I’ve driven through but haven’t spent enough time. May be (hopefully) relocating.
Housing prices? Culture? Nature? Weather? Any students staff or faculty here? Whaddya think? Campus culture/ vibe? Stories, anecdotes, impressions? Praise? Warnings? Suggestions? Pubs? Breakfast places with good hollandaise? Burrito places? How’s the bike commuting? How’s the surf? How’s the kayaking?
Thanks in advance!
I’ve only passed through myself. But I alway find the police log to be hysterical.
The Great Arcata to Ferndale Cross-Country Kinetic Sculpture Race is not to be missed!
I was born in Arcata and grew up in Southern Humboldt but am currently attending college on the east coast. HSU is a good school, both my parents went there, i think their best programs are geology, environmental studies, and art. FYI the guy who invented spongebob squarepants went there. The culture of the area is very countercultural-hippie, its like a mini berkeley kind of. Housing prices are very cheap for california, actually my dad owns some student housing apartments that he rents cheaply to students, theres a lot of stuff like that, its not difficult. Food is great, surfing is good if you have a wetsuit, lots of rivers for kayaking, i would definitely recommend moving there, its unlike any other place you will live. i am so homesick for it right now. Go for it! unless you have some kind of aversion to marijuana 
Thanks for the info-- that was helpful.
Anyone else? I know there’s at least one Humboldt student on the boards. . .
One last bump as I’m headed down next week to visit.
Only passed through a few times. Weather cold and misty gray, but if you’re used to it, I imagine it beats that dammed Central Valley summer heat. Smallish towns, I expect you know, with all the closeness (claustrophobia?) that implies.
Arcata is one of those coastal towns without a summer, eureka is a lot more rednecky, the avenue of the giants is not to be missed, get off the freeway. luck
Passing along info from a co-worker from NorCal who’s been there a few times and whose sister lives there. I make no promise of his veracity.
- Not many jobs, high unemployment.
- Reasonable housing prices, mainly because of #1.
- “Good place for the newly-wed and the nearly-dead.”
- Natural scenery is beautiful, lots of redwoods.
- Local culture is kind of polarized: old-school loggers and students/hippies/burnouts (‘creative types’). Eureka is more blue collar while Arcata is more of a college town.
- Lots of overcast weather.
- Doesn’t know much about nightlife, but most of his acquaintences from HSU dropped out after “partying themselves stupid.”
- Surf doesn’t look like much, but he’s never taken a close look.
- Bike commuting seems reasonably easy.
10 Warnings? “If you see my cousins, run!” - No word on the hollandaise, but burritos are probably available.
- The “Samoa Cookhouse” has authentic logger food (chicken and cornbread) and, well, loggers.
- Generally, if you like getting high, it’s a really good place.
I have a friend who’s on the faculty at HSU and whose spouse is a low-level municipal employee there. They lived in Arcata for a few years before buying a house in Eureka.
Pros:
The mild, northern-rainforest climate, the redwoods, the proximity to N.Ca wine country (for oenophiles) and the agate-strewn beaches of Oregon (for rockhounds), and the progressive politics and culture (provided you’re on the same wavelength). “The Return of the Jedi” was partially filmed in those redwood forests, and I’ve long felt it would be fun to traipse through the woods looking for movie-production souvenirs (okay, litter identifiably from the film shoot. And yes, I’m a Star Wars geek.). It’s something of a misconception to see this area is “close” to San Francisco, which is a four-hour drive to the south. (If San Fran was really close by, the housing would be much more expensive.)
So-so or ambivalent:
Buying a house was just manageable for their two incomes.
In Arcata, the retail is mostly chi-chi and aimed at affluent bo-bos (bourgeois bohemians) and tourists. Think arty boutiques and galleries and way-overpriced small grocer’s shops. The nearest big-box discounter, a Costco, is, I forget, either 45 minutes or something like an hour-fifteen away (let’s say an hour). The situation for Eureka is more normalized, but it’s still no shopping Mecca, and culturally it’s not much less provincial than the area as a whole.
Cons:
No ethnic or real cultural diversity to speak of, with only a miniscule Latino and Afro-American presence. One of my friends particularly bemoans the absence of Latino/Hispanic culture, music, radio, etc. and sees the whole region as almost oppressively white and, for all the lefty trappings, WASPish – at least when compared to urban New Jersey.
And if the population and culture is uncomfortably homogeneous, that’s also the case with the economy. There simply isn’t much of a job base to choose from (hence my friend with the municipal gig, which he feels lucky to have landed.) Especially in Arcata, if you’re not on the faculty (or an artist, a freelancing writer, etc.), you’re screwed. A lot of faculty hires at Humboldt have had to leave because their spouses couldn’t find a decent job within a manageable commuting distance. The situation isn’t as bad in Eureka, but in that case it’s the HSU employee who’s doing the commute, to Arcata.
Arcata in particular is basically just a drowsy academic enclave for “trustafarians” – well-heeled, privileged white college students, typically of the stoner variety – and the long-suffering, generally lefty faculty that lectures them. Humboldt is not a competitive school or a real academic draw (except perhaps for the curricular strengths previously mentioned), so the students are of a decidedly middlebrow intellectual level (which exasperates my professor friend). And their pot use is casual and endemic, with many locals growing it, sometimes in the woods. A lot of people tend to downplay or dismiss pot use as a social problem, but consider that it tends to make stupid people act even more stupidly than usual, to say nothing of their driving. (This is what drives my muni-worker friend nuts, as dealing with the many of the druggiest dregs of society is a large part of his job.) And that’s what Arcata’s storied police crime blotter reflects: a lot of aimless, lost stoner locals and transients, committing a lot of pointless, futile, inept criminal misdemeanors and such.
The bottom line: Arcata and Eureka are not what they would’ve chosen, but academics can’t be choosy when it comes to jobs. They’ve chosen to make the best of it and to just enjoy the local beauty and mild climate, revisiting the East Coast as frequently as they can. It helps in their case that they’re both into wine, a N-Ca specialty…
I went to HSU for 5 years (1 year of grad school) and really enjoyed the time I spent there. My parents lived in the Bay Area so I spent summers away from Arcata, which meant I never saw a summer there, and I could spend at least some time hanging with people I knew where I grew up. Sort of the best of both worlds.
If I were you I would check it out and see if the climate/culture/environment suits you. It’s definitely a different kind of community and while some people love it other leave after 6 months very disenchanted. It’s not for everyone… but it’s a really beautiful area.
Ah, lots of good information. I’d actually be moving there for a chi-chi lefty faculty job, and I’ve always been a west coast type (of the most Eugene Oregon, Sandpoint Idaho type) so this might be right up my alley. I can see how it would be crazy culture shock coming from NJ or NYC.