Relocating from FL to DC area

[DC's Finest]

I agree with ebbie. I would stay in the city at first. DC has so much more to offer in terms of parks, museums, theater, nightlife, and diversity. There are a bunch of business districts around DC but downtown is by far the largest CBD and by far the most liveliest. It's large, centralized and very walkable. In places like Tysons, you will definitely need a car and the traffic is horrible at all times. The suburbs do have better shopping but they are bland as hell. If the city doesn't suit your needs then I would look into the close in burbs. But I would definitley stay near a metro station. Once you find out where you are going to work, then everything will fall into place.

[vanyali]

Originally Posted by ebbie

I'd second everything people have said about the vicissitudes of public transportation in DC, especially vanyali's comments; you'll have a much easier time targeting your search once you know where you'll be working.

That said, I'm tempted to recommend the Mount Pleasant (NW) area. It's reasonably diverse . . . a heavy latino population and a smattering of Ethiopian mixed in with encroaching gentrification, not far from the Columbia Heights green-line metro station (depending on where in Mount Pleasant you are), and very close to the S buses, which run straight down 16th street and are good baseline buses for getting to the NW area of downtown. There are some Salvadoran eateries, a couple bodegas, a bakery, a delicious pizza place, and a good dive bar. It's also within walking distance of Adams Morgan, a fun bar-heavy area if you're single and in your 20s (if bars do nothing for you, Adams Morgan doesn't have a ton to offer, although it does have a kickin' little Creole restaurant, a couple trendy but decent upscale diners, and a couple good Ethiopian restaurant). It's also within walking distance of a decent-sized park to which you could take your dogs (Meridian Hill park) and the new Target/Apple/BedBath&Beyond/Marshall's/etc shopping area in Columbia Heights.

I'm also completely biased because I used to live there and I loved it.

If you want a yard for your dogs it's not your best bet (buying a townhouse could run $500K easily), but there are some nice older condos in the area, and many of the townhouses have apartments in them. . . if you get the right owner/landlord, you'd be able to use the yard.

Oh yes, I'd definitely look in Mt Pleasant if I didn't have kids that I need to put in school. It seems so like my old neighborhood in Brooklyn that I loved so much (but left because of, you guessed it, schools. . . ). Oh well. Hoping that I can find some semblance of that up in Bethesda, but know it will likely turn out to be much different.