I live in Trinidad now in the Caribbean, tropical paradise. I love it here. But at some point I have to go back, I suppose. We are in the process of selling our house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which has great weather and proximity to the mountains, etc. but the pay is lousy and the city has become something of a pit, I’m afraid. We have friends we often visit in Tucson, albeit in the wintertime… and it seems nice there. There’s money, there’s a sonoran desert landscape vs the bleak Chihuahuan desert you find in NM. It also gets to like 115F in the summer time, though. I hate the thought of being stuck indoors.
What would you like to know about Tucson? (Not that I know much about it myself, but what are you primarily looking for?)
About the temperatures, the record high in Tucson was 117, but I don’t remember it topping even 110 degrees all that often. (Here’s some interesting Tucson climate information.) Just remember that when it gets hot, the mountains are a good place to go. (On the other hand, everyone has the same idea.)
About the desert area, all I can say is that it’s quite beautiful.
Went to school in Tucson (UofA) for 4 years and loved it. I wasn’t so fond of it as first, but it really grew on me after my freshman year. Being surrounded by the Catalinas, including the amazing Mt Lemmon, plus the Santa Ritas to the south provide plenty of outdoor fun. If you ever get the chance, try the hike through Tanque Verde Falls in the early summer time. Also, some incredible scenery is only 4 hours away in Sedona. There are a lot of great restaurant options in Tucson, and no matter where you go it never seems crowded or congested. The only reason I left was because of the demographics of the citizens. Once you are no longer a student, there are not a lot of options in the form of potential mates for 20 somethings. Other than students, the elderly/retired occupy much of the city, especially in Oro Valley. Not that I have anything against thes epeople, but again I go back to the drawback of not having many contemporaries to spend my time with.
I don’t really know what the job market is like there, as I never even looked outside of the delivery job I had in college.
If I ever do get married, I would seriously consider moving back there somewhere down the line, maybe after my kids had left home. Then I could become one of those old people the kids complain about
I took a rather significant pay cut to move from China Lake, CA to St. Louis, MO. I’m happy about it. The desert is a shithole. There is a big difference in heat in tropical paradise compared to heat in the armpit of the world, which includes CA desert, Nevada and New Mexico.
When the kids can’t play outside, when you can’t open your car door without a towel so you don’t burn yourself, when grilling a steak is more painful than broiling it in the oven, it is time to think about what you think paradise is. Just my opinion, but anything involving desert sucks ass.
I still get chills when watching Jurassic Park where in the beginning when they were digging up the raptor, because it was just a couple of miles from what was once home. The desert. A nice place to visit, but to actually live in, think Dante. I’ve been to many other desert cities and they are all the same. The only place in the general area that I liked was Flagstaff, AZ. Beyond that, forget it. Go into that general area and you will be stuck indoors pigging out on ice cream during the summer, which lasts 10 months out of every year. And forget the “Dry Heat” that people talk about. Wet heat may make you wetter, but not many people in the midwest have any idea what 120 degrees feels like.
I’m not a “heat person”, if you couldn’t tell.
Desert Rats will tell you differently, but I hated the desert with a passion that cannot be put into words.
I love Tucson. So much culture and so many natural wonders! I can’t get the mrs. to consider it, she has to be near the ocean, but I’d love to move there. Go for it!
I’ve lived in Tucson for a decade now, and I still love being here.
I’m actually a bit reticent on this subject, because everybody who I talk into visiting here ends up moving here. It’s odd.
Anyway, the heat. Yeah, it was (I think) 104 degrees today. And I don’t have air conditioning. I sweated like a pig… while I was on the elliptical machine. After that, well, I’m used to it. Really, you can get used to anything. It’s not a myth, you can see Tucsonans shivering in 70 degree weather, bundling up under comforters and wearing heavy sweaters when they go to visit the northern US in the summer.
Summer is something to watch yourself about; drink fluids, don’t go out much during the day, that sort of thing. It’s about four months a year worth of inconvenience, which is easily escaped by turning on the swamp cooler, cranking the AC, going to the movies (odd phenomenon: Tucsonans bring sweaters to the movies in July, because they set the damned thermostats at an ungodly cold 72[sup]o[/sup]) and taking trips to the mountains. For me, it’s a lot easier to put up with than cold winters. Snow sucks, rain sucks, cold really really sucks. I love knowing that I can get up in the morning, and 90% of the time I can just throw on regular clothes and go walk the dogs, no muss, no fuss, no rain gear, no snow tracked into the house…
Which brings up my other point. It’s currently about 78 outside; it’s night time. It feels cool and pleasant to my Tucson-attuned system. My boyfriend and I wait until it’s after dark, and then spend long hours wandering around Tucson’s neighborhoods, talking and taking pictures. Nights are heavenly.
The people are relaxed and friendly, for the most part, and strangely intellectual. The culture is amazing. Do you like Greek food? Italian? Chinese? Szechuan or Hunan? Thai? (Oh, my god, the Thai food in town…) Mexican, of course, all sorts of Mexican. Guatemalan. Ethiopian. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Mesopotamian cuisine around somewhere.
Nice small concert venues. A decent community radio station. A thriving GLBT community. A very weird downtown. I really, really like Tucson.
That having been said, though…
Give up any hope of having a real career if you move here. Income is low, and cost of living isn’t. It isn’t terribly expensive, but it’s hard to find a job outside of call centers and fast food. Seriously, it’s a tough market, especially right now; most weekday job classifieds are less than a page of the newspaper, and the Sunday one rarely runs more than three pages. In a town of 500,000 people, not counting the outlying communities.
And I’ve rambled on enough. Let me give you some sources for real information:
(I love the fact that they haven’t changed the web design since the mid-90s. Especially since I designed it.)
Goings-on downtown can be seen here. They’re trying to revive the downtown, much to the indignation of the artistic community that’s taken it over. At least they voted out the hideous aquarium.
And I think I’ve rambled enough. Some people love living here; some hate it. If you let me know any specific questions you might have about life here, please feel free to ask. I’d be happy to be of help.
I’m not sure what I can add to MrVisibile 's excellent (and thorough) post, but I pretty much grew up in Tucson. Where else can you live where you can go from 115 degree desert heat to 70 degree pine forests (and the Southernmost Ski area in the states) in about an hour? I’m making a quick trip home at the end of the month and I’m already getting excited!
My sister lives there and loves it, but I would go mad after a week. I’m an architecture buff, and Tucson looks like an enormous 1970s strip mall. Flat, ugly, boring. Couldn’t stand it.
I love Tucson! I lived in Phoenix for quite a while and still own a home there with my wife. Tuscon is more artsy and in the hot weather there are always the mountains…
I certainly can not agree with Eve. Architecture plays a large role in my life, and Tucson has a wonderful array of different architecture.
I mean check this out Eve… I stayed with a friend and his wife a few months ago in their really nice modern home in Tucson. I think the architecture is fantastic…
I agree with everything Turbo Dog said. I’ve lived in Arizona now for almost 10 years. 4 in way southern AZ, and 6 in Phoenix. I grew up in Nebraska. Vastly different climates.
I hate the heat and the dryness. I think I have since the moment I got here. I cannot wait to get out of the state, but now that I will be moving to Tucson to get my Master’s degree, I won’t be leaving for another two or three years (unfortunately, Tucson has the best Hydrogeology program in the nation :rolleyes: ).
That being said, it really does depend on what you like. If you can stand the heat, and don’t enjoy humidity, and don’t like rain very much, then Tucson may be the place for you. It isn’t a huge city and it definitely has a small-town feel (The Biggest Small Town on Earth), but has significantly more “culture” than Phoenix. Not that that’s a hard thing to do.
The mountains are absolutely beautiful, and because of the geology of the area, not nearly as difficult to access as other mountain ranges in other parts of the country. A geologist’s dream.
I have known a lot of people who absolutely love Tucson. Just not me.
Eve, no offense, but you don’t count. You’ve got New York in your blood. You were born to be elegant and cosmopolitan, sophisticated and classy. Tucson just won’t do it for you.
There are a lot of people who just don’t like this town, and that’s okay by me. We’re growing too fast as it is. But for some, it’s home, and no matter where they currently live, when they get here they know it.
A few years ago, my mom came down to visit me from Rhode Island, where she’d just retired. She had no plans to move, but within six months of her visit, I was driving her stuff across the country in a U-Haul. She’s settled into being a Tucsonan very nicely, and is happier now than she’s ever been living anywhere else.
Hah. The salaries in Tucson are just about twice what we made in Albuquerque in our jobs.
I happen to think Albuquerque, being a mile high and having four mild seasons, is about the best climate in the world. Right next to cool, lofty mountains and even a little snow in the winter that conveniently burns off by noon. I could do outdoor activities every day all year long there.
I’ve gone to Tucson to run the half marathon along the Catalinas every year for the last seven years and met lots of nice people who somehow manage to stay in shape there, though.
Right now, however, if I could get the rest of my family to go for it I’d stay in Trinidad for the rest of my life. I absolutely love it here.
My brother lives in Scottsdale, and they consider Tucson hell.
A friend of mine moved there to be with his lover…he lasted a grand total of three weeks and said it was the most boring, horrid place he had ever been to in his life…mind you, he was from New Mexico.
I was there once, a hundred years ago when I was 16. All I remember was that a lizard ran over my foot.
A nice place to retire perhaps… but I found nothing out in Tucson besides golf that interested me… I moved back to Raleigh after about a month of living out there. My mother moved out there to work a real estate retirement community that was awsome… but I’m 28 now and was 24 at the time… just out of college, and I found no good jobs out there despite the .com boom… Nobody my age lived near me and I could not find any night life there either. The weather there is very nice though.
Virtually everybody I met there was my age or younger. Granted, they were all running the marathon or half-marathon, but there were thousands of them. And my friend lives in the University area which is young to middle aged and nicely racially mixed.
Say all you want about the paradise of tropical heat. You can keep it. After a year of living in CA I visited FL last week. I broke a sweat just walking across the tarmac from the plane to the gate at the airport. You sweat and sweat and sweat and it never evaporates, at least not unless you sit inside in the A/C. The air is sticky, and you feel like you’ve been sprayed down with maple syrup.
It was pretty no doubt, but 83 degrees with near 100% humidity is worse than 100 degrees in low humidity. I’ll take the latter any day.
Let me know if you’re thinking about checking out some places down here, JillGat, and I can point you in the direction of a few good neighborhoods.
I agree that Tucson is a ‘love it or hate it’ kind of place. Some people just don’t want the kind of life Tucson offers. For me, it’s perfect. Maybe it will be for you, too.
Guybud7, a few years ago I flew out to Rhode Island to help my Mom move back here. When I left Tucson, it was about 110[sup]o[/sup]. Not too bad; shorts and t-shirt weather, stay in the shade, no big deal. When I got to Rhode Island, it was 98 degrees, with 98% humidity. And I had to move furniture and boxes all day. I was dying; sweat was dripping off me in buckets. People kept saying “I thought you lived in the desert. This should be nothing for you.”
I’ll take 110 degrees and 3 per cent humidity any day. The weather you folks put up with is inhuman.
