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Did you relocate after FIRE and how was the transition?

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Trudie:
I'm interested in others' experiences relocating after FIRE.  Where did you move from and to?  What were your motivations?  How did you form new friendships, integrate into your new community, and foster non-work interests?  What were the challenges and disappointments of moving?  Unexpected upsides?

Left Bank:

--- Quote from: Trudie on April 17, 2015, 08:35:33 AM ---I'm interested in others' experiences relocating after FIRE.  Where did you move from and to?  What were your motivations?  How did you form new friendships, integrate into your new community, and foster non-work interests?  What were the challenges and disappointments of moving?  Unexpected upsides?

--- End quote ---

Yes, my wife and I relocated post-FIRE from Boston, MA to central Oregon (Bend) because we love the West and needed a change from the snow, congestion, cost and chaos of the East Coast.  We love to be outdoors and are very active people.  Our biggest help to meeting people, besides our outdoor activities, has been Meetup.com.  Challenges/disappointments?  We've been here 5mts and I will have to get back to you later when I can come up with some.  Unexpected upsides? People are so ridiculously, nice and civil it seems odd coming from Boston.
Good luck!
LB

Larsg:
Great questions and response. Although I am not retired yet - planning on it - I wanted to comment on relocating. I have relocated many times for work, not because I ever had to...but because I was given the option to choose roles and locations that would grow my career. When I was young, I was so scared to leave my family and friends, all I had known and start again. I left CA and moved to the East Coast. Over time, I have migrated my way back. Mostly because after that first move, I built such confidence in meeting new people and learning new skills and interests. I have found in most places, people are outgoing and friendly. The trick is connecting with people that share your same values and I find it's easy to do through community or volunteer activities as people are coming together for a common goal and then in meeting them you find many common interests and new interests that you can share. In all my moves - 11 over the past 20 years, I pick up new friends, new perspectives, etc that have been transformative and have made me and my family fearless about going anywhere. The last two moves we made job agnostic...finally being able to work from home in current job. First we tried an island - wound up being a little too small townish but glad we tried it - and now we live in the forest w/complete privacy. Beautiful surroundings but just a couple miles from culture, community, etc. Where have you always dreamed of living? I encourage a try before you buy - e.g. renting in a city or in the country of an area you have always wanted to try - travel light - and if you don't like it, try again.

When I first moved to the Seattle area I lived down town - nice but too cramped, then we moved to the burn - just awful, then an island - to small town, and now the forest that is close to a city and everything else. Expenses are very low and we just love it...If you like heat and sun, we did spend some time in Tucson and were surprised by how much we love it though I don't like the scary critters they have in the desert.

Happy exploring anyhow.

Trudie:
@Larsg - We currently live in Iowa and have lived in other places in the midwest, with a brief stint in South Carolina (my husband, before we were married.)  We don't have the kinds of jobs that lend to frequent moves (my husband is an academic), although we do travel widely in the US and abroad (mostly Europe) and we've watched my parents try out different retirement spots having finally settled on Tucson, which is very nice but not for us.

Of all our exploring, we've always enjoyed our time in the west and much prefer it to the east.  We like the laid back attitude.  Also, I think there are lots of people who have migrated from other places; that is to say, not everyone is a "homer" and can't imagine never leaving.  We enjoy the outdoors (running, biking, golfing) but would like to enjoy them more days of the year.

Right now we live in a vibrant small college town.  Because we are part of the college we have great access to cultural/arts/athletic events, top notch exercise facilities, and lots of little bennies (library use) that certainly add to our quality life.  Those are things we would not want to give up.  But when we are not working we would want more to do.  And I know this sounds like a paradox, but I want to get out of living in a fishbowl.  So, I realize that I say on the one hand we want new friends/to meet new people but on the other hand I want some anonymity.  I guess the best way to put it is that because this is a small town I've had a tough time finding a "critical mass" of people who share my interests.  For instance, there is no running club.  My joy for certain activities has been dampened because in a small town if you want to do something you have to start it.  People -- in general -- where we're at and in the circles we run in are progressive, but there's also a "woe is me" undercurrent a little bit.  A few academic types that can't imagine doing much else in retirement but hang out in the library and lose themselves in retirement in the "life of the mind."  I also feel like our travel and spending habits are on display and draw judgement.  We don't have kids so we have flexibility and we travel quite a bit -- but not frivolously so.  We're not extremely mustachian, but we are in good shape and dump tons of cash into our retirement accounts ($60K per year) which is about 40% of our income.  We'll drive our cars into the ground but won't deprive ourselves of certain entertainment (football tickets for our favorite college team) because life is -- after all -- very short and this doesn't impede our FIRE goals.

So. I hope I've helped illuminate things.

sequim:
We are planning on moving and in fact, bought a house just a month ago in our FIRE town.  We'll move there as soon as our current house sells.  It went on the market yesterday and in this market should sell fast.  I think we'll be able to leave before the end of May. Currently we live in Issaquah, which is a suburb of Seattle.  It was nice moving here from downtown Seattle, but now after a few years, we can't wait to leave!  The development and extreme consumerism is driving me crazy.

Our FIRE town will be Salt Lake City, Utah.  The good thing is that I spent about 15 years there and have several very good friends still living there.  I look forward to re-connecting with them and doing more fun adventures with them.  My husband fell in love with the place when we visited a couple times last year for skiing and biking trips.  Even though he is a native of western Washington and hasn't lived anywhere else, he says he's sick of Washington and really was the one bugging me to move to SLC.  At first I didn't want to leave my sister and her husband behind here but finally we rationalized it because we knew we would still return on road trips and for holidays and birthdays.  It's time for a change.  Plus they are just a day and a half away.  But family considerations are always something that I factor into a move.

We're calling ourselves traffic and bad snow refugees and look forward to a smaller city to get around in plus access to world class ski resorts and actual powder!  Plus the desert and all the national parks of the 4 Corners area will be available to us for exploring.  So while we can't speak of the transition just yet, I'm expecting it to be wonderful. Will report back when it becomes an actuality.

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