Considering Leaving the Bay Area

Hello,

We moved out from Bay Area to East Coast (Connecticut) 3 years ago because of similar reasons. I was also missing seasons. Every single day, I missed the diversity of Bay Area. I am a foreign citizen and love the liberal life of Bay Area. 

Unfortunately we are moving back to Bay Area, because I am really depressed here. I work from home. I am not meeting anybody. There is no sunshine, no diversity, no food.  I miss farmers market, cheap groceries of Bay Area. It gets dark very early in winter. The people lived here forever and they have lots of relatives/friends. They are not open to newcomers. I cannot make friends easily, after 3 years still don't have any solid friend.  It depends on your personality as well.

For education, I am paying $1000 for full time play-based preschool. Education is pretty good. Libraries are great. For rent, we are paying $1000 for 2 bedroom. For $300K, you can buy 4 bedroom house with couple of acres but if you want to sell the house, you cannot sell easily. For grocery, our cost increased tremendously. Fruits/vegetables/eating-out  are so expensive out of California. Our grocery cost for 3 people are around $1500.

So I don't recommend New England after Bay Area. So hard to find the same diversity anywhere else. Try to find somewhere with more sunshine. San Diego is cheaper than Bay Area. It might be a good option.

Good luck

If you're up for a big move you should check out New Zealand!  I've visited several times and it is a super friendly, not too expensive, beautiful country that has a lot of need for skilled migrants.  Just google for New Zealand immigration and you'll easily be on your way to a bunch of info. Your husband may qualify for a skilled migrant visa which will get you guys over there with a work visa before he even gets a job offer.
 

We've lived all over the US map as a family. Just some personal experiences/insights to share:

1. We live in San Diego now, we love it, it's more affordable than Bay Area, for sure, but still not cheap. Public schools suck, but there are decent charter options and excellent private options.

2. When our daughter was a toddler we lived in Tampa Bay area. VERY affordable, especially for daycare and preschool (they even have sick daycares in the area that are cheap), VERY affordable housing, etc. We ended up hating it, though. Too redneck/white/christian for our tastes. When other kids in preschool started calling our daughter N****r, we knew it was time to leave (she's Asian).

3. From 2004-2014 we lived in Northern VA (Loudoun Co.) - so kindergarten through 9th grade. It was a great place to raise a kid, really. Our town was about 50 miles NW of DC, it was not as diverse as we would have liked, however due to sheer numbers of government, active and ex-military, it made for a nice environment as a family. Very much "it takes a village" if you're in one of the smaller towns. If you don't have to commute into DC, it's a good deal. Costs of living are less than SFO, comparable to San Diego if you want to be close to the city, and way cheap once you go our past Fairfax Co. Public schools in the 'burbs are excellent, but be warned - no sex ed. provided and religion was starting to creep in when we left. Over on the MD side of the river, this is less of a problem, so I'd consider looking at Frederick, MD if I had to do it all over again, or consider gentrifying in Baltimore (although school options are not so good).  We have friends who relo'ed to Richmond and to Charlottesville, both are areas worth looking into.

4. We're originally from NYC, lived in the 'burbs when daughter was a baby, can't recommend it. Expensive, stressful, dark and cold.  We had considered Boston at one point, but it was too darn cold!

Good luck, let us know what works out!

Portland

You could consider moving to Sacramento area...not as radical as moving abroad and significantly cheaper housing costs.  It is very ethnically diverse, like most other cities in California.  You would be close enough to visit family/friend in the Bay Area easily as well.

I grew up in the Washington, DC area and my family still lives there. It's certainly crowded and not inexpensive, but cheaper than the Bay Area. It's full of activities and opportunities for adults and children, has excellent schools as well as a solid public university system and is very diverse; many of my classmates were from other countries and other parts of the US. The weather is not as extreme as in more northern areas, and we all know what crybabies we are in California about cold weather. 

We live in a suburb of NYC, and dream of moving to the Bay Area. My hubs is a software engineer who works remotely, but feels he could branch out more living on that side of the country. I work part time remotely as an admin asst. and can do it from anywhere. We have 2 young kids, one still in preschool. 

The cost of living scares me a bit in the Bay Area. It's even more than here (Nassau County). I may have to work a bit more to make ends meet creating a different work/life balance. 

But when I think of the weather over by you, being outdoors more often, it sounds like the kind of life me & my family would benefit from immensely for all aspects of our health. 

Here in the Northeast, we get May - October mostly to enjoy the better weather & normal daylight hours. The rest of the year, it's like we're in hibernation mode. We try to do more wintery things and get outside, but it's harsh. 

Then there's the segregation and racism hiding in plain sight. I am beginning to find more like-minded community here that want to see this things change where we live, and I joined an organization that is helping bringing more members of the community together to open minds, and its been great. It has slowed the race I created in my mind to move to SF. 

And I haven't even been to SF. But I read what's happening over there - the way of life. My husband's been there on business a few times. 

He is going again next month, and I am thinking about going too (with kids) to explore & see if I should continue to consider it as an option to uproot our family, leave our friends & family here - move to a state where we know no one in hopes to have a better quality of life. 

But then I ask myself, what is the quality of the life I want to provide my kids? Fight for what's right here, close to our nearest & dearest - my tribe is growing right now right here - why mess with that? Or pick up & leave to a city where the fight won't be the same. There won't be a fight for rights as much as it is here. It seems like the fight would be to make ends meet. But no one we know is there. I know we can make new friends, that's true ;) 

I'm trying to plan out our week there. Trying to find kid centric activities that might help us see what it might be like to live there. I know it can't be done in a week, but I'd like to get a taste. And I came here to create a new post on where & what to do, and I found your post. 

Good luck in your search :) 

I grew-up in the bay area (Marin). I left the Bay Area to attend college in PA. After graduating college, I moved around a lot. I lived in Washington State, Maryland, Colorado, and then Texas. Two years ago we moved back to the Bay Area due to my husbands job. We are happy to be back and closer to both our families now that we have young children.  

I recommend Katy, Texas outside of Houston. Very family friendly, very diverse (Houston past NYC as the most diverse city), great restaurants, excellent public schools (much better than here), and housing is very affordable. Weather is humid and hot in the summer but winters are mild. I think about moving back everyday.