I’m a mover, married to a stayer. It’s been nearly 7 years now, and my feet are so itchy that I get hives on them. No, really.
The Bay Area is crowded and expensive. It’s also where programmers work. Me, I could find a job anywhere.
Huh. I think I live in more of a stayer community, once you get past the younger people graduating. I never realized there were that many people who liked moving around. They always seemed like outliers.
I have a hard time identifying as one or the other. We have school-aged kids now, so I have no plans to move until they’re launched. I want them to have stable home base, with a consistent set of friends and education and neighbors that they know and all that jazz. However, I do find myself fantasizing about where we’ll go once child-rearing has been accomplished.
Hehe, hadn’t considered my username in relation to the OP topic. Actually I originally joined this board, and named myself so, mainly in order to participate in discussion of a certain show…the ending of which let me down and frustrated me so badly I have vowed never to mention it by name again.
Mover. No strong family ties to any of my blood. My fiance and I are tied to each other, but not attached to anybody else in our families.
We may set down roots eventually, but we just turned 30 and we’re not sure if we’ll ever have kids. As it stands, we can follow the money. Which is very nice. 
I’m in the middle. I tend to get sick of places after a few years and would love to relocate more, but I also detest the moving process. It was so much easier when I was 22, single, and everything I owned fit in the back of my Honda Civic.
I’m happy staying put. We’ve visited a lot of places on vacations. Its fun for a few days and then we start missing our home.
I’m a stayer - wherever I go, I find places that I think look very pleasant to live in, but I don’t want to move away from home.
I actually think it’s in my genes. My paternal line ancestors, for as far back as I can trace, lived within walking distance of here - in fact, I unknowingly moved back to the village where my great*7 grandfather lived and worked.
I’ve moved, on average, every couple of years since I left home. Even as a kid, I lived in at least 3 different places. If everything goes well, I might be relocating back to the US from Japan in the next couple of years.
Moving sucks, but I haven’t lived in a permanent home for over 20 years. I’ve never been able to buy a house because I’ve never had a job that’s reliable enough to make a 20–30 year commitment to staying in one spot.
Mover here (at heart). I’ve always claimed my favorite town is the one in the rear-view mirror.
3 different countries, 5 different US states, 12 moves* - all during the first 12 years we were married. We decided to settle because of kids and bought this house, which we’ve lived in for 23 years. We’ve debated how to handle our wanderlust in retirement, taking age and (declining) energy into account. We’ve bought an RV for land travel, and are shopping for a decent-sized yacht for coastal cruising. We figure to stay in the house since it’s paid for, and content ourselves with several 4-6 week excursions each year (destinations governed by seasons).
*move = crossing state or nation boundaries, not cross-town moves.
Except for a short stint in Maryland during college, I’ve never left SW Ohio.
Definitely a stayer.
I’m a mover by nature. Before my daughter was born, I’d lived in four countries as an adult, and I was 22 when she was born.
My daughter, when asked where she’d be comfortable moving to, answered with the postcode along from ours. That’s about 500 feet. She’s a stayer. I will need to look after her forever, so I’m a stayer too.
The upside I’m hoping for is that we will get a garden and I will be able to grow things that outlast all of us. We’re doing better with our windowboxes than many people in our neighbourhood do with their gardens.
Underlining mine. The average American moves every seven years. A decent rule of thumb is you’re money ahead buying a house if you stay there five years.
If you’ve avoided buying thinking you have to stay until it’s paid off, you’re thinking wrongly. Having said that, many people who bought at the wrong time versus the late 2000s real estate meltdown are still licking their wounds.
I voted for the last option. Four years ago I finished 32 years in the military so I (and later my wife) have moved often. I’m now a civilian and I can say that I’m sick of moving for the time being. What I find interesting is that, living in Montreal, I am surrounded by people who have, with the exception of two or three other ex-mil, never lived anywhere else. Even in my neighbourhood there are a few people who have lived in their houses since the neighbourhood’s inception, in the late 1940s.
First let me say I have finished moving. But I have always been willing to re-locate for a better job. I’ve never understood why “they” could not find local talent but I jumped in pay significantly for every move and always for jobs that were super intense and extremely interesting.
I loved moving into a new place, meeting new people, and starting another adventure. My last move was to Florida and my last job was with NASA. Florida is where I will stay but the days of even having a job are gone.
I was raised a military brat and got more than sick of moving every couple years by the time I was a teenager. I’ve moved twice since my marriage 30 years ago, once because our apartment went condo, and the second time because we bought a house.
Lots of reasons I’m a stayer, but from a purely logistical standpoint, the actual act of moving is just hell to me. If we all get our own personal hells, mine would be an enternity of packing and unpacking oddly shaped belongings.
I definitely think another choice would have attracted a lot of votes: “I’d like to move, but the pain of moving is too high–so I stay put”.
That is one of the things I meant option 3 to cover.
From '84-'92, I moved once. From '92-'97, I moved 6(!) times. From '97-'15, I moved once. I may have one more move in me, but maybe not.