I'm in the process of moving my entire life, out of state. Everything I own is either being sold, put in a box for shipping or tossed out. It is a logistical nightmare. I have moved more times than I care to count yet, this one is special. When I was younger and single, it was just a hassle. I never had a need to pack, I just threw all of my shit into the car and parked in a different driveway. I've lived in the Hawaiian islands for most of my adult life and I'm finding it terrifying in a few ways. Not only am I responsible for taking care of a family, I've got to find a new job, car and place to live. This is also a completely foreign type of place to live. The weather plays a part as well but, I'm excited about that. I've got a few leads on the job, so I'm not too worried. Aside from the 'what if I work for/with a bunch of assholes?' What if it's too cold for the family? I'll be in Alaska. I won't be able to afford to move back. What if I pick a lousy neighborhood? Et cetera, you get the idea. The pressure is starting to get to me a little, I'm sleeping horribly. I'm irritated a lot by little stupid things. Money is the main issue here. There is simply no way to get ahead here. Sure, existing's fine but, I'd like to get ahead. I don't live paycheck to paycheck yet, I couldn't afford a house here. If I purchased something here, I'd have to work so many hours that I wouldn't enjoy anything. In Alaska, I'll make a little more per hour and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is here. Focus: Share your most traumatic moving stories, and moves that changed everything. Alternate Focus: Places not to move to under any circumstances. You'll know this, if you're there already.
Alternate Focus #2: Great Places to Move I've never had a "bad" move that I can speak for. I was born in Thurmont, Md and moved to Lawrenceville, Ga (Atlanta suburb) when I was 2. When I was 3 we moved to a medium sized city in central Illinois (Like a good neighbor...) where I lived from age 3-18. It was an interesting mix of settled urban city, sprawling suburban areas and rural farmland. My best friend grew up farming, my dad worked for Lebron's favorite insurance company and I was happily in the middle. It offered a few college campuses for general mayhem, a renovated downtown area for entertainment and farmland for more mayhem, wild bonfires and secluded places to take acquired possessions (guns, booze, girls, etc). I'm now in Savannah, Ga for college and love it. The downtown district is beautiful, the weather is great and aside from a couple projects on the outskirts of the historic district, the city is a perfect place for a college student looking to get away from the frat rows and everyday campus. The only thing I would change is the number of homeless wandering around after dark. Just like any other medium to large city in the south. However with the beach 20 minutes away, great food on almost every street and reasonable living prices, you can't beat Savannah.
When I was 8 years old and living in Virginia, I was woken up by by sister telling me that we needed to pack. I didn't know where we were going, so I got up, and my mother and her cousin and my uncle were stuffing things in moving boxes. I was told: You have 6 hours to pack up what you can from your room. The movers are going to be here then to take everything that we need. I asked: "Where are we moving?" My mother: "California. If the phone rings, you can't answer it in case it is your father." So 6 hours later I had packed up what I could, and it was loaded into a truck, and we left behind our house, and my father, and a couple of days later we were in California.
Amazing timing of this thread as I'm in the middle of a move now. Due to a mixture of my chain of command fucking me over and paperwork bullshit, I'm having to leave active duty on the 28th of this month. I found this out about a month ago today. Since that time I've had to find a place to live and work, enroll in school, coordinate a move, and all the extra shit that goes along with transitioning from the military to civilian world. Thankfully, I found a really nice place in Wilmington, NC and have everything taken care of at this point, so I guess things worked out alright. Still, when I was planning on being in the military for at least another four years and then being told I have a month and a half left, it's like having the rug pulled out from under you.
My family moved to Seattle from Hawaii when I was young, for many of the reasons you listed. Our family has a joke that we get more beachtime now that we live on the mainland, because when we lived there, both my parents were working 60 hrs a week. As much as I miss the beach and the culture of the Islands, I'm so thankful for the opportunities that I got from a decent public school education and a lower cost of living. I also moved across state for college. This was a HUGE adjustment for me to be so far from home, and totally on my own. I skipped dorm life, and got my own 1 bedroom house, which also contributed to my growth. This is also my alt focus, because, unless you like drinking Busch Light in seedy taverns until you get blackout drunk, there is NOTHING to do in Spokane. Fuck that town.
Sorry in advance for the length: About a year and a half ago, we moved from sunny St. Petersburg, Florida to Roanoke, Virginia, leaving behind a physically crumbling house with a severely underwater mortgage and moving into a rental house in the burbs. Husband grew up in NY and I grew up in Richmond, Virginia and we had both separately moved to Florida in 1996 and met and married in 1998. We had been wanting to move out of Florida for some time because the school system sucked and we were tired of the heat (among other reasons). Husband checked for jobs with his company in Virginia (it was halfway between most of his family in NY and my family/his sister in Tampa Bay) of which he could have three: Glen Allen (just outside of Richmond), Norfolk (another beach-y town) or Roanoke. We obviously chose the latter. I was absolutely terrified. We knew no one, had never set foot in the area before and were leaving behind family and a decade of friends. We would have to find new doctors/day care for the kids, no more amusement parks, would have to navigate around a new area (which has been torture for my directionally challenged husband). I left a job that I loved that paid pretty decently for an uneducated schlub such as myself, but at least my husband had a job - with my experience, finding a job should have been a breeze. It was, in the immortal words of Bryan Adams, now or never. Off into the wild blue yonder we went. For the most part, it has worked out beautifully. The area is gorgeous, the people are awesome, the schools are more than just prisons with chalkboards - they actually have recess! The air is fresher here. Things actually get green in the spring, as opposed to the constant brown of Florida. This town does more for families, there are more community events. It is, for the most part, all around better. We have even had the third baby that I'd been wanting - hubby says we never would have had another one in Florida. I'm not sure I agree with that but whatevs. I've had a couple of assignments with staffing agencies since I've been here but they never quite panned out. When I lost that last assignment a few days before school let out last year, it was decided that I should stay home with the kids because putting them all in day care is expensive, so now hubby works a part time weekend job too. I don't mind being a "housewife" (pardon the gagging) except for the fact that I am a shitty housekeeper so this place always looks like a bomb went off. If we can get little dude over his separation anxiety, the manager at the video game store has offered me some shifts at night which is a dream job for me. Sure, working retail sucks but I get to spend my nights talking about video games. What could be so bad with that?! (famous last words) All-in-all, I don't regret the decision for a second. It has been good for our marriage and our family. Plus, at husband's old office, they just laid off 17 people today alone and this was after a bunch of cuts last month so he probably would have lost his job if he'd stayed. Funny how things like that work out, huh?
My worst move took place when I moved from Rockford, IL (about an hour west of Chicago) to Syracuse, NY. This move sucked mostly because of U-Haul, the worst fucking company ever. It also sucked because it was late July/early August, so it was like 100 degrees out with 97% humidity. I had reserved a truck with a vehicle tow so my folks and I didn't have to drive 3 vehicles out there, we could just return the U-Haul and my parents could drive their car home. What ensued was an absolute shit show. I had reserved the truck to pickup on a Saturday so we could leave early in the morning on Monday. I received a call at about 5pm Friday to let me know that U-Haul wouldn't have my truck until Monday, which left me with no time to get another truck before Monday. Normally I could have managed with this, but my father had an important closing on Thursday, so our schedule had almost no wiggle room due to the drive taking 12 hours one-way (when driving a normal car, with a U-Haul towing a Jeep, it was gonna take a little longer). We were able to pick up a truck at 7am on Monday at a location an hour from my house, but the vehicle tow was at another location an hour from my house in the other direction. We got the truck and got it back to the house to load up all of my stuff during the hottest days of summer. We got everything loaded, and then had to leave right away to get the tow attachment and then get on the road to Syracuse. By the time we got the vehicle tow attached and my Jeep loaded up, it was like 1pm, and we had to start the 12+ hour drive to Syracuse. Of course, our route took us right through downtown Chicago, on a 100 degree day, in the middle of summer. Anyone who has driven through Chicago during the summer will tell you, traffic is hell and there will be construction. And those things were especially true on this day. It took 4-5 hours driving in bumper to bumper traffic just to get through the city, and then there was the rest of the 10 hours the drive was supposed to take left. The drive ended up actually taking 20 hours, and I nearly ended up crashing about an hour from Syracuse because I was falling asleep at the wheel. That trip sucked, and then upon getting there, I had to unload the truck basically by myself because both of my parents were completely exhausted. I had promised myself never to deal with U-Haul again, but at least they ended up taking like $600 off my bill (that was like $1300). I couldn't even keep that promise though because they were the only company I could find that I could take a trailer from Syracuse to Denver when I moved again last year.
Ah moving. Probably one of the biggest parts of my life. I actually remember events in my life starting by where I was living at the time. Most people start with "well I was 7..." I start with "well I was living in Virginia so ..." My mother was a lawyer for IBM, which is one of the corporate versions of being an army brat. Between my birth and age 12 I lived in 7 states, the longest time period being 3 1/2 years. The shortest was 2 (a few times). Pennsylvania(born), New Jersey (til age 2), New York (til age 4), Illinois (til age 6), Virginia (til age 9), California (til age 11), and then to Connecticut where my parents are still living. It was actually stranger adjusting to life in one place than it was to moving, because it was all I knew throughout my childhood. Always interesting to get there before the moving truck and be in sleeping bags on the ground of an empty house until they arrived. I think the hardest move was California to Connecticut. Coming into a school in 7th grade where most people had known each other since kindergarden was rough. All in all, I don't regret moving around. I've seen tons of cool places. It got me out of being a shy wallflower, mostly for survival. If I was quiet and shy, by the time I made a friend I would be moving away again. Going away to college wasn't hard, and neither was moving out because it was just another move, another new place with new people. It's an environment that I'm used to being in. I don't get freaked out when I don't know anyone in the room because that was half of my childhood. Plus in the 7 states I was in 11 schools so there was that as well. I'm used to being "the new kid" wherever I go so it doesn't make me panic. I think that's served me well in the long run.
I've moved more times than I can count. My dad grew up moving all over southern Ontario; it translated to him becoming an adult and moving (with his family) all over the world, and I've obviously caught the bug. Best Move Ever Moving overseas from Canada to Indonesia when I was sixteen. We stepped in to a fully-furnished house, so apart from supervising the packing and ensuring that our stuff was properly stored in Canada, there was none of the usual BS hassle that goes along with a move. I was prepared for the poverty, and the culture shock, and the different languages. What I was not prepared for was the way that I would get stared at. We lived in a very, very remote part of Indonesia, and it's a safe bet that many of the locals had never seen a 16-year-old girl in person. I found it creepy, and I still find it creepy when I'm somewhere in the world and I find myself as the novelty minority. First Adult Move On My Own This was a doozy. Yes, I'd lived on my own before. In fact, when I was 17 I moved back to Canada while my parents stayed in Indonesia. I was "that kid" in high school that had their own apartment, a part time job and the ability to phone in my own absences. My first REAL move, on my own and totally of my own accord, came when I was 27 and I moved to Uganda to volunteer teaching children. It was a shock, because I had expected it to be just like Indonesia. In reality, it was nothing like Indonesia. Africa is a whole different animal. For that matter, seeing the world when you are NOT under the sheltered wing of your father and his company is a whole different animal. I learned that the world was far more fucked up and complicated than I could ever have imagined, but that it was also a very safe place, full of good people. Most Recent Move It came time to get a 'real' job again, right in the middle of a depression. I was living in southern Ontario and anyone who knows the area knows that jobs are few and far between, especially in construction. I got a call from my old boss and offered me a job in either Calgary (I'd previously lived there for ten years) or Winnipeg (I had never even driven through Manitoba). A month later my truck was packed and hitched to a U-Haul trailer, and after three days of driving (with two dogs) we arrived at a hotel. I moved here with nothing but the job; no place to live, no friends or family, no connections. Stuff went into storage, I found a realtor and (two months later) moved into a house. It was a loooong move, because staying on the 14th floor of a busy downtown hotel with two animals while commuting to the suburbs after having come directly from the country SUCKED. But we're here now, and after over three years of being unable to answer the question "What's your address?" I have a fully furnished house, I'm 100% unpacked (also first time in years) and I'm not fucking moving again for at least three years.
Welp, when I was 19 I moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Maui. I've mentioned the story a few times on here, basically I just cut and ran. Truth be told it wasn't that nerve-racking. I didn't have much aside from some clothes and a guitar. I had a friend in Maui already, so I even had a place to crash. But yeah, it was a shitty little two bedroom apartment with 4 guys living there in a terrible apartment complex in Kihei, Hawaii (Don't move there, unless you suck, then you'll probably like it). It's a good thing I was so stoked to be there or I would have really hated that place. Good on you for getting out of this place though man. I couldn't imagine trying to raise a family in Honolulu, it just seems like it rarely works out well. As soon as I finish up the degree I'm outta here.
I'm originally from Johannesburg South Africa, moved to Ottowa Ontario when I was 3, moved to Nebraska when I was 8, moved to California when I was 10, and have been here the ensuing 11 years. I figure intrastate moves aren't worth mentioning in order to keep it short, but to generalize about each location: I was too young to remember South Africa, but the weather is apparently strikingly similar to California. Ottowa was by far the least friendly, and most abrasive place I've ever lived, and the tap water always tasted like it had soap in it because the pollution was so bad. Nebraska was by far the friendliest place I've been, pedestrians literally stop and wave at you as you drive by and there are countless jokes about it being "the only place where dialing a wrong number can turn into a 30 minute conversation". California was by far the most interesting place to live, which as most know can be both good and bad. The moves themselves were pretty intense in that, except for the trans Pacific flight, we always drove our own shit over. It wasn't exactly a quick trip in any of those journeys, and in each case my dad would move a few months ahead of the rest of the family in order to establish some sort of stable foothold for the rest of us to move into. I've not yet had a major moving experience on my own, unless you count moving up to college. I'm probably due for one soon, however, I've been applying to research positions around the country. It'll be interesting to see how that goes, but I'm not particularly worried.
I have never moved in my entire life (though I have traveled--49/50 states and Italy). My parents have lived in the same house for 39 years. I go to school 10 minutes from my house. I can tell you though: if you want to move to a nice place, do NOT move to Mobile. We are close to the beach and have Mardi Gras. That is all we have going for us. We might not even have beaches now, due to the oil spill. I plan on moving to Hawaii after graduation. That is going to be a mindfuck. I know Mobile like the back of my hand and it's going to be weird to learn a new place.
We've moved twice: first, from the NY metro area to New England, then from New England to Texas, both corporate relos on which we made tidy profits and really didn't have to lift a finger. They even transported both our vehicles down here. I loved New England, but had my fill of shoveling snow. I love it here in Texas, but the summers took some getting used to.
My family has lived on the same block for 35 years. We still refer to families that moved in 10 or 15 years as "new." It's a Chicago thing. Right after college (1994?), I worked in London for a year. Without knowing where I was going to stay, and without knowing anyone but my brother, I hopped on a plane. After I got there, the first day I arrived there, my brother told me he was going traveling in Europe and I had a day and half to find another place to live. I shared a place with three other random recent college grads from the states. It turned out surprisingly well. Right after law school in 1998, I got a job in San Diego. I got the job offer on a Friday, flew out from Chicago over the weekend, and was at my new desk on Monday. I stayed in what I thought was a "hotel" but was more like a "SRO" in downtown San Diego. I rented an apartment and slept on the floor for a week while my furniture was shipped from Chicago to San Diego. The inter-state mover showed up at 4:30 in the morning after driving all night with my furniture and tried to move it in early. That didn't work. 2001, dot-com crash, legal market in California goes into serious hibernation. I pack everything I can fit into my car, drive back to Chicago, leave the rest of my stuff in the apartment, promptly lose my security deposit. Still cheaper than paying for movers, and all my furniture and stuff is pretty beat up. The "nicer" furniture pieces get left with my brother, who promptly chucks them in the trash. My wife now wants to relocate back to California again. We have a house that we've been trying to sell for almost a year and a half now. I'm not particularly jazzed about moving right now.
Hmm, where to start. Most of the last 10 years, bounced around from Tacoma/Seattle(5 years) and LA(4 years). Grew up in Phoenix. Most current city in Cincinnati. Should've listened to Frebis. Have lived in the Midwest for 3 months, and as soon as my lease is up in 8 months, as long as I can get work back in the West Coast, my ass is gone.
I have moved around London my entire life, with the exception of one summer where I lived in Calgary. London is a frighteningly clean, painfully drab and ordinary city with a shitty bar scene and a good location in the centre of all the Great Lakes (it's nice to have your pick of about 35 beaches in the summer within an hour's drive). I plan on moving to a choice of two places before I die: Western Canada or Arizona (not because of their Naziesque treatment of Latinos, but the scenery and location).
We are moving to our cottage this summer. The wife and I are taking a one year sabbatical starting in July, although we may extend it depending on how things work out. The cottage being quite a bit smaller than the house, this gave us the opportunity to de-clutter our lives. It is simply dumbfounding how much shit you accumulate over time. Every week we were throwing out 7 or 8 garbage bags of stuff. Along with the house, we're also selling the two cars (but keeping the Rogue) and some of the older furniture. The nice furniture and most of our home theater equipment will be going into storage for the year. It has been refreshing to simplify our lives. I keep thinking of a quote from Fight Club: "Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."
Alt. Focus: When I was around 19/20, I rented a room from my friends parents in a place called Wombwell, which is near Barnsley in South Yorkshire and I lived there for 18 months. They were among the least pleasant times in my entire life. Aside from the utter lack of employment opportunities in the area, it's one of the most casually racist places I've ever been in, with the possible exception of Hebden Bridge (and at least Hebden Bridge is a nice place). Also, when the floods hit in June 2007 I got stuck on the wrong side of a bridge that was under several feet of rapidly flowing water, with no alternative route home. So, in short, fuck that place.
Haha Barnsley?! I cycled there once from Burnley, a total shit hole. And yes, the entire north-west is a racist backwater. I remember confronting a racist in the town centre one time. Him: "I fucking hate pakis" Me: "Why?" Him: "Coz they're ignorant"