What if it landed in the middle of a lake? Er… no advice here, T Cups, although maybe you’d like Florida too - I certainly do - but good luck!
DO do a little research regarding the local economy before you leap. Don’t assume that you can just get a retail job because those are always available. This is a tough year, and California (for example) has had a heavy dose of bad luck - unemployment is 12.5% right now, worse than a lot of places (until this cycle, I’d never seen unemployment in my area above 6%). See the list on the right edge of this page for state-by-state unemployment statistics; if you poke around on that site, you can get unemployment stats for individual metro areas as well.
Having said that, I moved from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay area when I was 25, and I’ve never regretted it. Leave the furniture behind and go, if that’s what you really want.
That’s a really good idea - office jobs are usually more pleasant and better paying than retail jobs, and there are any number of entry level ones that practically everyone is qualified for (mailroom, answering phones, stuffing envelopes, etc.). They can also lead to bigger and better things - good workers are (mostly) still valued.
Like others have said, if you want to dabble in acting and writing, I’d say just about every city has a local acting community - you could start volunteering with their productions and see where it goes from there. You might find that working with a local troupe might be enough to scratch that itch.
I was going to suggest Vancouver as a place to move to for good weather and a very active acting community, but the immigration hassles would probably be too much for you. 
I would weigh the pros and cons of each option, and maybe even consider some new options while you’re at it.
The biggest concern or fear for me would be not knowing anyone where I was going, and possibly leaving several friends and family where I currently am. Going it alone in a new place can make adapting very hard. Also, moving generally costs money, and I don’t think I would be comfortable moving without a safety net of at least a few grand.
My first question for you, though, is if the main reason for moving away from home was to get away from the girl and find a better job, and both have backfired, have you considered moving back home? If this isn’t something you want to do, then forget I suggested it, but it might warrant some thought.
I think more than anything right now, you need to make sure you don’t let your fears hold you back from really going after a dream. What is the worst that can happen? Probably that you fall on your ass and have to come back home to get back on your feet. In my opinion, that’s not that much different from where you are now.
I’ve thought about moving on numerous occasions for various reasons. Several years ago I actually withdrew from my college courses, packed my car up, and drove to NYC only to have the situation I thought I was getting into turn out to be, well…not what I expected. I ended up coming home a week later. However, that experience taught me quite a lot. Like, for instance, know what you’re getting into before you cart yourself half-way across the country. Also, plan ahead, save money, and don’t bail out when things get tough.
The other option is to more closely evaluate what you are unhappy with, and if moving is just a ‘quick fix’ that will land you in the same unhappy spot 6 months down the road, then you may keep running into the same problem. If you’re unhappy with your job, are you actively looking for a better job? If you want to act, have you looked into what Indy is offering in that line of things? You may find that where you’re at can offer you want you need more than a change of scenery would. A change of scenery can initially seem like a real change in your situation, but later you find yourself in the same rut and don’t know why.
However, I’m not trying to discourage you from moving. I think a change of scenery can provide the right motivation for finding a better job, and getting more active in what you want to be doing, and hey, I’m sick of these Midwest winters myself, believe me! This past year I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about moving, but while I was thinking about it, I started evaluated why I was unhappy and started making changes where I was at. This has made a tremendous difference in my level of satisfaction with where I’m at in life, and while moving is still definitely an option for me, it doesn’t feel so pressing anymore.
Do it for sure. And dont be scared away from California. But do be afraid of LA. Its a tough place to live! I lived there once and cant stand it.
I live in San Diego and its the greatest! Its laid back, its warm, its not pretentious and there are so many options. You can live near the beach, downtown, the cheaper inland… We have lots of Targets to get you started! Plus, the film industry stretches all the way down here as well. And if you need to get to LA, its only 2 hours away. Its all good living in SD. At the moment its 80 degrees outside; after work i’m going for a hike with my husband in the woods, and then we have dinner reservations on the bay tonight. Tomorrow we’re watching basketball in a bar at the beach with fish tacos and beer. Life is good!
PS) Arizona is so terribly terribly hot. And everyone drives super slow! Also, a friend of mine who lives in Pheonix says that crime is really bad.
Yeah, my point was moreso to not expect to find an actual job in the industry when you move. I don’t think it’s impossible long range (like you’ve said), but certainly for the foreseeable future for young people it is. There’s a backlog of qualified and talented young people with the economic crunch. The OP sounded like a dabbler, not a hardcore lifer. I can already see who in my friends is in it for the long haul, and who will take a desk job and get married when they’re 30-35.
Also, about the heat - I find it quite pleasant in AZ and New Mexico. Florida heat is like hell to me; just ask yourself how much you like humidity.
I get that, I just wanted to throw in a different perspective in case this really was his passion and he didn’t mind playing the long game.
Do it, but in the meantime, save, save, SAVE your money. Pick up a second job waiting tables or something. Do everything you can to make more money! You want to have as big a safety net as you can before you leave. Also, look for some jobs on monster.com or other places like that in the area you want to move to (another vote for Phoenix here, though I personally think Flagstaff has the best weather in Arizona.) If you can have a job waiting for you when you get there, even better.
Also, off topic, but if you’re wanting to try your hand at acting, Indianapolis has a LOT of live theater and a film scene. Try it here first before you try it in LA.
Lotta comments on the acting/writing thing…
I never really thought of acting/writing as an actual goal. It was more along the lines of something that I always wanted to do, think I can do better than most (I’m looking at you Hayden Christensen) and would be something to try and do provided I chose LA. The great debate (aside from whether I should do it at all) was whether to go to Phoenix (the original plan/goal) or to just go balls out and pick LA, and that’s where the writing/acting comes in.
Still love the advice. I need to re-read breaking-reality’s take (good username/post combo) on some of the other things I need to think about. I’m still overall undecided over the maneuver, but you guys are helping me a lot!
We moved to LA in august 04 with a few grand in hand, an apartment rented sight unseen and no jobs lined up. Fast forward 5 years and we both have careers going, own a condo and life is pretty good. Not to say that it works out for everyone, but if you want to come to LA don’t let the ‘LA is hard’ crowd get to you too much.
My dad was one of those nay-sayers, he outright told us the week we were moving that we’d never make out here.
Is there anyone posting/reading this who is actually from Phoenix (dalej42?) who wouldn’t mind me PMing you sometime in the future if I have more specific questions?
Sure, that’s fine. If you decide on a place, you might start a “Tell me about…” thread as well which will attract the attention of other dopers in the area you pick. I last went to a Phoenix dopefest about a year and a half ago and there were about 10 dopers there.
By all means move!
I’m another LA hater, though. It’s huge, you have to drive all the time, and it feels to me like one huge suburb. Yuck! There are so many genuinely nice places in California, why go there?
As for the actor/writing stuff- in my opinion, if you haven’t done it already, you are not gonna. This stuff has to be a burning passion, not just a “Oh, I’ll give it a shot” kind of thing.
Yes, actually, I would have moved to Twin Falls, Idaho - or a town in the immediate Twin Falls, Idaho region.
I should admit that when I aimed at the map, even though my eyes were closed, I threw a bit to the left vs. right, since I had lived up and down the East Coast and was interested in living in a different time zone/section of the world.
And my original dart landed in Boulder, CO. I found a place to rent in Thornton, CO - which is right outside Boulder. It is also right outside of Denver - kinda in-between the 2. I looked for jobs in Boulder, but found one in Denver first - and after getting my bearings, moved out from my temporary digs to an apartment a block from my job so I could walk to work.
I had resolved that if it landed in a lake - I would move to the nearest town on the map - and if it had landed in the ocean, I would throw the dart again. Wherever I moved had to be reachable by car, as I was fairly low on cash.
If you’re still in the considering phase of things, and the move would be several months away, you could always start looking for better work and look into what Indy is offering as far as an acting guild, etc. now. If in a few months that still hasn’t panned out the results you’re looking for, then at least you know you tried, and perhaps gained a few contacts that could be useful for you.
As a side note, my mother is in love with Arizona and seems to think she is going to retire there someday. I think she is more drawn to the Sedona area though, as she’s tried to convince me it is an ‘artists haven’ and that I should move there someday. 
In June of 2007 I moved from Dallas to NYC. This was, without a doubt, the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I moved here with no job but I had a moving truck full of furniture and a year long lease in a very affordable apartment. The best decision I made in regards to my move was to travel and find the place that was “mine” before I moved. I knew I loved NYC from the moment I stepped off the plane but I still made a point of visiting 4 times before I moved (once in each season) to be absolutely sure that I could be happy here. If I found that I hated snow moving up north would have been a poor choice. Turns out that I love winter and I am actually sad that spring has rolled around because that means I have to go through summer and fall to get back to winter again, but without having been here during the winter I wouldn’t have known how I felt about it. I brought a friend with me from Texas to NYC and she had never been here and she found out the hard way that she hated it here. She was miserable and ended up becoming pretty horrible to be around because she was so unhappy. She moved back to Texas and is probably pretty happy there at this point.
I suggest that you travel out to Phoenix and LA during their most extreme seasons before you consider moving. You can take the greyhound and stay with a friend or in a hostel if you don’t have much money. It is really important to know before hand that a 118 degree day won’t make you want to kill yourself. It is really important to know before hand that a city the size of LA won’t be so big that you can’t see yourself functioning there. If you can’t travel there but you still want to move I suggest you talk to a few people who fucking hate the area and listen to them vent their spleen about how horrible these places are. If you can hear the worst possible crap about the area and still feel like this is the place for you then you will probably be okay.
The other thing I did that helped a lot was finding someone who lived in the city (my mother’s coworker’s daughter) who gave me her address and let me put it on resumes so it looked like I was a resident when applying for jobs. Anyone who called me back was told that I was moving shortly but I had put my NY address on the resume. Employers will not call you back if they think that you aren’t already in their city, especially if you are looking for entry level work, and it really helps to be looking for a couple of months before you move. I ended up finding a job within about 3 weeks of moving here but in this economy I’m sure that it wouldn’t be that easy again.
So here is the latest news on me.
While at work I was telling a friend (considered my best friend there) about the eventual plans. While listing off all of the reasons not to (as I mostly did here) I got to the point where I said “Plus I’d be going alone, which is always scary”. That’s when she chimed in and said “Well if you can wait until February (when she’s done with beauty school) I will absolutely come with you”. Knowing her attitude that she has in her life I believe her and really think she wants to go.
I know a lot can happen between now and then but the tentative plan is to move out to Phoenix next February.
I know this would require me to endure one more winter, which I didn’t want to do, but it also gives me a lot more. It gives me a couple more months to save/build money, it gives me someone to go out there with (a girl I would enjoy to live with, and someone I have no interest in dating) and a little more time to do research and development.
Thank you pbbth for another doper’s great perspective on things. I think you really had a great idea with the seasonal test. I know that fall/winter/spring Phoenix is the awesome one, but I have personally never experienced the 110 degree heat that I figure I will like. Since the summer is upon me I think she and I might take and extended weekend and pop out there when I know it will be balls out hot just to make sure it’s what I (and she) wants/can handle. FTR Sedona is an artists orgasm epitomized in a city. Trust me.
Final note on this post: When I told my friend about this I made a point saying “I asked my internet friends” and she chuckled, saying “I love it when you talk about them”. It’s funny to me that I don’t realize how often I mention to my friends how much I talk to you guys, how much I learn, and how many times I say “I should ask my internet friends”. For a big group of people I’ve never met…I’ve sure come to love and trust you guys :)
Any chance you could move out before her to lay some groundwork as far as finding a place to live and all that? It would be great if she followed through on her promise, but you should make plans as if she’s not going to just to cover your bases. Maybe find a place you can cover on your own for a few months before she makes it out there. If she bails, you can find another roommate.
I don’t think you should wait.
Stuff like this just needs to be done. Sometimes you have to jump in. There is never going to be a perfect time, and you can come up with a million excuses for why you are not doing what you want to be doing. When it comes down to it, it’s a choice you have to make and you might as well make it now.
You notice everyone is advising you to move, right? You’ve seen how many of us have stories of a great life-changing move. I, too, was stuck in a dead end job in a stagnant town after graduating university. It was my mother who finally woke me up to the idea that I needed to get the heck out, and she basically sent a U-Haul to my house to haul my stuff away whether I wanted to or not.
I ended up moving to beautiful Oakland California. I spent a wonderful year there enjoying the life and culture of the Bay Area. It was wonderful. I worked a couple of interesting jobs and finally found a great one at a startup with free lunch, office disco balls and beer on Fridays. Unfortunately, I only got to stay with them for a bit until my life really changed. The move inspired me to finally do what I really wanted to do- join Peace Corps. Four years and two countries later, I can say that move was one of the best things I ever did.
The only way to change your life is to change it.
You don’t want to end up like my good buddy who has been “planning to move” for the last six years. His life is exactly the same as the day I left.
And your friend? She’ll most likely bail. That’s generally how it works out. It’s easy to talk big, but when it comes down to actually doing this things, it often doesn’t work out. If I had a dollar for everyone who promised to move in with me or go on a trip with me or otherwise embark on some big life change and then didn’t follow through, I’d be rich. And if I spent my life waiting for them, I’d still be waiting. One of the most important lessons you have to learn in life is that you can’t rely on other people for things like this. You gotta be brave enough to do it on your own.
Another idea just popped into my head… Perhaps you could save up until Sept/Oct. and then look and see if you can find a room for rent in the Phoenix area that you can pay for in advance (say, for 6 months), then you’ll only have to worry about affording food and finding a job. Once you find a job, you can lay the groundwork for finding an actual apartment, and then in February, if your friend still wants to move, she can follow you out and room with you. But if she bails, you’re still good to go.
If you’re really wanting to move, I’d say give yourself at least a few months to save up and plan things (and maybe even start applying for jobs there). From experience, being prepared is the best thing you can do for yourself.
I also second the vote to visit in mid-summer to see if you can stand the blistering heat. I’m not sure if I could handle it or not, but this thread is making me want to visit Sedona.