Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
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Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
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Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#2I couldn't give away my dog :(
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#3I couldn't give away my dog :(
It was a hard choice to make. :-/ But she'll be much better off with someone at home more often, with a backyard and a more active lifestyle/running with her. She was mainly black lab with some chow and pitbull so I took her to the dog park for a good 90 minutes every other day to keep her energy levels in check and not destroy the apartment too much haha.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#4I moved from Atlanta (I'm also a tech grad) to SF as well. I had to move back down to the south bay where it was at warm at least once a year. Since I landed a job before I went, they paid for the move, which in retrospect was a bad decision because I just ended up moving everything instead of selling/trashing the stuff I rarely use.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#5I've found the public-transit comparison decidedly more mixed than a clear "SF wins". Admittedly, I lived in midtown in Atlanta, and mostly went to other places that have good subway service: Decatur, downtown, Buckhead, the airport, etc. To get to other places, the buses are kind of lame, but I wouldn't say they're any more lame than Muni's terrible buses. I did have a car, but I rarely drove; probably once every few weeks, mostly to visit friends who lived in the suburbs. In SF, meanwhile, the city is geographically tiny and yet still somehow cannot run a decent public-transit system. I can jog from the Richmond or Sunset to Caltrain faster than Muni can get me there.
I will say that the Bay Area as a whole does suburban commuter rail better, because of BART and Caltrain. MARTA has a little of it, but it doesn't extend nearly as far outside the urban core as BART and Caltrain do. Though do note that if you plan to visit the Valley, there are plenty of places that aren't that easy to get to via Caltrain.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#6Its always interesting to me to see people's reactions when moving from poorly planned sprawling cities to some of the better planned more organically laid out cities in the US (DC, NY, Chicago, Portland, SF, etc) your quality of life changes drastically when you get to leave the car behind and walk around or just hop on efficient public transit and go anywhere you want.
I'm moving from the east coast to Seattle this week and I'm most excited about the idea of crossing a continent. Its amazing how our mind can underestimate the size of the US and how few and far between chances to take a true cross country road trip are.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#7Its always interesting to me to see people's reactions when moving from poorly planned sprawling cities to some of the better planned more organically laid out cities in the US (DC, NY, Chicago, Portland, SF, etc) your quality of life changes drastically when you get to leave the car behind and walk around or just hop on efficient public transit and go anywhere you want. I'm moving from the east coast to Seattle this…
I could not agree more. I've taken Amtrak's Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle and Portland several times and each time the size of the US was simply awesome.
I highly recommend doing it. In the fall and winter the cross country ticket is $170 each way and if you upgrade to a roomette, $300 each way (meals included).
Sitting for a dinner chat with a different group for 3 nights in a row + staring out the window at Glacier National Park is definitely worth the cost.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#8I've found the public-transit comparison decidedly more mixed than a clear "SF wins". Admittedly, I lived in midtown in Atlanta, and mostly went to other places that have good subway service: Decatur, downtown, Buckhead, the airport, etc. To get to other places, the buses are kind of lame, but I wouldn't say they're any more lame than Muni's terrible buses. I did have a car, but I rarely drove; probably once every fe…
I would say the main deficiency with MARTA's buses is frequency, not the number of options. MUNI's buses run way more frequently I've found when visiting SF.
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#9Kudos on the move. How's skribit doing btw?
Re: Atlanta to San Francisco: What I Learned Moving Cross-Country
#10I've moved around a lot, but bigger distances (Asia, a lot within Europe Europe, Africa), and one thing I've noticed is that the more you move, the more you abstract away the particular details of the place and focus on a start of bigger picture.
For example, if I move now, I'd focus on food (supermarkets, restaurants) and transport, and once I have understood, I'd be basically comfortable already, and I'd just let the gaps like neighbourhood and so on fill themselves out automatically.
It's a bit sad in a way - that sense of seeing something new and unexpected is now lost to me. All my recent travels are just a variation on something I've seen before, even if to supposedly exotic places.