If I didn’t have a ton of friends in Seattle I’d be checking out Portland myself. From everything I hear it’s even better than the area around the Sound.
The grey weather is a serious issue in Seattle. It’s not just a joke.
Most human beings have never lived 9 months straight without ever seeing a single ray of sunshine. It’s simply not natural. It’s difficult to get used to.
I offer as proof:
There are millions of songs about sunshine and happiness and love.
There are zero songs about neverending gloomy-grey days with constant nonstop drizzle, and happiness and love.
True story:
When I was new to the area, I became aware that I was having to make an effort to stay in a good mood.When I complained to a lifelong resident about the nonstop rain, she reacted:“But I get nervous if I go more than a day without rain.”
“nervous”… huh? All that greyness and rain really does affect people’s sanity (including mine!)
I stayed a couple months for my job (had a great time, too, except for the depressing weather)–But I got the hell out of there as soon as possible. I will never,ever go back to a place where people get nervous and can’t enjoy a beautiful sunny day..
Seattle and Portland don’t get as much rain as advertised, but they are the top two cloudiest major cities in the US, respectively.
Portland sounds pretty good too, if only for Powell’s. I like Portland, but haven’t been there in a few years. The draws for Seattle instead, other than a deep desire to overpay for a shack to live in, are sailing on Puget Sound (husband likes to sail) and the pleasant array of employment opportunities for an engineer and an oncology pharmacist. 
My nephew is hoping to move to Portland sometime after he gets married. It’s certainly on the radar. Maybe next summer, we’ll check Portland out and see how that sits.
By the way, thanks for the advice, GargoyleWB. I have heard that exact advice from a friend-of-a-friend who has lived in Seattle (Ballard) his whole life. He advised us to NOT buy a house, no way, until we found out where we were working. Not sure what we’re supposed to do if we get jobs across the metro area from each other…
Case in point-- Perry Como’s “The Bluest Skies You’ll Ever See are in Seattle” which I’ve always assumed is because the blue receptors in your eyes have shut down during the previous months.
Driving there freaks me out, but I love getting a chance to stop in at my favorite sushi joint. And then there’s the Seattle chill.
I think that’s why so many transplants to the PNW are from Arizona. Trust me, we’ve had all we can stand of sunny skies.
I have never met a transplant from Arizona and I’ve lived my whole life in the PNW. All the transplants I know are from the Midwest, the Northeast, or California. On the flip side, my dad-- also a native, I am a fourth or fifth generation Oregonian-- owned vacation property in Mesa, which he is now selling.
This is terrible advice. Seattle proper is dense, walkable, and filled with every kind of restaurant, bar, and street life you could want. I haven’t had to drive to work in ten years. The eastside suburbs are going to trap you in your car.
I know what you mean - who would choose to drive to work when they could sit shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who hasn’t bathed or used a proper toilet in years…
(For a year and a half I commuted every day by bus through skid row and on foot through Pike Place Market. I mostly remember the staggering drunks and the smell of urine and week-old sweat. It was demoralizing. I only go into the city about once a month now, and I dread it every time. I like my car commute much better, thanks.)
What is wrong with you? If you tell everyone it only drizzles here then *everyone *will want to move here!! In most parts of the country when it rains, it pours. They assume it does the same there here too!
I moved to Seattle from LA about 4 years ago. It was a shock going from constant sun and warmth to 9 months of gloom and chill. And rain.
And breathtaking vistas. And tons of evergreen trees. And mountains far off in the distance. And friendly people who wear socks and sandals and just don’t care.
But oh god, it hasn’t rained (for realsies) in like 2 months. 3 months? I am so scared for it to return. The summer (which begins on July 5th, officially) has been so beautiful this year, and fall is turning out fantastic. Just…hold off on the rain for a few more months. Please?
I’m on the Eastside (suburbs) and I work 10 minutes from where I live, so I completely lucked out. Poor mr. smaje has to commute 1 hour+ each way to take the bus downtown, so his life sucks. The bus system here leaves something to be desired. I’d kinda prefer to live downtown, actually, but we lucked out renting a great house with a great big yard and a safe neighborhood for l’il smaje.
One thing that’s starting to frustrate me is the lack of…stuff for me to do here on the Eastside. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a million things to do in Seattle – hiking, outdoor activities, knitting, getting high with hippies, weeding in the community garden, lots of summer festivals and such – but all the cool stuff seems to be happening downtown. And it sucks getting downtown sometimes – mr. smaje and I decided last weekend to finally visit Ballard, and we got caught in such horrid traffic that we eventually gave up and just walked the waterfront by the Aquarium. I feel like traffic’s gotten worse since we got here. 
And this is from someone who used to live and drive in LA!
To the OP – do you already have a job lined up? Does your spouse? I would really work together to figure out what location will be best for you to live, depending on your commute. It makes such a huge difference in quality of life.
I don’t visualize spending the rest of my life in Seattle, although I work on the video game insutry and it’s a-hoppin’ out here. I adore Portland though, so maybe we’ll move down there one day. Or to a place that has mild, sunny weather for 75% of the year, snow on Christmas Day, and a few scattered showers the rest of the time.
Yes, exactly. I used to live in Ballard, lovely place and one of my favorite areas. When I was working in downtown Seattle, it was only a 3 block walk and a 12 minute bus ride. When my job changed to Everett, it was a gridlocky drive of 60-90 minutes, mostly because I was buried deep in Ballard away from I-5 access.
The worst commute days I ever had were 5 hours (the I-5 sniper shut down the area freeway and ramps) and 6 hours (snowstorm that shut down the bus system and I walked home).
I walk 20 minutes each way. Guess if you’d rather be in traffic than getting a little exercise and fresh air to start your day, the eastside is for you.
Incidentally, smelly homeless on the buses is a problem that’s mostly been confined to the free ride zone downtown, which as of this week, is no more. It’ll be interesting to see how that impacts the rideability of the downtown buses.
It shouldn’t impact the walkability of the streets - they may not be on the buses anymore, but they’re in Westlake Park (they’re the only people in Westlake Park…), they’re in Pioneer Square, they’re in the International District, they’re openly peeing through their jeans on the knoll outside Pike Place Market. They’re wherever the people with money are because they make their living asking for that money.
As I said, going into the city every day was demoralizing - I still can’t think of a better word for it. The air on my 20-minute walk from my bus stop to my destination wasn’t all that fresh - and it was usually wet. I remember this when I’m driving from Bellevue to Lynnwood five days a week and feel thankful.
Your mileage obviously varies.
I don’t know Chessic Sense or what he likes. It’s entirely possible that the things I hate about Seattle would be selling points for him - perhaps he sees homeless people as vibrant and diverse street life. But perhaps not. Either way, it will be something he won’t be able to ignore once he gets here.
Discussions about Seattle - especially in Seattle - often feel like an echo chamber.
I spent two days there last May on a business trip. Both days it was sunny.
The number of residents who remarked on this was, well, creepy. There’s also a bridge called “Suicide Bridge” from all the people who jump off it because of seasonal adjustment disorder. There is now an extremely high fence alongside of it which prevents all but the most insistent jumpers.
It looked lovely but there’s no way I could live there - I like the sun too much!
I live 6 hours from Seattle, love visiting my wife’s family there. But my greatest misgiving about living there can be summed up in four words:
Greater European House Spider (aka Giant House Spider)
.
I just moved to Seattle 23 days ago. From Florida. And it’s summer. My rose colored glasses are practically glued to my face right now. The weather has been seriously amazing pretty much every day since we got here, although I know that that’s about to change. But I’m the type who doesn’t mind cloudy weather TOO much (lived in Newcastle, UK for a year - I expect pretty much the same here). There are so many things I’m looking forward to experiencing - hiking in the mountains, sailing on the Sound, being in this city with all its quirks and fun new stuff to explore - that I can deal with the gloominess for awhile. Not sure if you’ll feel the same. But lawd almighty, it is gorgeous here.
You said that you spend a lot of time indoors, and it sounds like traffic and weather are two primary things you look at when you’re considering moving to a place. I can’t really comment on the weather so much, except to say that summer is… yeeee-haw!
But as far as traffic goes, it surely is one of the suckiest of any place I’ve driven. It seems not to matter what time of day it is or what day of the week. Depending on where you live, a few miles could get you to most places you would need to go regularly, but those few miles could easily take 20 minutes to get there. Every time. I’ve simply decided to let the bus driver deal with that, while I read a book. FYI, I live in Ballard, which is centrally located for me. There’s a bus stop across the street that gets me where I need to go, to the UW Medical Center, within 20-25 mins, OR a bike route that takes less time and is bike/ped trail almost the entire way. Lots of bike trails here. Lots of bikers. Anyway, the public transportation system seems like it could be more efficient for a city this size, and with a population that is so focused on finding ways to reduce their carbon footprints. I’ve heard several people complain about the bus system here, but it works great for me. They’ve just changed a bunch of routes, added and deleted some lines, and added some “RapidRide” routes, although those don’t seem much more better or “rapid” than what was there previously. However, I am incredibly happy with the public transportation here because I’m coming from a place where it was completely inefficient, and ONLY homeless people used it.
Those are just my 2 cents.
Side note - in my 3 weeks here, I’ve met 2 transplants from Arizona and one from New Mexico.