Major life changes: relocating to new state (possibly far) - how’d it go for you?

In My Humble Opinion
21

When I was 26, I felt my life was stagnating. Chicago weather was grating on my nerves, I didn’t particularly care for my job, I had minimal entanglements (besides family, but my family isn’t very close-knit anyway…) and my bills were under control. I figured, if there was any time to make a change, that was as good as any.

So, I quit my job, packed up my car and drove to San Diego. I had the luxury of knowing someone in the area who let me stay with him til I got back on my feet. Finding a job took longer than I anticipated, and adjusting to California (or, more specifically, Californians) was a little odd.

But, 10 years later, I don’t regret it for a second. Everything’s worked out a-ok. I like it here and I probably won’t make another move of that magnitude again. THAT SAID-- if you feel like you’re moving because you’re running from something (bad relationship, no social life, etc) then just a change of locale may not be enough to change your life for the better.

22

Uncle Brother Walker:

There is uprooting and starting over to solve your problems and there are problems solved by changes in geography.

The first time I moved, I was 22, fresh out of college, ink still wet on my college degree, and basically trying to escape my dysfunctional and in some cases, toxic, family. While the immediate problem (relationship toxicity) was solved by moving, the issues I carried around moved with me. Geography did not solve those problems. I moved them with me everywhere I went.

The next time I moved from South Florida to South Carolina, it was purely a financial decision. I was barely employed and was looking at stripping or something to make the ends meet. That problem was solved with geography.

When I lived in SC, as I mentioned, I hated. it. I thought the city I lived in was ugly, I thought the people were racist, homophobic, misogynist hypocrites, I hated the job and I hated all my coworkers who all acted like rejects from The Maury Povich show or something. Every Sunday for six months straight, I combed the classified ads in three cities I’d identified as places I might like to live. I finally got a job in one of those places and packed up and moved as fast as I could. My unhappiness problem was solved by geography.

Now that I’m settled in a place where geography has nothing to do with my happiness or lack thereof, I’ve been in a much better position to wrangle with and deal with the issues that have been following me around since Ohio.

See what I’m getting at? Only you can be truthful with yourself about the reasons you want to make a drastic change. I’m suggesting that you take a close look at those. When you’re sure you’re making decisions for what seems to be the right reasons to you (and not to anyone else, here or IRL), the possibilities will be endless and dare I suggest it, you won’t regret making the change.

And look at it this way: there is almost no decision in your life that you can’t take back or un-do with some effort. I never regretted leaving my family of origin to strike out into the world on my own, but I also didn’t second-guess myself because I knew if something went terribly, horribly wrong, I could just go back and live with my mom. I never used the safety net, but I knew there was one there.

23

Fifteen years ago, at age 29, I left a grad program and moved from Pennsylvania to Seattle with a couple months’ worth of living expenses saved up, but no job and nowhere to live. It worked out fine, and I’ve much preferred this life to my previous one.

24

My adult moves have all been for work, and they have all been steady improvements in the things I care about, which more than outweigh the frustrations that come from differences in culture and lack of friends or family. But, my experience is not really applicable to your situation.

Since money/career are not really a factor in the equation for you, why not go for it? You have social and economic help from friends, so as long as you go somewhere that is an improvement over DC, in whatever ways you define that, it should work out well.

If you don’t mind my asking, what don’t you like about your current city or what are you looking for in a new place? Just curious about the kind of things that influence people to move.

25

I was offered a job in San Antonio in January, 2009. I moved here (from Knoxville, TN, about 1,200 miles) with the dogs, found an apartment, and my wife and daughter followed 2-3 months later during Sophia’s spring break.

It’s been great. We really like SA - the weather is fantastic, the people are nice, and Sophia is doing well. Hell, even bought a 3BR house with a pool and fireplace for $130k, 5k less than what we sold our little “starter home” for in Knoxville.

26

As some one that moved at the age of 25 (UK to Sweden) I’d not only say that it was a brilliant idea but also add that I feel everyone should try and do it at some point in their life.

Been away over twelve years now. I doubt I’ll move back.

27

[QUOTE=Uncle Brother Walker]

How did it work for you? How far did you move? I know it’s tough to start new somewhere, and even tougher to just “pick up and go”, but was it good or bad? Were you able to do it on your own, or did you get a lot of help? Feel free to include both horror stories and great successes. But please leave the “look before you leap” comments out of it. Thanks.

[/QUOTE]

  1. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done (because I’m NOT a risk taker), and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

  2. We moved about 400 miles.

  3. It was very good. The only rough part was I had a hard time making friends the first couple of years

  4. Pretty much on our own. I cashed in my retirement to pay for moving expenses.
    I left a job I loved that paid shit to take a job I thought I might like that paid better. I turned out to love my job just as much as I loved my old one, and I make twice what I made in my old job, with room to advance. Just bought our first house – something that would never have happened unless we’d moved because we were just too fucking poor. Relocating literally saved my sanity and quite possibly my marriage.

FWIW – if you move to KY, Lexington is gorgeous and, last I heard, booming. Not many jobs in western KY (“western” means “west of Land Between the Lakes”) and eastern KY is piss poor, so steer clear.

For kicks, why not try http://www.findyourspot.com/? (SFW) You plug in your preferences and it gives you a list of 20 cities you’d probably enjoy.

28

That site was pretty good… it actually listed cities that I would move to (two that I lived in (my #3 city, Knoxville TN and #8, Athens GA) and the one I currently live in (San Antonio TX, #12.))

29

It doesn’t seem to be working for me. I had to create an account :confused: and then wait for an email…still waiting.

30

I had the same experience. In fact, when I was living in SC and going through this process of identifying which cities might work for me, all four of the finalists turned up on this list, including where I live now.

What it didn’t consider was something that was mission-critical to me: proximity to the beach. For example, San Antonio is on my list as well. My employer is in SATX, so I’ve been there many times in the last nine years. Great city, I always enjoy visiting there and have a great time, but. It’s too dang far from the coast. My personal criteria includes “must be able to drive to the beach within two hours.” Because if it takes longer, I’ll need a whole weekend to go to the beach, so I won’t go, ever. (This is what happened to me in SC and I ended up pining for the beach all the time because I could never break away long enough to go to make the travel time spent worthwhile.) Sometimes, I just want to drive to the beach, hang out for a couple hours and come home.

Come to think of it, I could probably eliminate 80% of the cities that site suggested because they are too far from the coast. Which is too bad, because there were some really cool places on that list.

31

Huh… the site asked me about beaches, etc (which I could live without, quite happily).

32

Yes, it did ask about beaches, but some of the cities on my list are like 6+ hours from the coast. To me, 6 hours from the coast = inland. It did not ask about proximity, just “do you want to avoid beaches, deserts, or what?”

33

My wife & I (both Canadian citizens) moved from Toronto to Boston, then 3 years later from Boston to Chicago. In the first move we both had jobs waiting. In the second move, only the wife had a job. I went back to school to study something else entirely and now work in my new field.

Both moves had their stressful times, especially the first month in Boston where it was like starting life from scratch to establish ourselves in a new country. There were immigration status concerns that made the second move challenging as well. Now that we are permanent residents many of the potential stresses we encountered in those previous moves would not arise if we were to move within the US, assuming that each of our job situations worked out.

As sandra_nz says, moving after age 30 means that we don’t have the kind of close friends that we left behind in Toronto, which can be a little sad. (We are also without kids and don’t plan to have any.) We’ve made friends here in Chicago but the connections feel a little more ‘temporary’.

34

Fleeing from crazy stalker in-laws, we moved from Utah to Oregon. We’d lucked out finding jobs and an apartment literally days before we showed up with the moving van. We knew no one here, closest family was 4 hours away. New job, new place to live, no support system, and two kids under 3 it was so stressful I threw up every day for a month. I liked Utah, but after living in Oregon these past 13 years I love it here much more and will never leave.

Huh, after taking that findmyspot test three of the cities it suggested were in Utah. ಠ_ಠ