Raising Kids on Camano Island (Seattle, Stanwood: middle school, living, stores)

[Scarjo0711]

Hello,

My family and I are looking to get out of Seattle with the crazy traffic and overcrowded schools. We have been thinking about Camano Island, we both come from rural areas. From previous threads, I get the feeling there are a lot of retired folks living on the island, but I am interested to hear from some people who have raised or are raising their families on Camano. We have three kids, ages 9,8 and 5. Our five year old has some social issues that still allow her to be mainstreamed, but require some extra help. Our jobs will still be in Seattle, although my husband only has to commute down eleven times a month and on off hours (7am-7pm) and I can make my own hours and would need to go down once/twice a week.

My thought would be to try and stay on the northern part of the island. Any thoughts, advice and experiences are greatly appreciated!

[homesinseattle]

Camano is great, a San Juan Island-like feeling without having to get on a ferry. Make sure you live on or near the north end for ease of commute. It can be a bit of a bottleneck going past Stanwood, just make sure to get through before that happens each day. Really, you are proposing to commute to Seattle? You are very brave.

Also, make sure your water source is reliable, I have heard about some problems out there with that. Camano Island State Park is a hidden gem, they have these really neat white translucent rocks on the beach that I have collected: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...ashington.html

There are certainly retired people on Camano but not at all just that. Here is a good article that ran in the PI a few years ago: http://blog.seattlepi.com/whidbey/20...cousin-camano/

[grega94]

Originally Posted by Scarjo0711

Hello,

My family and I are looking to get out of Seattle with the crazy traffic and overcrowded schools. We have been thinking about Camano Island, we both come from rural areas. From previous threads, I get the feeling there are a lot of retired folks living on the island, but I am interested to hear from some people who have raised or are raising their families on Camano. We have three kids, ages 9,8 and 5. Our five year old has some social issues that still allow her to be mainstreamed, but require some extra help. Our jobs will still be in Seattle, although my husband only has to commute down eleven times a month and on off hours (7am-7pm) and I can make my own hours and would need to go down once/twice a week.

My thought would be to try and stay on the northern part of the island. Any thoughts, advice and experiences are greatly appreciated!

I have cousins who live there and raising their kids just fine, you definitely want live twords the north since Stanwood will have the majority of stores and the high school is also there too. A couple years ago I heard there was a big drug problem at that school though. Living on the south end isn't impossible since that's where they live, but it takes about 20 mins for them to get off the island.

[CrazyDonkey]

Ask the Barefoot Bandit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colton_Harris_Moore

[xboxmas]

Camano Island is beautiful and a great place to raise a family. I echo those who say to do the north end of the Island. There are actually two elementary schools on Camano, so you won't even have to leave the island to go to school until they hit middle school. They are going to build a new High School in Stanwood to replace the old one and will open in 2020 so your kids will get to be in a new school once they hit HS.