Moving to Seattle, Washington from Northern Virginia Area...Advice please! (Tacoma: crimes, living)

[cms02045]

Hi all! Nice to meet you! I going to be working at hospital as a nurse in downtown Seattle, while my husband is still looking for employment. Luckily, my best friend also got a job as a nurse in a hospital in Silverdale. We are likely to live together while her husband is in the FAA academy to save money since we'll all be new to the area. We are basically looking for affordable, safe places to live. I should also mention we both have 2 dogs each. We were thinking Auburn since my friends husband will be stationed there and seemed like a fair commute for the both of us to our jobs. But, we are open to suggestions. I've already heard how bad traffic can be, but I'm okay with an hour since that was my commute to my old job. Ideally I would like 40 minutes or less since I'll be working night shifts and hoping to maybe go against traffic. Any who, any advice, guidance, tips, good things to check out for some newbies in the area, I would be more than appreciative! Thank you in advance!

[RustinginSeattle]

Silverdale and Seattle are about 1 hour and 45 minutes apart - with no traffic. That is quite the living arrangement you are trying to orchestrate. Your friend will also have to cross a toll bridge (Tacoma Narrows) to get to work. Depending on when you travel, Auburn to Seattle could range from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours each way. I don't know much about Auburn, but it's large enough that parts are sketchy and parts are nice and safe. I don't even really know where to begin on suggesting a place for you to live. I live in Seattle and used to live in Bremerton and I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around your situation.

As far as affordable goes... The ferry is Super expensive with a car, the north end of Seattle and Seattle proper are very expensive. The south end is much more affordable, but you have to be much more conscientious about whether your are in a safe/desirable area. The Olympic Peninsula (where Silverdale is) is very affordable and most areas are safe, however, getting to Seattle is much more complicated from there. I rode the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle for 1.5 years (without a car) and spent 3-4 hours per day commuting. It was pretty miserable. Good luck!

[Adrian71]

Wow, that is a tough one. You might want to look at Tacoma, which would put you as close to an equal distance as you're going to get between Auburn, Seattle, and Silverdale. Auburn to Silverdale would be a brutal commute. That's about 50 miles, which means a minimum of a one-hour commute, and that's with good traffic.

I don't know a lot about Tacoma, so hopefully some others can help you there. Everyone wants safe and affordable, of course, and while nothing is really affordable around here, the south side of Seattle is at least cheaper than the city or the north side, so that's a plus. And as for safety, you're not going to encounter anything remotely approaching the sketchy parts of the D.C. metro area (I lived in NoVa for six years). Property crimes are the thing to worry about in this area, but as long as you don't take any crazy risks, you're probably going to be fine no matter where you choose to live.

Good luck! You'll like it here. I don't miss NoVa at all.

[Hemlock140]

Someone will have to pay a toll, but you might consider Gig Harbor as an affordable place to live, shorter commute to Silverdale, The Narrows bridge to I5 to 18 to get to Auburn, and to Seattle, against the traffic will be about the same as from Auburn. This arrangement of so many spread out jobs is a difficult one, no one will have an easy commute.