My girlfriend and I recently returned home from a vacation along the east coast (New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC) and we really fell in love with the Washington DC area.
Maybe it was the fun of simply being on vacation, and therefore never “running out of things to do” since we had everything crammed into a 4-night stay, but we’re already planning our next trip back to visit the area again sometime in 2018/2019.
The thought crossed my mind on the plane coming home - if we enjoy the area so much, why not consider moving there?
Without debating the pros/cons of the Washington DC area specifically, it got me wondering if anyone had ever moved to a place where they had previously loved to vacation, and if it took away any of the “allure” once you did?
Or do you prefer to leave your vacation spots as just that, vacation spots?
I’m thinking that could include just about any place - Vegas, Mexico, Aruba, Florida, Colorado, etc.
These days, I almost always travel internationally for vacations, so relocation isn’t usually practical . However, assuming you’re in the USA, a relocation to Washington DC isn’t unreasonable. It’s one of the cities that would be on my list.
Yes. About 20 years ago my husband accompanied me to a work conference in WA state. After the conference we went to Crater Laker, drove up the Oregon coast and spent a couple of days in both Portland and Seattle. We fell in love. We lived in Ohio at the time with no plans to move, but said if we ever relocated anywhere it would be the Pacific Northwest. Five years later the company I worked for acquired another company in Seattle, I got the opportunity to move, and my husband agreed to the relocation. We love it here.
I helped my sister move from Ohio to Socal in the late 90’s. After visiting her several times, I got more and more sick of seeing the “Welcome to Ohio” sign and eventually just moved here (Socal) too in 2001.
My wife and I have been taking camping vacations to the Mendocino/Fort Bragg area for years, and every time I see that the Powerball total has gotten high enough to drop a few bucks to play the “dream home” game, those are the real estate listings I tend to check. Gorgeous scenery, good hiking, some nice restaurants and summer high temperatures in the 60s. Jobs would be tough to come by, but what do we care? We won the Powerball!
Yes, I have done this. I had long been interested in living in San Francisco and visited a couple times in my 20’s. Started making plans and moved here when I was 30. I hadn’t done much other traveling at the time, but I have since, and there still isn’t anywhere else I want to live.
I’m not going to move, but if I did, I wouldn’t mind living in several places I visited as a tourist: Montreal, Paris, San Francisco, Chicago, or Fredericton, NB.
Yes, I loved vacationing in San Francisco, so I moved here two years ago from DC. I don’t hate it or anything, but I definitely like it a lot less. As a tourist you don’t really have to care about local politics, infrastructure, your neighbors, or anything like that. I miss a lot about DC that I took for granted.
Yes I have, Charleston, SC; I only got to live there a year before moving away believing I’d be back in a few years, but sadly that didn’t happen.
It was just as lovely to live there as vacation there and I’ve enjoyed every time I’ve returned.
I’ve done it 100% intentionally twice, in the sense of visiting on vacation and thinking “holy snakes, this place is amazing! I should move here!” and later doing so, the first time to Hawaii and the second time to another tropical paradise that was even nicer.
They were both no-regrets, absolutely awesome moves, and I loved living there even more than visiting in both cases, and still recommend them as great places to live to other people, with appropriate caveats.
I’ve done it unintentionally at least once, in the sense of having vacationed there one or more times and genuinely enjoyed it, and later moved there to advance my career, but in that case it didn’t work as well, and I’m less enamored of that city now (which I’m currently in).
As to why this might be so, for me I think it’s a natural beauty and climate thing, as well as the cost of living creeping up and hindering everyday life - cost of living whacked me in Hawaii but it mattered less because there was so much to do that was free, and every single day was a gorgeous beachy blue sunny gift. Out here cost of living is just as bad, but every day is decidedly NOT sunny, nor blue, nor beachy, so it starts to wear on you after a while. But then, I happen to really like the sun and outdoors and such, so I’m sure it wouldn’t be as big an issue with somebody with different tastes.
I think if you know the place you’re loving so much really aligns with what you care about, and you’ve had that impulse of “well, why shouldn’t I move here?” it can be a solid move that results in much happiness.
Loved leaving Indiana and visiting Virginia Beach to visit Grandpa as a kid, even though Grandpa was (and still is) an ass.
Eventually, we moved to VB to be closer to family (Nee-Nee and Pop-Pop lived in Pennsylvania) and because the winters are milder. Now Nee-Nee and Pop-Pop have passed on, we’re not on speaking terms with Grandpa, and for that matter VB proved to be too expensive when Mom was forced to stop working and go on disability.
I’ve done this twice. As a young adult in West Texas, I would often visit a friend in Albuquerque and later as a college student (anthropology major) use Albuquerque as a base for exploring the Pueblo Indians as well as Anasazi ruins and even Navajo and Hopi way over in Arizona. When I first returned from Thailand in 1990, I moved to Albuquerque. Loved it there. Only left because I was accepted to graduate school here in Hawaii.
And in northern Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I would often make my way down to Bangkok for various purposes – meetings, vaccination boosters. They were always like vacations. And when I moved back to Thailand in 1994, Mrs. Siam Sam, whom I met here in school in Hawaii, was from Bangkok and had a university position there, so that’s where we ended up. Loved it there too and lived there for 22-1/2 years, until last August. (Still have a home for sale there, if anyone is interested.)
The only places I’ve been to where my enjoyment did not closely track how much I’d want to live there are Madrid, because I don’t speak Spanish, and anywhere over 6000 feet, because I don’t know that I’d ever get used to the altitude: even beyond the initial headache, the lack of pressure always seems slightly disturbing to me since it always feels like it is about to rain, so when there is the slightest darkness to the clouds I am sure there is a huge storm coming. This feeling might or might not go away if I spent more than 2 weeks at altitude, but who knows?
Speaking as a New Brunswicker, one of these things is not like the others; one of these things doesn’t belong!
It is really odd to see Fredericton in this list. It is pretty much the one location in the province that I never have an urge to go see (at least since my favourite Mexican place closed). We drive past 2 or 3 times a year on the way to visit the in-laws but only ever stop at a little gas bar/restaurant for their sweet potato fries.
More on point, I think I’d move to Maui if I could. Love the beaches, the weather, and I really enjoy the water sports there. The snorkeling and diving are awesome!
