What's the closest place to Portsmouth New Hampshire in the greater Eastern PA? (Philadelphia: apartment)

[madctch]

Hey All,

My wife and I are looking to move to the greater Philadelphia region(within 1.5 hours of center city). We love the attributes of town we currently live in and are looking for what might be the closest in eastern PA. We'd love to hear any thoughts you might have!

I know not everyone knows Portsmouth, so I put the typical questionnaire below .

Questionnaire
When are you moving? Eastern PA
Where are you coming from? Portsmouth, NH
Why are you moving? To be closer than 8 hours to family
Where will you be working? Remote/ WFH
Have you been here yet? Yep!

Will you buy or rent? Rent
If buying, are you looking for a house or a condo? How much can you spend?
If renting, are you looking for an apartment, a townhouse or loft? How much can you spend? < 2500
Do you prefer hi-rise or walk up? No preference

Do you have a preference of living in a NJ or PA suburb? No preference (taxes/cost of living is really the only factor we'd consider there)
(If you answered NJ - post your answers here: //www.city-data.com/forum/new-j...-philadelphia/)

Are you married or single? Do you have children? Married DINC
Do you prefer public or private schools? N/A
Do you have pets? No
Do you want or need a yard? No preference
Are you keeping a car? Yes
Do you prefer bustling activity or calm and quiet? Bustling

What do you want to be closest to?
If we designed a place in a lab it would have a walkable downtown, a movie theatre within 20 minutes, lots of community events, decent restaurant availability, a board game meetup, a brewery or two, an active progressive political scene, and some decent hikes within 45 minutes.

Do you want to live with people of a similar age, race, religion or sexual preference or do you prefer a diverse neighborhood?
We'd prefer to live in a place with plenty of young professional types, but maybe on the slightly older side of young professional? In other words, people in their late 20s early/mid 30s. Totally fine if that's not the majority for the area, but would prefer to not live in a place where meeting people in our age group would be challenging.


Favorite Beverage - Craft Beer, wine, water? Craft Beer!

[SteelCityRising]

Manayunk comes to mind.

[rowhomecity]

Check out West Chester, Pennsylvania and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

They will have ALL you are looking for. Both are very artsy and highly educated small cities with a nice walkable core and tons of history that can rival anything in New England. Good luck.

[Wells5]

Geographically speaking, the PA area closest to New England is Pike County. Milford is 50 miles closer to Boston, MA than it is to Pittsburgh.

[Flyers Girl]

Since Portsmouth is a coastal community, you won't find a similarly situated place in PA within 1.5 hours of Philly unless you look at lakefront, which would be in the Poconos. But then you wouldn't hit any of your other wants/needs. So how important is coastal/waterfront?

[KevinE]

Portsmouth is a beautiful town and there really isn’t anything that can compete in PA. New Hope and Doylestown would be the closest.

[JulieThruTheGlass]

You didn't say you had to be on the water, so I'm assuming somewhere an hour or so away would be okay.

Doylestown and New Hope definitely seem like the best choice considering your wish list. I would add Yardley and Newtown as possibilities to consider, and they are only an hour (or less if in Yardley) from the nearest NJ coastal town. All of these places are approximately an hour from Center City, Phila. and 6 hours from Portsmouth, NH.

I do want to point out that none of these towns is what I would classify as "progressive," except maybe New Hope. If this is what you're looking for, somewhere on the other side of the Delaware river would be your best bet.

[JakeinChina]

Originally Posted by madctch

Hey All,

My wife and I are looking to move to the greater Philadelphia region(within 1.5 hours of center city). We love the attributes of town we currently live in and are looking for what might be the closest in eastern PA. We'd love to hear any thoughts you might have!

I know not everyone knows Portsmouth, so I put the typical questionnaire below .

Questionnaire
When are you moving? Eastern PA
Where are you coming from? Portsmouth, NH
Why are you moving? To be closer than 8 hours to family
Where will you be working? Remote/ WFH
Have you been here yet? Yep!

Will you buy or rent? Rent
If buying, are you looking for a house or a condo? How much can you spend?
If renting, are you looking for an apartment, a townhouse or loft? How much can you spend? < 2500
Do you prefer hi-rise or walk up? No preference

Do you have a preference of living in a NJ or PA suburb? No preference (taxes/cost of living is really the only factor we'd consider there)
(If you answered NJ - post your answers here: //www.city-data.com/forum/new-j...-philadelphia/)

Are you married or single? Do you have children? Married DINC
Do you prefer public or private schools? N/A
Do you have pets? No
Do you want or need a yard? No preference
Are you keeping a car? Yes
Do you prefer bustling activity or calm and quiet? Bustling

What do you want to be closest to?
If we designed a place in a lab it would have a walkable downtown, a movie theatre within 20 minutes, lots of community events, decent restaurant availability, a board game meetup, a brewery or two, an active progressive political scene, and some decent hikes within 45 minutes.

Do you want to live with people of a similar age, race, religion or sexual preference or do you prefer a diverse neighborhood?
We'd prefer to live in a place with plenty of young professional types, but maybe on the slightly older side of young professional? In other words, people in their late 20s early/mid 30s. Totally fine if that's not the majority for the area, but would prefer to not live in a place where meeting people in our age group would be challenging.


Favorite Beverage - Craft Beer, wine, water? Craft Beer!

I just rented out one of my homes to a lovely family from Northern New Hampshire and they are loving the Lancaster PA area with everything that it offers.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by JulieThruTheGlass

You didn't say you had to be on the water, so I'm assuming somewhere an hour or so away would be okay.

Doylestown and New Hope definitely seem like the best choice considering your wish list. I would add Yardley and Newtown as possibilities to consider, and they are only an hour (or less if in Yardley) from the nearest NJ coastal town. All of these places are approximately an hour from Center City, Phila. and 6 hours from Portsmouth, NH.

I do want to point out that none of these towns is what I would classify as "progressive," except maybe New Hope. If this is what you're looking for, somewhere on the other side of the Delaware river would be your best bet.

I'd second rowhomecity's recommendations of West Chester and Lancaster and note that both are pretty liberal cities in conservative counties — sort of like Portsmouth relative to the state of New Hampshire.

Chester County, however, isn't as conservative as it once was. (West Chester is the Chester County seat. Delaware County, where the city of Chester is located, was split off from Chester County in 1853.)

And while the Bucks County seat of Doylestown may not be "progressive," I would hardly characterize it as conservative either. Like its county, it tends towards centrism.