Why did you move to Boston?

[simplexsimon]

OP, why did you ask about Plymouth and Hyannis? I know some people who commute to Boston from Plymouth because there's a commuter rail but Hyannis...

Keep in mind that driving distances in the northeast are not equivalent to drive times in TX...the highways here are not nearly as big, flat, or straight, and covering long stretches especially if you're not on I-90 "The Pike" takes a very long time.

[msRB311]

I know of one person who lived in Plymouth and would take the commuter rail from Kingston. It was not easy. She would arrive to work at 6am and leave at 3pm to try and avoid the traffic just to get to the commuter rail or something.

[Lampert]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

OP, why did you ask about Plymouth and Hyannis? I know some people who commute to Boston from Plymouth because there's a commuter rail but Hyannis...

Keep in mind that driving distances in the northeast are not equivalent to drive times in TX...the highways here are not nearly as big, flat, or straight, and covering long stretches especially if you're not on I-90 "The Pike" takes a very long time.

Hyannis is 70-80 miles from Boston. That's like San Antonio to Austin. Even in Texas that's not a commute anyone would be happy with.

[simplexsimon]

Originally Posted by Lampert

Hyannis is 70-80 miles from Boston. That's like San Antonio to Austin. Even in Texas that's not a commute anyone would be happy with.

Right, just seemed like semi-random towns to pick. Preference to be near water?

[msRB311]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

Right, just seemed like semi-random towns to pick. Preference to be near water?

cheaper than boston would be my guess...and water.

[BruinsGirl]

Immigrated in mid 90-es from former Soviet Union.
Person who filed affidavit had two professional job offers. One in Minnesota and another in Massachusetts where he decided to stay (we are happy!). So we moved directly to Brighton. Since then my parents and sister have moved here too. All are happy as there are so many good paying professional opportunities as well as culture, ocean(!!!) and overall beautiful place. Our parents bought condo in Boston, but we and sister's family moved to suburbs.

I love Massachusetts and Boston and seriously think this is the best place to live in US. I did not live in other places, but traveled a lot (leisure and work)

[jackshaw]

Unclear how a question about why we moved to Boston devolved into a thread debating drinking at home versus bars. This has never been a major part of my experience in the Boston area (although I have never lived in the city of Boston proper).

I moved to Cambridge because of graduate school. I stayed as I was offered a sensational job in Boston that was probably the best possible job I could have been offered. I met my wife during the first year of my job (someone set us up as she was living in Providence). She moved into an apartment with me in Cambridge and we later bought a house in Cambridge.

After 6 years or so, I took a job in New York (though we didn't sell the house) and we stayed there for five years. My wife had made a lot of friends and colleagues in Boston and a significant part of my professional community was in Boston. When our first child was born in NY but when he turned 2.5 years old, we decided NY was not a place to raise kids and we moved back to Cambridge. I actually wanted to move to Denver or Boulder but my wife rejected this -- though she now says I should have brought her to Boulder and she might have reconsidered. We loved the community of really interesting folks we have been friends with for years. They work on interesting and important problems and it is always a pleasure to hear what they are doing.

Our second child was born when we were back in Cambridge and our older child was 4. At that age, all of our friends from pre-school and elsewhere started applying to private schools. We did that and were struck by how strange it was to have adults interviewing four year olds and how it seemed that many of our friends thought their kids' lives would be lost forever if they didn't get into the right private school at age 4. This struck us as really strange. So we decided to look for a suburb to send our kids to good public schools. We looked all over (my wife met with school principals in perhaps 20 towns). We ended up moving to one of the really nice Western suburbs/exurbs. We intentionally moved into the lesser income (middle to upper-middle) neighborhood in that town rather than the higher income neighborhoods (CEOs of biotech firms, finance folks, etc.) so that our kids would go to elementary school with kids who didn't think that going to the Cayman Islands over spring vacation was a birthright.

We made new friends, often interesting but sometimes with different interests (a lot of people not including me seem really into gardening) than our more academic friends in Cambridge.

It worked out very well. Both of our kids, who now live in San Francisco, say they would like to raise their kids (when they have them) in our town.

Interestingly, both of our kids had significant medical problems as kids and it turned out to be really valuable to be able to go to some of the best specialists in the world at Children's Hospital and Mass General/Brigham/Beth Israel. Both my wife and I have really come to value the lower stress level in the exurbs and the easy access to nature. Lots of conservation land, very little traffic.

I have been lucky to have a career that enables me to travel all over the world. I think there are more interesting people per capita in the Boston metropolitan area than any other city I've been in. Harvard/MIT/Tufts etc. are a significant part of this, but also the knowledge-based industries like biotech and consulting and a lesser extent tech mean we have lots of people who are really striving to learn and do interesting things. That is a big part of why we stay here.

I would consider moving West as I don't like cold weather but my wife has made deep friendships and we have a very rich social life (because of her) and we will stay.

[YoureinmyworldnowGrandma]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

OP, why did you ask about Plymouth and Hyannis? I know some people who commute to Boston from Plymouth because there's a commuter rail but Hyannis...

Keep in mind that driving distances in the northeast are not equivalent to drive times in TX...the highways here are not nearly as big, flat, or straight, and covering long stretches especially if you're not on I-90 "The Pike" takes a very long time.

I asked because I have an old college friend who’s family lives in-between and she stated if I ever needed anything her family wasn’t too far away. She’s never lived in Boston so she had no advice to give on the commute but yes Hyannis was more my curiosity distance wise because as you said it’s not the same here in Texas. I’d really like to get to know get to know the area just in general. I think it’s a great idea to keep in mind smaller towns for things to do that I might not be able to do in the city as well.
Thank you for the response! I have a feeling I’m going to stick to finding living spaces closer to the areas that I’m applying for jobs in during my first year of living in Boston. At least until I get the hang of the traffic !