There’s a vey real possibility I will be offered the job of a lifetime in SF…anyone here ever moved cross country? What to expect? What am I going to love ? What am I going to miss? Still no idea of the relocation package…but MAN California real estate is crazy
There are tons of differences. One key thing to keep in mind is that we have lots of microclimates. I live south of SF, about as far as Boston is form Providence. It can easily be 30 degrees cooler on a summer day in SF than where I live. Summers are very mild in SF proper, because there is so much fog. And of course, winters are milder. And even different parts of the city have different climates (some areas get more fog than others).
The east bay is generally cheaper, housing-wise. SF just hit the $1M mark for a median house. The corridor on the west side of the bay along I280 is the pricier part of “the peninsula”. The corridor along 101 is less so.
And don’t call it “The 101”. That is a SoCal thing that is, unfortunately, cropping up here more and more of late. 
Any idea as to where your prospective employer is located? Your options will most certainly be limited by its location.
Winters in SF area won’t be harshly cold like NYC. You won’t see nearly as much snow. But also the summer won’t be as hot. You may find there are days in June when the sun is out and you think it’s going to be a warm day but it really feels kinda cold and then the fog rolls in and you wish you had worn a jacket.
Another thing you might notice is that NYC is extremely diverse compared to almost anywhere else in the US. 60% of the people in NYC were born in another country or their parents where born in another country. That will be a smaller fraction in SF. But you’ll find SF has a larger fraction of Asian people than NYC does. Lots of US cities have a neighborhood they refer to as “China Town” but SF China Town is the mother of them all. So, you might find it hard to get some authentic Italian food but finding some excellent Chinese food should be no problem.
Disclosure: I live in Oregon, not SF, but I’ve visited there many times.
You’re not going to see any snow in SF. Maybe a few flurries every 20 years. And there are plenty of great Italian restaurants. SF is a foodie’s mecca. You can get pretty much any kind of food you like.
To clarify, you wont find ANY snow in the SF Bay Area, unless you live on Mt Hamilton or Mt Diablo, and even then it is very rare. Your main weather-related problem will be when it rains, even a tiny bit, traffic comes to a stand-still - no one in CA knows how to drive on wet roads. Oh, and summers are dry, winters can be wet - that may be a difference for you.
Please let us know where your job will be - it will help get the right folks here for all the details of that area - the SF Bay Area is very spread-out and there are loads of differences, as noted, with climate, neighborhoods, attractions, traffic patterns, transit, etc.
Since the OP is asking for advice, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
If you move out can you bring some water?
I see from your profile (if up to date) that you live in the suburbs. Personally, I’d never live in SF, but if you could/did live in NYC proper, then that transition will be easier. Anticipate a commute and find the best way (BART if you can).
Weather is coldish year round - that’s an SF thing as the rest of the bay is warmer. Light jacket/windbreaker most of the time. It snows nowhere ever at all, and on a rare occasion one thinks it is snowing then they’ve never seen real snow.
Odds are you will never own a house. New Yorkers always have to talk about how they miss their bagels, which are different somehow, and their gross pizza. Neighborhood-wise, you’d better tell us what you like, or places to avoid. SF is weird in that it has ghettos abut really nice neighborhoods. On the other hand, a neighborhood that looks sketchy might not be. Homeless people are a feature.
While we’re on topic of alien terms, abbreviate as SF or “the City” (which might be understandably weird at first). Calling it Frisco literally carries a $25 fine. 
I love that. Sometimes it’s helpful to have an emperor.
There are a lot of similarities between San Francisco and New York City: good food, cultural diversity, great museums, huge central park, city surrounded by water. I much prefer San Francisco, but both places are too crowded (and cold) for me to want to live there. When I visit, I usually like to get out of the city to places like Pt. Reyes, the Marin Headlands, Muir Woods, and Stinson Beach, which are all beautiful, and not too much of a drive from the city.
If you do move there, check out the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, where my brother has been a volunteer for most of his adult life. Maybe even join him on the Friday Night Crew. Tell him I sent you!
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.
and Earbuds.
I was a volunteer there way back in 1980, when it was called the California Marine Mammal Center.
I admit being rather partisan towards the S. F. Bay Area: It’s a fabulously beautiful region (in particular, with respect to the surrounding "ABAG"sup[/sup] territories), and must have been all the more fabulously beautiful before it became so congested with those invasive human species who turned it into the cement jungle that it largely now is.
I wouldn’t want to live in the area because of all the people and congestion and development, but I might not mind living in one of the more outlying areas (like Cloverdale). I don’t think the OP has mentioned exactly where his new dream job is.
(*) ABAG: Association of Bay Area Governments, a regional consortium of the governments of the 9 counties bordering on the bay; commonly also used to refer to the geographic region itself.)
I moved from New Jersey, around Princeton, to Silicon Valley, luckily before the housing prices really went crazy. Like they said there is no snow here - those who go to the snow go to Tahoe and the mountains nearby where the ski areas are. You may see some snow on the higher mountains, but the snow does not come to you.
There is at least as much, if not more, diversity here.
While SF proper has good public transportation, a lot more people have cars than in NYC proper. In surrounding communities everyone has cars and there is a reasonable amount of space. BART only goes as far as SFO on the Peninsula, it goes a lot further down the East Bay, to Fremont with an extension to San Jose being build, finally.
Forget finding really good bagels or rye bread, but aside from that there is a vast degree of diversity in food.
If your NYC, than most of SF’s problems should seem familiar to you. Crowded and expensive, bad traffic, toll roads.
But SF Bay is gorgeous, lots of great stuff in driving distance, no snow, doesn’t get that hot. (The quote is “The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco”)
Another Bay Area resident, and I have done cross-country moves.
Tell us where your employer is located and we’ll eagerly point you towards places to look.
Also maybe tell us what you’d like? SF proper would be closest to NYC, but this is a HUGE area. I work in Silicon Valley proper, which is fairly far south. We can find you everything from the California Coast to an agricultural town to Redwoods to something in the megatropolis that runs from SF to San Jose or Oakland to Fremont or out to Pleasanton.
So much inaccurate info about snow in the SF Bay area…
Mt Hamilton will get snow at least half a dozen times every year. I would not call that rare. Keep in mind that Mt Hamilton is about 4,200 feet above sea level. It’s quite common to see snow on the hills around SF in winter. More on the east side of the bay than the west, but you’ll still see snow on the west side every year at least a few times.
Where I live, a typical nightly low in the winter is low 40s. Daytime highs are typically around 55- 60, in the dead of winter. Chilly nights, but pleasant days, at least around noon. Frost is not common, and we can sometimes have none in a given year, but usually a few times. Temps below freezing at night a few times every year. Once in a while we’ll have a cold spell with 4 or 5 nights in a row below freezing. But that’s usually when the weather is dry.
We get almost all our rain in the winter and spring. It’s usual to get a few sprinkles once or twice in the summer, but you can pretty much plan on essentially no rain Apr - Sept.
SF proper is coolish year-round. Anything west of the Oakland hills has moderated temps. Being surrounded on 3 sides by water and being only 7 miles x 7 miles, SF has on/off shore breezes pretty much year 'round.
EAST of the hills, and you might as well be in the Central Valley as to weather - the breezes do not cross the hills.
The Marina (you want expensive homes?) and the Mission (traditionally the immigrant neighborhood, now being subsumed by techies) have sunny weather. Along the coast is chilly. Downtown is between the two.
Transportation: park your car if you and your employer are both in SF proper.
BART, the CalTrans heavy rail on the peninsula, and Muni Metro (streetcar) are all about getting people INTO the city. Suburban mass transit is coming slowly - BART provides huge parking lots; only a few employers provide shuttle to either the office or a transit point.
Bay View/Hunter’s Point is the last of the truly bad neighborhoods, and Metro has extended a streetcar down the middle of it; money will follow quickly.
The old industrial area (filled marsh, in large part) is being populated by high-rise condos. SF has a strict building height law - which was being “waived” for these obscene projects. A Proposition was just passed to put waivers to popular vote. Maybe some control will prevail.
30 years ago, SF air was absolutely invisible. Air quality is now in the “unacceptable” class.
I suspect 60 story condos with “real, wood-burning fireplace” and “firewood” being sold in groceries in neat, clean little boxes. Whatever the cause, somebody wrecked what was once a truly special place.
I was born on the ranch that “the 101” runs next to. The ranch is in North Monterey County that is NorCal. Can not think of a person who call it anything but the 101.
Glad to meet you, you person from near US 101. If you follow 101 south, you’ll find the Golden Gate and its famous bridge.
Yes kid, the opening to SF Bay was called “The Golden Gate” long, long before anyone was so foolhardy to suggest bridging it.
The obvious origin was the Gold Rush - you got to SF by ship. Sending a ship to SF in those days meant you would never get it back - the crews jumped ship and headed for the hills.
Find Battery Street: it was the original coastal road - everything east is fill; when Levi Strauss built its campus, they struck wood - one of the abandoned ships which had been sunk to create fill.