the two, but when I lived in Belmont I had an inexpensive apartment 5 minute walk from a huge park with a lot of hiking trails (watch out of bikes there). I liked living in the Carlmont Village area there, the area goes from inexpensive apartments (these could have had their rents hiked up, they started at $1100 for 1bd apts in 2010) up to houses around 1.5M, a short drive to downtown San Carlos too.

[jaypee]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

I'm with Jaypee on this one, Belmont is the less expensive of the two, but when I lived in Belmont I had an inexpensive apartment 5 minute walk from a huge park with a lot of hiking trails (watch out of bikes there). I liked living in the Carlmont Village area there, the area goes from inexpensive apartments (these could have had their rents hiked up, they started at $1100 for 1bd apts in 2010) up to houses around 1.5M, a short drive to downtown San Carlos too.

Yeah, not only Water Dog Lake but the huge Pulgas Ridge Open Space Preserve is nearby as well.
Lots of deers, coyotes, and critters running around out there.

[lostforchoice]

wow, so much information!
Thank you all so much for taking the time to give me your thoughts. Menlo Park seems to be the right choice for school location then. I was looking at Mountain View first and thinking that we might live in Los Gatos, but the commute would probably not be for the faint hearted. What I've been reading on the COL is quite scary though. Doubt that we will have more than 150K income, which is a number that I was actually feeling quite positive about prior to reading up on the SFO posts...

[jaypee]

It might behooves to determine what your housing budget is before deciding which neighborhood is best. Both MP and Los Gatos are pretty expensive.