question for emmigrants to the USA

clairefontaine

Hi,

This is really just a nosey question but I am curious as to how you chose to pick where you lived in the US. It's such big country with so many choices, I wonder how people made their decisions. And do you like where you chose to settle?

ProudDUB

.....looks out window at the lashing rain.....

1. Hot/dry weather

2. Having family and friends already there.

3. Hot/dry weather

4. Job prospects.

5. Hot/dry weather.

6. Some specific and unique to the area that you are moving to, that attracts you there in particular, such as moving to LA if you want to be an actor.

7. Hot/dry weather.

8. Your perception of a particular city/state/region based on how you perceive it to be in movies and TV shows that you have seen. (Not lying. Know people who have actually been influenced by that.)

9. Hot/dry weather.

10. Did I mention the hot/dry weather?

silja

Yeah weather has been crazy!
We were considering Colorado because I love mountains and snow and forest, a decent economy even in these tough times and a liberal attitude close to European liberalism, but my husband is from Arkansas, and still has family here, so we decided on here as we have small kids. The "hot" thing ProudDub mentions as a positive was actually a negative for me, but with aircon everywhere, it is manageable.

duck_77

I didn't choose it, it kinda chose me (work got me here in NorCal). Now I can't imagine leaving.

Expensive but worth it. 45 mins from ocean, 3 hours from snow, 1 hour from Vegas, LA/Canada/Seattle all a short trip away ( in US Terms anyway).

[-0-]

Pros: Quality of life. Weather. Food. People. Cost of living.
Cons: People here cannot drive, seriously they can't. They do not signal and when they do they leave it on for 10 minutes after turning. TV is all adverts. I do not have cable TV - I use a Roku 2 XS.

clairefontaine

duck_77 wrote: »

I didn't choose it, it kinda chose me (work got me here in NorCal). Now I can't imagine leaving.

Expensive but worth it. 45 mins from ocean, 3 hours from snow, 1 hour from Vegas, LA/Canada/Seattle all a short trip away ( in US Terms anyway).

I heard its too cold to swim in the Pacific.

silja

[-0-] wrote: »

They do not signal and when they do they leave it on for 10 minutes after turning.

Interesting- our car (and I think most around here) automatically turn off the turn signal once you straighten the car.

ProudDUB

Agreed. I'd have to actually break my indicator switch, if I wanted to drive with my indicator lights always on.

Then again, the AARP is very, very politically active in the US and they lobby stridently for elderly drivers not to face driving restrictions

clairefontaine wrote: »

I heard its too cold to swim in the Pacific.

It is. It is something to do with very cold water currents coming down from Alaska which makes the water (even in Southern California) quite chilly to take a dip in. The sea can be quite rough too, with much bigger waves and much stronger tides than you'd get here in Ireland. There are also sharks. The kind that eat people ! :eek: I go the beach a lot when I am in California, but I rarely go swimming.

InTheTrees

We moved from London to Santa Cruz, California (N side of Monterey bay) by picking it on a map.

Well my wife was american and had lived north of SF so she'd been there before but did know much about it.

I was looking for a more SoCal Beach atmosphere (ie. Hot/dry weather!) rather than Northern cal.

So we looked at the map and Santa cruz was on the north Side of the bay, with Mountains behind, sheltered and warm. Almost completely different from the wind swept foggy monterey on the south side of the bay.

We lived there 10 years.

InTheTrees

[-0-] wrote: »

Cons: People here cannot drive, seriously they can't. They do not signal and when they do they leave it on for 10 minutes after turning.

LOL!! I always say if you see a car with its turn signals on in the US its probably because they've been on all day!

:eek:

InTheTrees

clairefontaine wrote: »

I heard its too cold to swim in the Pacific.

Yes, any further north than LA. There's excellent world class surfing in northern CA but you need a wetsuit. (or so I'm told!)

But as said above that doesnt meant here isnt a good vibrant beach culture, especially in Santa cruz, the beaches will be crowded all summer. Mostly kids and tourists from alaska in the water though.

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=36.963433,-122.02204&spn=0.003018,0.005552&t=m&z=18&layer=c&cbll=36.963491,-122.021904&panoid=n6jRd1lsbfmLmnTxYkLmJg&cbp=12,115.04,,0,-0.78

clairefontaine

InTheTrees wrote: »

Yes, any further north than LA. Ther's excellent world class surfing in northern CA but you need a wetsuit. (or so I'm told!)

I was in San Diego. Its too cold down there too.

InTheTrees

clairefontaine wrote: »

I was in San Diego. Its too cold down there too.

There's also coastal fog in Norther CA ( and SD i believe?).

Basically when it gets over about 90degs about five miles inland; it will suck in cool air off the sea which forms into fog and hugs the coast.

Then when the temp reaches high enough it will burn the fog off.

Most likely to happen in the summer too. You'll get dense morning fog that dissolves away by midday.

Its pretty nice actually. Natures a/c. Makes for nice sleeping weather, and you never get that sweltering heat.

Jonny_D

I moved over here on an L-1 with my company so I didn't choose the location.
The Pacific North West is amazing though and I'm very happy to be living here.
Pros: better weather than the old country.
No state taxes.
More disposable income than I had in Ireland.
Driving a bigger car/owning a bigger house than I used to.
Loads more to do.
Really friendly people.

Cons: None really. Apart from the jet jag and horrible flight back to Ireland.

iusedtoknow

I moved here on L1 visa (to San Francisco) so it chose me, rather than the other way around

Pros: salary, climate, cultural activities, outdoors lifestyle - close to beautiful towns like Santa Cruz and the wine country
Cons: Jet lag, 10 hour flights to get to europe

But the pro's definitely outweigh the cons. My company are starting out greencard applications at the moment, and I really cannot picture living anywhere else in the US (except Santa Cruz)

lil_lisa

I moved to San Diego about four years ago after meeting himself during a summer J1 in college. He's born and raised here, wasn't too difficult to twist my arm to move :P

As mentioned above, there are so many pros to living here, although for me they share the pros of finally being in the working world and not being a broke student anymore.

The biggest con is being so far away from family. Trying to choose the right celebrations to travel home for is difficult. Some mornings I want to wake up to the cold and rain back home.

clairefontaine

Seems like most people here are on the west coast.

rockonollie

My choice was made for me too......we settled in the area my wife grew up in.

But I do like it anyway, it has everything I would have looked for.

Fairly stable climate (we still get tornadoes in spring and blizzards in winter, but not at the frequency as states further south and north of us)

Most states have unemployment problems, but the jobs are there if you look hard enough, I got a job within a few weeks and am still there almost 3 years later.

We live in a farming community with plenty of space to ourselves, but are only a half hour from Cincinnait so were aren't disconnected from civilization.

Aprilmay

We researched from the time we got selected from the DV lottery (first round) and got it down to top 3 choices. We have kids that are older so we had to take that into consideration too!

My husbands job offered for him to keep his position, he can work anywhere but also suggested 2 places he travels to with work.We had never considered either of their suggestions before but looked at it briefly but we stuck to our first choice. We did 3 visits before finally moving and it has worked out for us.

Ponster

I had a choice of any city in the 'east' where we have an office meaning Boston, NYC, Atlanta, Oak Hill Virginia, Clearwater Florida.

Thought about Boston for a bit but couldn't resist the appeal of NYC, especially as I was moving from a comparable large city (Paris)

WilyCoyote

ProudDUB wrote: »

Agreed. I'd have to actually break my indicator switch, if I wanted to drive with my indicator lights always on.
......................................................................................................................

Unless the switch is broken - then you have to do it manually. More time to forget.

WilyCoyote

Wife from here. Were living in Ireland but moved back here about three years ago. Have to go to Boston every three months or so to get rashers, sausages and black pudding.

catreelo11

I did the summer J1 in southern California and knew I wanted to return to this state for the lifestyle, weather, people etc.

The tech industry opportunities in San Francisco was the main draw for going north when I returned a few years later