Small towns between Pittsburgh & Erie? (Meadville, Oil City: fit in, schools, college)

[SandyLuvsToTravel]

The small towns of Monaca, Beaver, and Rochester in Beaver County PA... all right on the banks of Ohio River, easy access to Highways 65, 68, 51, 18. Lots of nature areas... Brady's Run Park, Raccoon Creek State Park. The towns have the little shops and eateries, and if one wishes, there's a huge Mall and Walmart nearby ..

Go online and check out the websites for these towns, they are really nice places to live.. I grew up in Monaca and can still taste the wild blackberries we used to pick in late summer

You mentioned Ellwood City... very nice quiet town with lovely tree-lined streets.

Best of luck, you will surely find your perfect place!

[SteelCityRising]

I don't know if I could in good conscience recommend Zelienople to you because you'd be doing most of your shopping/dining about 10-15 minutes south in Cranberry Township, which is a very congested suburb of Pittsburgh. Most chain retailers, big-box stores, chain restaurants, etc. don't have a Zelienople presence because they already have locations so close in Cranberry Township.

If I had to pick I'd choose Grove City or Mercer. Grove City does have the outlets, which can cause congestion at times, but they are removed from the town proper. Most who go to the outlets don't really stray far from I-79 or I-80 and don't really wander into town (unless they get lost).

[KillerK]

My votes go to check out Meadville, Titusville, Franklin and Zelienople. Meadville gets my highest vote, although it is much closer to Erie than Pittsburgh, the Burgh isn't too far away for a once in a while visit. It's the bigger of the towns I've mentioned (about 13,000 people), has a small 4-year college, a nice microbrewery, and overall is a pretty, pleasant place that is pretty much surrounded by wilderness, with some nice nature spots nearby.

Titusville is notable on my radar for the Blue Canoe, a microbrewery/restaurant that is completely amazing quality, especially for such a small town. Also there is a branch of Penn State there (I think). I like college towns because they tend to have a somewhat more diverse range of people. But Meadville gets my #1 vote. It just has a nice mixture of everything (and yes it has a 24-hour Walmart as well as some other big stores).

[Spider 001]

After considering everything I think I'm going to check out Edinboro first & take it from there. Thanks for all the replies & the help.

Next comes the hard part, finding a landlord that's not a complete douchebag that allows pets.

[Hopes]

Zelienople will feel too populated because it's super close to Cranberry.

Check out Franklin and Meadville while you're in the area.

[trackstar13]

Yes Meadville is a pretty good "halfway" point between Pittsburgh and Erie. The issue I see with getting too close to Pittsburgh in a place like Zelienople, Grove City, Slippery Rock, etc. is that it sounds like the OP wants to get away from people a little bit. A decade ago I probably would have recommended Slippery Rock or Grove City, but these areas have pretty heavy traffic and wait times at restaurants for areas this small. The growth has been a little crazy and I almost consider Slippery Rock part of the Pittsburgh metro at this point because of the recent housing developments and traffic during the school year. In fact the last time I was in Slippery Rock it took me almost 20 minutes to park and I had to wait about an hour and a half to eat at North Country Brewing, which is an awesome place by the way. Personally, I would recommend trying to be around Meadville or farther north if you want to avoid some of the Pittsburgh sprawl. One other issue I see is tourism might influence the traffic and wait times. I know that Meadville can be much busier in the summer, especially due to the proximity to Conneaut Lake (Meadville can be the place where Conneaut Lake tourists go to eat, shop, etc.). Heck the traffic in Erie can be a little hectic during the tourism season on Peach Street and anywhere near Presque Isle. If I understand what the OP wants correctly, I think Edinboro may be an excellent choice because there is a little less summer tourism traffic and it is far enough away from Erie that you won't feel overwhelmed by the traffic again, but you will also have access to major hospitals and doctor's offices. One other area you might want to look into would be Greenville, which is in between Grove City and Meadville and yes there is a Greenville Super Walmart and from what I remember a decent main street.

[Spider 001]

Everything is dead now. I used to drive all over the place collecting Transformers (my hobby) but now the stores never have anything & I do most of my shopping online. I used to go out with my friends to rent movies but all the rental places closed up. I used to go to the theater to watch all the new movies but now the prices are stupid so I hardly ever do that anymore (I'm going to see Pacific Rim & that's it for the whole year). I'm sick of the restaurants, it's always the same boring over priced crap & I can make better stuff at home. Everybody I care about is either dead or dying. And the other people I know are lame/boring & never do anything, they only care about working all day & watching TV the rest of the time. So I don't do anything & don't have a life anymore. I go to Walmart at 3am to get groceries when there's no lines & rot away the rest of the time. I don't need to watch a TV show called the Walking Dead because I AM the walking dead! That's our society, a bunch of anti-social, money-hungry, workaholic zombie/robots. And if I mention going swimming, bike riding, camping or hiking they look at me like I'm completely insane & then avoid me or blow me off.

So a nice quiet town away from all the money obsessed workaholic a-holes is all I need. I have no interest in the so called "rat-race". I have no interest in the broken economic system & no interest in the corrupt retarded political system. I refuse to work 90 hours a week so somebody else can enjoy life while I get stuck with the scraps. I have no ambition, no drive, no energy, no interest & don't want anything. The world the humans have created is a world that's full of **** & I don't want anything to do with it. Then there's the drugs, the booze, the smoking, the tattoos & the piercings. And the ridiculous housing prices & the greedy evil landlords forcing millions of people to be homeless. I can't stand anything about our society anymore & there's nowhere to go to get away from it.

[SorryIMovedBack]

Hermitage has a $3 movie theater (Cinema 8) and a WalMart. Greenville and Meadville have WalMarts. There's a lot of rural land between Greenville and Erie. What some guys have done is buy an acre or two and park an old house trailer on it and live out in the boonies by themselves. Literally, one lives in a 1970s house trailer that he paid $2400 for. lol Lots of back roads out near Adamsville and Atlantic and Hadley and Sheakleyville. There might be some cheap apartments in Fredonia, too, but it's going to be a duplex or a quad building or something.

[dbsteel]

Grove City and Mercer are about halfway. Cheap place to live, convenient to the highways and shopping, a few lakes and trails close by. I'd recommend it. My ancestors are all from around there. Edinboro isn't bad (I grew up around there) in that you are close enough to Erie, but the snow is heavier.

[Geeo]

OP: ifyou really want to get away from it all, I suggest a wee little town called Stoneboro in the northeastern corner of Mercer County. It has about 1,000 souls. No traffic, no people, cheap rents, lots of land, isolated dirt roads, and generally away from everything. It's 13 miles to Grove City Wal Mart, 15 miles to Greenville Wal Mart, about five miles from an I-79 exit. It's 20miles south of Meadville, 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, and 50 miles south of Erie. People keep to themselves. If you want your peace and solitude, an area like that may be for you. You won't run into anyone unless you want to.