Austin Nesties
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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.
Tell me what I need to know Austin ladies
My husband and I are looking to move next May and I'm a planner. Austin is at the top of our list of places to go (coming from the Midwest). What should I know to get started? Where should we look to live, where should we avoid? What do you love about Austin? What do you hate? I'm curious about anything. Thanks for any help.
Re: Tell me what I need to know Austin ladies
Yay for considering Austin - its awesome!
Here's some questions that will help . . .
1) do you have kids
2) what kind of things do you like to do
3) do you want close to downtown, or suburban?
4) price range will also help figure out what part of town you're in - like any big city, closer to Austin, you get less space for more cost (sometimes its worth it depending on your #3 answer!)
5) any idea where you guys will work? If you know what part of town your jobs will be, it will help us tell you what areas to avoid (I-35 is a parking lot if you are going the wrong direction in rush hour!!)
I love being on the lakes during the summer, and going on the hike/bike trail at Shoal Creek and town lake. If you like the DT bar scene, we've got 6th street for the youngsters, and West 6th for the late 20/30 somethings (my preference).
. I also hate I-35, so I chose to live somewhere where it didnt require me to drive on it very often.
I hate when its over 100 deg in the summer, but the lake usually takes care of that problem
I love the area where we live - but its not for everyone! (crestview/brentwood neighborhood) just north of DT in the 2222/koenig area. smaller cottage type houses - usually 2 or 3 bedrooms in the neighborhood. there's a ton of restaurants around, and super easy to get anywhere in the city b/c it sits between Mopac(loop1) and I-35!
We don't have kids now but will likely TTC in a couple years once we're settled.
We don't have jobs lined up yet but I am getting my masters in history/museum studies and my husband is a guitar teacher and musician who is thinking about UTA for grad school when we get there.
I'm not sure how to answer the downtown/urban thing because we are somewhere in between I think. Where we live now, we live on the edge of the city but there are no traffic issues and we can get downtown in 15 minutes tops.
We won't be looking to buy for quite awhile, apartment living works for us for now. I saw an apartment for like 900 that had 4 bedrooms in the Pflugerville school district. Is that a good area?
Where in central Illinois are you from? I am from Jacksonville and my husband is from Springfield.
We live in South Austin and love our area.
*101 Blog*foodie blog*scrapbooking blog*
I lived in IL (Naperville) during HS!
Honestly - I think Pflugerville's kind of far - but you will get more for your money out there. If you are going to go to UT - you will sit on I-35 every your commute to/from UT in the AM/PM. If you're looking for an apt - i would look closer to campus so you can get a feel of campus life, city life, and not spend a ton of time in traffic each day!
ditto! there are other options if you do want to live in the burbs (much cheaper housing) - my neighbor goes to UT and she takes the bus. we also have a new lightrail system but, unfortunately, it does not go to UT. it does go downtown though. more info here:
www.capmetro.org
if I were you, I'd live closer to town - especially if he might attend UT. we live in the burbs and although we like it, we feel like we're missing the austin vibe. it's not terribly far, but it's not really convenient. or we might just be lazy.
We moved from the midwest (WI) to Austin in '06. Best decision EVER. I love Austin so much, I'd be very happy to stay forever. When we moved it was just DH and I, and we really wanted to live in the "real" Austin to get a taste of the city before moving farther out for a house and kids and schools and such. Highly recommend doing that. Pflugerville is fine, you'll get a lot for your $, but it's not near downtown and (imo) more geared towards families with children- so maybe not quite where you're at yet. We lived on South Congress in the SoCo neighborhood, specifically, in the State House at Congress apartments. FANTASTIC. We had so much fun walking to the area restaurants and just taking in the weirdness that is south Austin!
The only thing I can say I "hate" about Austin is the summer heat, but I have to also say I don't hate it as much as I hate the cold midwestern winters. I love about a million things - the people, the weather in the late fall through early spring, the parks, the lakes, the feeling of being part of a young and progressive city, the pride of Texas, the relatively low cost of living, etc. etc. etc. Traffic sort of sucks, but it sucks in any city, really. Property taxes are high in certain areas.
Good luck to you!
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012