Help with family-friendly travel plans for September (2006)! (San Antonio, Austin: waterpark, consignment)

[newtotexas]

Hi everyone,
I've been checking out this forum for weeks and finally had to jump in! At the end of August, my family's planning to visit San Antonio & then drive through New Braunfels & Austin, all in a week's time. Our mission: to get a feel of this region that everyone's raving about. I'm scared to leave CA (family's all here) but what I hear about this area sounds promising to me. This trip is a vacation and relocation-prospecting trip all rolled into one.

I appreciate any suggestions on how to plan: we want to do the tourist spots as well as visit neighborhood/areas we could consider buying in; my husband likes a big yard, I like being near family/community/cultural amenities. My husband's in the computer network engineering field & we have two children (6 & 1). Anyone up for the challenge?

Thanks in advance!

[Steel Man]

Hello newtotexas,

I will start with Austin and work down to San Antonio.
Austin is nice. It is more of a college town, with music being a central theme. There are more computer jobs there (though San Antonio is catching up fast), such as Dell Computers. If you choose to live in Austin, find a place West of I35.

New Braunfels is also nice. Not much in computer jobs, so your husband would have to commute to Austin or San Antonio (I35 is pretty busy).

San Antonio is growing fast and you can find many jobs, though they probably don't pay quite as much as in Austin. I live in Northwest San Antonio, so I am partial to this area (also Fiesta Texas and Sea World are in this area). Big yards are hard to find these days unless you spend more than $250K or buy land and build on it (also a little expensive...though not compared to California). We found some nice homes on Culebra (west of Loop 1604) built by Lanier (Westgate Ranch) that offer a half acre of land and nice homes starting around $270K. Computer jobs are growing here in San Antonio as more businesses locate here. Computer security is especially big here (NSA will be locating here soon).

[momof2dfw]

Since you are making it a "vacation" I would recommend going to Schlitterbahn in New Braunfals. They have places to stay on property and that will give you a discount on park entrances and staying on the older side is better since the rooms are mixed in w/ the park. They have a website by that name. Schlitterbahn has been rated the #1 waterpark for years now.

If you are into older classic cars then you have two places to check out in N.B. and Austin called Automaniacs. They are right on the highway South of N.B. In Austin they are North of town in a small hanger out of town. They sell cars on consignment but people go in there all the time checking out the cars that can be pretty cool. They also have a website you can google their name.

[newtotexas]

Thanks for sharing. We'll definitely be planning a visit to Schlitterbahn. My daughter can't stop talking about the pic's from their website. And Steel Man--thank you for the candid insight on housing/property price ranges.

At this point, it's enough to just plan a trip with two little ones, much less think about relocating; funny--coming from a former Navy brat! I guess the thought of setting down roots in a good place is what motivates me to get out of a "comfort zone" like southern Cal.

Have a good night!

[Steel Man]

It's funny you mentioned "comfort zone" in Southern California. I too, was in this situation back in 1972 in Pomona. However, I was single when I joined the Air Force and San Antonio, Texas was my first destination. Eighteen years later (after being overseas a total of 13 years) I ended back in San Antonio for good. My parents still live in LaVerne. My younger brother also pulled up his roots and moved to Bend, Oregon back in 1980. And, then he did it again, moving East to Ohio, changing jobs from being a cop to owning his own business as a housing inspector....with a wife and 6 kids, no less (very sucessful...expanding business).

I just wanted to give you some motivation to move out this way. California was nice, but you just can't get that same "Texan" feeling there. It is very hard to describe, but maybe a bumper sticker I see once in awhile here says it all, I was not born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could.

Here is a link to help you relocate.
http://www.communitylink.com/us/tx/sanantonio/profile/basics2.htm (broken link)

[210]

You'll surely find a job in the tech/computer industry in San Antonio.

It's growing so fast companies are looking everywhere for employees. And they pay well, very well.

For instance, Rackspace which is based in SA recently announced they were hiring 300 new employees then they said they were going to add another 400 coming out to a total of 700 new employees. Not to mention the NSA adding about 2,000 new jobs, and these jobs are very high paying. Also, SA is very close to landing a 1 billion dollar Microsoft data center.

[ryneone]

How was your trip????





Moderator Note: Old thread started 8/02/06 and revived by this post 12/14/08