West Coast Florida Nesties
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Moving to FL
Hi,
I hope this is the right board, please let me know if it is not. My husband and I will be relocating to Florida in the next few months. We are coming from DC. He will be working in Port Charlotte but we were thinking of living closer to Sarasota. We have one son who is 6 months. If you have a moment please post any of your favorite places to eat, visit etc. Also, are there any areas that stand out to you that would be good for raising our family. We will be renting for at least a year until we figure out the area etc.
Thank you so much!! We are excited but definitely nervous... love to hear from locals what is good and not so good!!!
Hope you all have a fantastic day!!
Re: Moving to FL
This is the right board, although most of the girls here live north of Sarasota, in the Tampa area. I LOVE living in Sarasota. The beaches are amazing, there's plenty of stuff to do- whether it is for kids or adults only. Tons of restaurants, shopping, nightlife, theatres, golfing, parks, etc. But that's about a 45min -1 hr comute to Port Charlotte.
My mom lives in East Englewood, which is much closer to Port Charlotte, and she loves it there, but I don't know if she just lucked into finding an awesome neighborhood with great neighbors. For major shopping and activities they either go to Port Charlotte or drive up to Sarasota. My H went to lived in Englewood during high school, and hated the town. (He moved from a suburb of Boston, though so it may have been a culture shock.) He said there was nothing for young people to do other than get themselves into trouble.
My MIL lives in Venice, and while its a really nice area, I kind of have always thought of it a retirement community. But it's possible there there are more young families there now. It's smaller than Sarasota, with a nice downtown, nice beach and parks and awesome dog beach, no mall or anything but free standing stores for basic shopping and nice restaurants. It would definitely would be more my choice of place to live in before Englewood or Port Charlotte. I haven't spent much time in Punta Gorda, but that may be worth looking into. Nokomis is another small mostly residental area, that is in between Sarasota and Venice. I personally would steer clear of North Port.
Hope this helped a little. Good luck with your search.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you... this was a huge help. Exactly the kind of info we are looking for.
Venice sounds nice.. No mall does not bother me.. I am a major online shopper. JCrew is my staple store and I think the closest one to the area is in Tampa. My husband will definitely be happy that my shopping expenses will be reduced b/c the stores aren't nearby.
This is going to be such a change for us compared to DC! I will also be looking for a job. So if there are any places to look other than the obvious craigslist, careerbuilder etc. Please pass along that info.
Thank you again!
Definitely stick with Sarasota/Venice. I lived in North Port/Port Charlotte for a year, and I was miserable there! I was constantly driving the 45 miles up to Sarasota to do stuff. It'll be easier to find a job near Sarasota too. It'll be an easy commute for your husband, even though it seems kinda far. I took my Bar prep class in Sarasota and also did some work at the Legal Aid office in downtown Sarasota and it would take about 45-50 min to get there. It sucks, but you seriously do not want to live in Port Charlotte!
Don't bother with Punta Gorda and, in my opinion, Englewood is too far from 75 if you're going to be working somewhere that requires you to drive. I think you're more likely to find people in the same age group in Sarasota than anywhere else.
I do miss going out to Boca Grande! The Fishery restaurant is still one of my favorite seafood restaurants.
babygator15, thank you so much for the info!!
You mentioned your bar prep class... I am a lawyer also. I am only barred in MD right now though. Is there any hope of me finding a decent job??? I currently am working in staffing. I was at a small general practice firm before this.
Thanks for the info!!!
I grew up in Englewood, went to the same high school as Tasha's husband and had the opposite reaction to growing up there. Don't get me wrong, she's absolutely right that there's nothing there for teenagers to do, but I felt that that actually helped keep me out of trouble as a kid. Englewood and Venice both have a small town feeling that you won't get in Port Charlotte and, at least when I was living there, the schools were more community oriented and more personable.
Also, even though Englewood is far from 75, it's an easy commute to Port Charlotte. Most of the people I know, my father included, commuted to Port Charlotte for work.
The real estate market in Englewood was hard hit when the housing bubble burst and you can buy houses there very cheaply. I just moved away from DC myself last month and, while you couldn't get a condo for less than $200k there, you could get a huge house with a pool for the same amount in SWFL. Englewood and Venice are both close to the beach and houses cost less than in the Sarasota area. Sarasota is great too though. It's all about what your priorities are. More stuff to do versus a small town feel, commute times, etc.
Thank you so much for the info.. This will definitely help us figure everything out once we get there. Where were you in DC? What made you leave? I have a great job here but my husband has a business opportunity in Florida that we will regret if we don't do it... It is going to be tough leaving b/c we have a really great group of friends here.
We lived in Silver Spring. I was in DC for just under 6 years and loved it. We left because my husband joined the foreign service and we are now serving our first tour in Saudi Arabia. I understand completely the feeling of leaving a great job to take a gamble on a possible better pay-off. It's particularly difficult when you're the one making the biggest sacrifice!
Southwest Florida is lovely and I think it can be a great place to raise kids. The thing that will probably strike you the most coming from DC is how much slower the pace of life is. There is much less of a sense of rush-rush-rush. There really is something amazing about being able to take a walk on the beach at sunset any day you want. Best of luck on your new adventure and stick around this board- these ladies are awesome!