Should I move?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I realize that there may be no definitive answer to my question here, but maybe people could shed some light on things. I’m just kicking this around in my head, and need a few more cleats upside my noggin.

I take a yearly vacation to Martha’s Vineyard, and while many people consider it to be the exclusive playground of the rich and elitist, I love it (and I’m neither).

For the first seven years of my life, I lived in the Heartland. For the next 11, I lived in dreary upstate NY. For the next 26, I lived in urban Boston. (Hey, at least I’m getting closer!) But do I want to live the rest of my life here? I don’t think so. And before I know it, I may be too old to move to someplace cool. (Hip-wise, not temperature-wise). I feel that at heart I belong in a bathing suit and sandals, 24/7. Tracking beach sand around my floors is a problem that I am eagerly willing to take on.

So after my last trip to MV, I got to thinking – Why am I still in Boston? If I could make my life just like it is when I’m on vacation, life would be ideal. Of course, it would not be like that, as I’d have to get a job, and summer doesn’t last forever.

The pros of moving:

Location, location, location. I’d be living at a resort all year. When I want to go on vacation, I can just go down the street.

The cons of moving:

It may be hard to get a job. Minimum-wage summertime jobs abound, but I’d have to work three just to make ends meet for the rest of the year. And that would be all summer. It would defeat the purpose.

I want to rent, not own. Prices are very high on the island, but I saw a few ads for places under $1000/month. Unfortunately, some of those look like “situations”, not apartments.

I’d have to get a car. But maybe not if I live and work in the same town. There is public transportation, but it sucks.

Summer only lasts a few months. Fall is probably nice, and I like Christmas there. Spring is nice as well. But residents have said that winters are bordom producing, wrist-slitting-alcoholic days of dreary nothingness. Much unlike Boston. :wink:

I don’t know if I could hack small-town life. I really don’t want everyone knowing my business. And apparently that’s the hobby everyone takes up after the tourists leave.

The isolation can be killer. The only way off island is by ferry, and then I’d need a car to get anywhere important. Except I can take a bus to Boston. Total time: About 4 hours.

There’s probably more, but at this point I welcome your input.

2

Go for it! What’s the worst that happens? You decide that living in a vacation wonderland isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and decide to go back to working at your present job in Boston (or a job like it). You have to tell your interviewers that you decided to try out life in a vacation paradise, things didn’t work out, and now you are prepared to put your nose to the grindstone and work like everyone else for a while.

3

Another vote for move! Enjoy your life while you can. Before you know it, it’ll be gone.

And i was going to get all het up about you calling upstate NY dreary, but compared to someplace like MV, I guess it is. Especially in the winter.

4

I’ve been there and I agree it’s a pretty cool place… especially in the Summer… but living “at the beach” full time really isn’t as fun as it sounds. I lived on the coast of Northern California for 2 years and while the beach was great in the Winter the weather wasn’t that great. It could be cold and foggy where I lived but if you drove over the hill 10 miles it was warm and sunny.

Like to go to a play now and then? Enjoy hanging out with friends your own age? Think about what you would lose if you relocated there. My biggest concern would be having to work 3 jobs just to make ends meet. How much spare time would that leave you each week? Would you have time to enjoy the wonderful beach?

Perhaps there are places near Boston where you could afford to live that were nicer than downtown yet within easy driving or mass transit to Boston? If you could get a great job that paid reasonably well you could afford to buy a car and drive out to MV every weekend if you really wanted to.

5

I’ve been there too, very nice but a ghost town out of season I suspect. I’d go for it, don’t spend the rest of your life wondering if it would have been good. Might be just what you need. Don’t burn your bridges though. I live on a touristy island - but I never want to go anywhere else for vacation - I just want more of what I’ve got. Tip on people wanting to know your business. Tell them yourself! They just want to know really and if there are no mysteries you’re soon forgotten/accepted. I come from an English village of less than 2,000 people - which is still a town in the US I believe, so I’m accustom to that kind of life and I like it.

6

Move! There ought to be plenty of jobs once they start building the wind tubine farm just off the coast. :smiley:

7

Meh. The Vineyard is nice enough in week or two week doses, but year round? I mean maybe if you had a burning desire to open up a Bed and Breakfast, that might be a good idea. But I have the vague impression that you’re in a technical field. Not good preparation for the main occupation on the Island which is pretty much waiting tables.

If you want about 80% of the Vineyard experience with only 20% of the inconveniences, move on up to the North shore – Newburyport or thereabouts, and hang out on Plum Island

8

Working in the tourism industry, no. And to me that would be a deal-breaker.

Ideally, I could get a job as a programmer. I know for a fact that there are a few places there that do that, but they may be really small businesses with insider-only staff. I’d have to find out more.

That brings up a logistic problem – getting a job and an apartment at the same time, then doing the big transition. Which involves getting a moving truck over the bridge and onto the ferry. That could be difficult and expensive. But people do it.

9

I’ve been thinking about Hyannis too, but also Gloucester or Rockport. I could even keep the same job, but the commute is hell. (I have a coworker who does it.)

10

Heh. I’ve been giving serious thought to moving to the Vineyard also. I have my own reasons for not making the jump quite yet but I do have a very good friend who lives there year round and had a very tough time of it the first couple winters because it really is a wrist-slitting-alcoholic-nothing-to-do cesspool in the winter. She and her boyfriend would go for long drives out on Chappy and she’d just start sobbing. Now? She loves it. Seriously though, if you have any sort of addiction issues, you might want to give it some serious thought because it could be very difficult.

One really good suggestion I got (which isn’t particularly feasible for me) is to try to go there for 3 or 4 weeks to really get a sense of what it’s like to live there.

Housing is outrageously expensive, as are all of the living costs. It’s very difficult for year round people to find affordable housing.

All of that said, I say go for it and keep us posted–maybe you’ll inspire me to make the jump also. :slight_smile:

11

I dunno…it doesn’t sound like this would be a practical move for you. You would have to work, and as you’ve said, not a lot going on there for computer people. Personally, the isolation of the winter would probably get to me.

I think this is one of those in-your-head dreams that probably won’t pan out that way in reality. Keep the vacation thing going. Maybe down the road when you have a better situation, you can do it. Sounds like a lot of work to me.

12

That’s a huge deterrent, but I’m pretty happy with my hobbies indoors in the winter. I can be something of a loner at times, so it might not be so bad. I don’t know.

Does any place besides Alley’s rent videos? Actually, Netflix does.

13

I second the North Shore as a place to live. You can commute into Boston via train, and usually it’s not that bad. You could also look for jobs in your field locally – you might be surprised at what you could find.

And you’d never lack for cool stuff to do all year round.

14

I have some friends that live in touristy places out west. For all of them it was pretty rough going for the first few years, but they eventually built nice lives for themselves. Again, it took years.

One guy said something like “you still have to be somewhere at 3:00 and you’re cursing at the car in front of you but then the sun hits the mountains in a glorious way and you go “Oh, that’s why I live here””.

15

Just out of curiosity, what town would you move to if you had your druthers?

16

I *love *beach towns in the winter. There’s something incredibly romantic about the angry grey sea and its winter storms. I love the “ghost town” feel and the quiet streets.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve been to a beach area in the summer since the early eighties.

17

If you have been giving it serious thought for more than a month or two, start planning your move. If 2 1/2 weeks ago you started thinking, “Man, it would be sweet to live in Martha’s Vineyard!” you may want to give it a little more thought. I am all for moving if it is truly what you want to do with your life. And if you figure out how to get a job and an apartment long distance, let me know because I am planning a cross country move myself in about 9 1/2 months and that information could come in handy!

18

If I had my druthers, probably Chilmark or Aquinnah, because I would be ok with the isolation. I wouldn’t mind Vineyard Haven off of the main thoroughfares. Of course, one of those ridiculous houses in Edgartown would be fantastic, but Edgartown is totally, totally dead in winter. It’s very weird to walk down one of the sidestreets to see millions and millions of dollars worth of real estate sitting empty.

I would say the only place I would absolutely rule out would be Oak Bluffs–I just wouldn’t like it in summer.

19

Most certainly. Even if I did move, it would probably be more than a year away anyway.

Years ago I was on a big “Move to Hawaii” jag, but that never panned out. But at least I did a good amount of research into it.

KSO, really? Chilmark? Wow, that IS isolated! I’d love to be in downtown VH or OB, but yeah, OB gets freakin’ NUTS in the summer. VH would be my first choice.

20

Hey, why not Winthrop? It’s an island, sort of, and you could still work in Boston. They airplanes are a nuisance, but they’re close enough that you can beat them off with a stick, I believe.