Advice on moving to Washington (Seattle, Spokane: apartment complex, crime rates, house)

[StealthRabbit]

Downtown Vancouver, WA (gives you a nice option to escape to Portland in 10 min for social / music scene, but to escape back to WA for income tax free state + safety and stronger economy and still Portland wages.)

I would get on the wait list here: (Vintage historic properties walking distance to Downtown, library, Transit center / rec center / Clark College ...)
https://historictrustproperties.org/...ntial-leasing/

But there are also some nice private rental units very nearby.. adjacent to Ft Vancouver historic reserve (huge park / properties for walking and GREAT volunteer opportunities.) Quite QUIET and safe!

As a person of color, you MAY feel more comfortable in semi-Metro areas, (Access to cultural events) but I doubt you will face racial barriers anywhere in the PNW.

I trust you will enjoy a great fresh start!

There are quite a few social options in Vancouver and Portland (majority of night life is 10 min away, but very NICE recreation / city league sports / biking / hiking very near and within Vancouver. Great Farmers Market March - Oct.

One really NICE thing about Vancouver... PDX airport!!! <20 min and little traffic (usually NONE!) I just booked 10+ SWA flights to CA. Some within CA were as low as $29. I usued to fly to San Diego for $19.90 DIRECT on Spirit air (Now you have to go to Las Vegas, then to San Diego on Spirit, but Alaska flies frequently to CA. Also ... you can hop on the Train in Vancouver, WA and head to Seattle (and points north). very ez, very nice.

For wonderful (crowd free) recreation, you can go 20 min east to Columbia Gorge.
https://www.google.com/search?q=colu...QSB50Q_AUICygC

For a tad more traffic and GREAT seacoast... Oregon Coast is 1 hr west (100% public access). 3 very nearby mtns. (including GREAT National Park / CCC Lodges!)
https://www.google.com/search?q=oreg...RWAV4Q_AUICygC
http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/ind...the_pacif.html

Find a friend and go camping using the guidebook to USFS Fire Lookouts!

[goolsbyjazz]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Downtown Vancouver, WA (gives you a nice option to escape to Portland in 10 min for social / music scene, but to escape back to WA for income tax free state + safety and stronger economy and still Portland wages.)

I would get on the wait list here: (Vintage historic properties walking distance to Downtown, library, Transit center / rec center / Clark College ...)
https://historictrustproperties.org/...ntial-leasing/

But there are also some nice private rental units very nearby.. adjacent to Ft Vancouver historic reserve (huge park / properties for walking and GREAT volunteer opportunities.) Quite QUIET and safe!

As a person of color, you MAY feel more comfortable in semi-Metro areas, (Access to cultural events) but I doubt you will face racial barriers anywhere in the PNW.

I trust you will enjoy a great fresh start!

There are quite a few social options in Vancouver and Portland (majority of night life is 10 min away, but very NICE recreation / city league sports / biking / hiking very near and within Vancouver. Great Farmers Market March - Oct.

One really NICE thing about Vancouver... PDX airport!!! <20 min and little traffic (usually NONE!) I just booked 10+ SWA flights to CA. Some within CA were as low as $29. I usued to fly to San Diego for $19.90 DIRECT on Spirit air (Now you have to go to Las Vegas, then to San Diego on Spirit, but Alaska flies frequently to CA. Also ... you can hop on the Train in Vancouver, WA and head to Seattle (and points north). very ez, very nice.

For wonderful (crowd free) recreation, you can go 20 min east to Columbia Gorge.
https://www.google.com/search?q=colu...QSB50Q_AUICygC

For a tad more traffic and GREAT seacoast... Oregon Coast is 1 hr west (100% public access). 3 very nearby mtns. (including GREAT National Park / CCC Lodges!)
https://www.google.com/search?q=oreg...RWAV4Q_AUICygC
7 historic lodges in the Pacific Northwest | OregonLive.com

Find a friend and go camping using the guidebook to USFS Fire Lookouts!

Heck, you make it sound so fun now I want to stay in Vancouver and visit Portland! Jk😁 However when I visit I may use this strategy.

[Diana Holbrook]

Olympia/Lacey/Tumwater - might be a good choice, and you can consider all of them as fairly equal. Olympia is the most "town".... Tumwater and Lacey are bedroom communities that serve Olympia and have some amenities of their own, like shopping.

All are big enough that there are apartments available in most price ranges. - but not too big, can still consider us a small town, with nice outdoor opportunities and pretty parks and views.

[mbear30]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Downtown Vancouver, WA (gives you a nice option to escape to Portland in 10 min for social / music scene, but to escape back to WA for income tax free state + safety and stronger economy and still Portland wages.)

I would get on the wait list here: (Vintage historic properties walking distance to Downtown, library, Transit center / rec center / Clark College ...)
https://historictrustproperties.org/...ntial-leasing/

But there are also some nice private rental units very nearby.. adjacent to Ft Vancouver historic reserve (huge park / properties for walking and GREAT volunteer opportunities.) Quite QUIET and safe!

As a person of color, you MAY feel more comfortable in semi-Metro areas, (Access to cultural events) but I doubt you will face racial barriers anywhere in the PNW.

I trust you will enjoy a great fresh start!

There are quite a few social options in Vancouver and Portland (majority of night life is 10 min away, but very NICE recreation / city league sports / biking / hiking very near and within Vancouver. Great Farmers Market March - Oct.

One really NICE thing about Vancouver... PDX airport!!! <20 min and little traffic (usually NONE!) I just booked 10+ SWA flights to CA. Some within CA were as low as $29. I usued to fly to San Diego for $19.90 DIRECT on Spirit air (Now you have to go to Las Vegas, then to San Diego on Spirit, but Alaska flies frequently to CA. Also ... you can hop on the Train in Vancouver, WA and head to Seattle (and points north). very ez, very nice.

For wonderful (crowd free) recreation, you can go 20 min east to Columbia Gorge.
https://www.google.com/search?q=colu...QSB50Q_AUICygC

For a tad more traffic and GREAT seacoast... Oregon Coast is 1 hr west (100% public access). 3 very nearby mtns. (including GREAT National Park / CCC Lodges!)
https://www.google.com/search?q=oreg...RWAV4Q_AUICygC
7 historic lodges in the Pacific Northwest | OregonLive.com

Find a friend and go camping using the guidebook to USFS Fire Lookouts!

Your post is great, thank you for taking the time to give me some suggestions I'm going to look into all of them

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by goolsbyjazz

Heck, you make it sound so fun now I want to stay in Vancouver and visit Portland! Jk😁 However when I visit I may use this strategy.

actually... I have had 4 friends (die hard Portland fans) move their families away from Portland in the last 3 months...

Lost it's charm until they get the homeless invitation under control (400 new 'street residents' each week) According to PPB reports (They have a website with daily homeless camp stats.)

[MJ5150]

Originally Posted by mbear30

I'm open to other suggestions if you have them. I'm looking for a beautiful place with lower cost of living than California. I'm tired of paying $2000+ for an apartment and sitting in traffic. I've lived here my entire life, and I'm ready for something new.

This combined with your wishes in the first post may be tough to accomplish.
I'm not an authority on the entire state, I am just looking through my perspective as someone who lives in Olympia (have since 1977, with a two year break 2011-13) and travels up and down the I-5 corridor two or three times per week to Seattle.
It's curious to me where people in CA are getting these ideas/impressions that life in WA is an escape from the high cost of living and traffic. It used to be that way, 30+ years ago.

At first I was thinking of cities an hour outside of Olympia that would offer you the type of work you are looking for. An hour commute is reasonable for many people. I'm not sure how you feel about that.
For me, that would be cities like Elma, McCleary, Chehalis, Yelm, Enumclaw, Shelton. I'm fairly certain those areas would cost you less than $2,000 per month to rent or buy a house, but you're also going to be making less living there and you won't find cute apartment complexes. Well maybe in Enumclaw you will.

Washington may be the right place for you to land, just know that traffic here is a crazy mess too and the cost of living is going up and up and up.
Maybe check out Idaho? Eastern Oregon? Montana? Utah? Those are the areas I think of when the wife and I discuss getting away from the traffic and craziness that western Washington is turning into.

I saw someone mention the Vancouver area. That may be worth checking out.

-Mike

[Ruth4Truth]

In addition to Vancouver, WA, consider Bellingham and Olympia. Both are university towns, and Olympia, being the state capital, has gov't office work.

Bellingham is in a gorgeous setting, on Puget Sound, with excellent hiking just outside of town, and great parks and walking paths around town. There's a good bookstore scene, if you're into that. It gets more rain than many parts of the Puget Sound area, but with the drying climate throughout the US (especially CA & Southwest), that's not a bad thing. The area will not run out of water in your lifetime, and summers are generally sunny and dry. Proximity to Canada makes it desirable for some, proximity to the San Juan Islands for weekend getaways makes it desirable for others. I can't speak to whether the apt. complexes are "cute", but there are plenty of apartments to absorb the influx of transplants, and there's a new development on the edge of town that's kinda cool.

It depends on how small a small town you're up for, what kind of weather you can handle, and so forth. East of the mountains = hot and dry, and cold/snowy in winter. It rarely snows in the Puget Sound area, and when it does, it's very light, and very temporary.

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by mbear30

I'm in a city about 45 minutes away from Los Angeles that's filled with traffic and tons of people. I'm ready for a slower pace with beautiful scenery that's right outside of my window.

I like to read, watch movies, take walks, and get the occasional drink(nothing excessive). I'm looking for the kind of place where people speak to you when you walk by and not just put there head down if that makes sense.

We don't have the Megalopolises that California has (SoCal and the Bay Area), although Everett to Olympia is becoming one ("Pugetopolis"), although we've still got some ways to go and, being hedged in between the Sound and the Cascades, probably will never get there. That means that one should be wary of drawing parallels here that simply don't exist. That can cause you to look where you should avoid and avoid where you should look.

If looking for a good supply of apartments for, say, under $1,500 and local dating prospects in your age group (late-20's), you can find that in (in steeply descending order): 1) Seattle, 2) Tacoma, and 3) Bellevue. 45-minutes outside of Seattle, however, and you're going to find yourself in Familyland suburbs and Whitebread (meaning socially homogenous) towns, which you as a single, even if you weren't an African-American female, should avoid like the PLAGUE!

In Seattle, there are many areas outside of the core central neighborhoods that are just as safe as, if not safer than, where you're living now, are walkable/sociable with active "downtown" business districts, and where relatively affordable apartments (<$1,500) can easily be found, within a 30 to 40 minute transit commute to Downtown Seattle: Northend: Crown Hill, Greenwood, Northgate, Lake City, etc.; Southend: West Seattle, North Beacon Hill, Columbia City, Georgetown, etc.; as well as various spots closer in. Further north: Edmonds. Further south: Burien. Further east: Kirkland (Juanita/Kingsgate).

Don't overlook Tacoma! Lots of great areas to live that more than meet your criteria, and commuting to Downtown Seattle via Sound Transit express buses or Sounder commuter rail is quite doable. Mid-Tacoma, near the Tacoma Mall, is worth looking at. Avoid South Tacoma, Lakewood, Parkland, and anywhere near JBLM.

Further north and south: Bellingham and Olympia are worth looking at, although with regional universities, they tend toward early-20's (Studentland) closer in and young marrieds and families (more Familyland) further out. Forget Vancouver: it's a bedroom community (Snoozeville) for Portland.

[PartIrish]

mbear, If you're looking to escape LA traffic and have beautiful scenery around you -- think about Bellingham. At about 90K people, it is large enough to have lots of quirky restaurants, bars and a variety of arts, but little to no traffic. Lots of great interurban trails for walks through the city and the farmer's markets run from April through October. People are very friendly and the general lifestyle is pretty laid back. The downside, of course is 6 months of pretty consistent grey skies and rain. Coming from SoCal, you would have to decide if you can deal with that.

Wages will likely be somewhat lower than SoCal, but rent on a one-bedroom apartment will be closer to $900 -$1100 in a good area. In fact, here is a two-bedroom unit for $1200:

https://www.son-rise.net/rentals/apa...-ferry-ave-213

Anyway, add Bellingham to your list to check out. If you book in advance, Allegiant Air has cheap nonstop flights from LAX.

[mbear30]

Thanks all for the suggestions! I'm checking out Seattle in January and working my way from there!