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I recently moved to a small town for work. I have never owned a car before and i am use to using the transit and walking places. Everywhere in town is a 10-15 minute walk. The town is isolated it is a town of 5,000 people. The town has no transit i plan to stay for 2 years. Its been 4 months and i survived 4 months without a car. People keep telling me i should get a car. There is a pricey grocery store, two banks, a library, 3 take out places, 2 restaurants, a hospital, dentist, law offices.
However there is no mall; i do my shopping online. My work is a 5 minute walk from my apartment and the grocery store 15 minute walk.
Anyone else survive without a car in a small town with no transit? Is it possible?
Last edited by inspireme92; 06-18-2019 at 10:59 PM..
I recently moved to a small town for work. I have never owned a car before and i am use to using the transit and walking places. Everywhere in town is a 10-15 minute walk. The town is isolated it is a town of 5,000 people. The town has no transit i plan to stay for 2 years. Its been 4 months and i survived 4 months without a car. People keep telling me i should get a car. There is a pricey grocery store, two banks, a library, 3 take out places, 2 restaurants, a hospital, dentist, law offices.
However there is no mall; i do my shopping online. My work is a 5 minute walk from my apartment and the grocery store 15 minute walk.
Anyone else survive without a car in a small town with no transit? Is it possible?
I live 10 miles from the nearest town of 232 people, 40 miles from a town of 2500 where the grocery store is.
I have a pickup for working the ranch, and when the road gets bad, and a car for gas mileage when the road is good.
For me, a vehicle is essential to survival in the country since it would take me a week to walk and get groceries.
Taking that one step further, buy a pedal Trike with a big basket, so you can carry stuff and hopefully it won't get stolen if you don't have an indoor place to put it.
You had to have known all of this before you took the job. Hopefully you are well paid and are socking that money away------
Cripes, yes you can live without a car when you're IN TOWN. A 10~15 minute walk? That's how long it takes me to walk my Driveway, one way... getting the mail is a ~25 minute round trip walk, though I use it to exercise the dogs. My point is that's a Very short walk. Think about all of the kids in towns like that, they walk EVERYWHERE and think nothing of it ~ I know I didn't (isolated town in Wyoming where I grew up, parents had to force a car on me once I graduated HS).
I do agree that a bicycle might be handy and appreciated. It'll knock that 10~15 minute walk into a 3~5 minute ride, which is probably as fast as you could do the same route in a car or on a motorcycle/scooter. If you *NEED* a car, there's bound to be at least one place you can rent (even if it's a uhaul truck and overkill, they're about $25/day plus gas) ~ I went for 8 years as motorcycle-only in several places from rural to urban and utilized that option a handful of times.
OP, you should know what's right for you. Trust yourself, not the other people who can't see past their own nose and recognize that there are about a thousand ways to skin a cat (live a full, happy, fulfilled life).
Taking that one step further, buy a pedal Trike with a big basket, so you can carry stuff and hopefully it won't get stolen if you don't have an indoor place to put it.
You had to have known all of this before you took the job. Hopefully you are well paid and are socking that money away------
My son put a rack on the back of his bike and zip tied a milk crate onto it. Sometimes he took a backpack, too.
Let's expand on this idea a bit.........
A bicycle (or adult tricycle with a basket on the back) is the most common sense way to resolve the lack of a car. Or a bicycle with a small bike trailer could do as well.
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