2023: where will you move when your kids leave home?

[Anonymous]

For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We were late 40's when our kids finished college. No desire at all to move. In fact, we renovated the house, put in a nice garden, and enjoyed our close-in Maryland home for 25 more years. Eventually moved to a nearby condo. One of our kids is in Bethesda, so that's a plus.

We have recently encountered some serious medical issues, as happens at our age. We've been both relieved and grateful to find specialists who are up to date on these conditions, and hospitals that can provide good care. However we feel about climate, ocean view, etc., availability of good medical care is paramount, which pretty much excludes both Florida and the nearby shore communities.

This just seems like such rationalization to me. I absolutely will not give up a life I want in order to focus on old age medical care. I will happily die living the life I want in my 70s then live for doctors appointment after doctors appointment just to get really old. There is nothing more depressing to me than a Rockville condo in old age. How boring is life when all you live for is going to medical professionals? Who wants that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont get people who want to move away from friends and community they spent 18+ years building unless its totally unaffordable. When my kids are grown ill get to garden more, spend more time with the friends i made and enjoy my neighborhood more.

A couple of my close friends passed away unexpectedly in the last year (cancer) and my other close friends plan to move south after retirement. So I’m not sure where to go.

I’ve watched over 50% of my neighbors move within 5 years of the kids moving out in both of the neighborhoods I’ve lived in. I think there are 2 original homeowners left on the street I lived on in Burke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont get people who want to move away from friends and community they spent 18+ years building unless its totally unaffordable. When my kids are grown ill get to garden more, spend more time with the friends i made and enjoy my neighborhood more.

+1 million.

Many of my friends have plans to move, so the community is going to be broken up anyway. They are moving for various reasons: lifestyle, to be closer to family (either for eldercare or to be around grandkids), finances.

+1 It really is different for people who aren't DC area natives. For the rest of us, the transient nature of the area means that the people in the community that you built keep leaving. Almost all of my good friends from my 30 years living in DC have left. We finally left DC for a different part of the country and wish we did it sooner.

+2

Some of us can not imagine living in one place our entire lives, it is 2023, not 1952!

Sad isn't? Roaming the world looking for something that they should be seeking inside themselves.

No. It is a different mindset. People don't want to be married to one place. They have family and friends everywhere, not just in their neighborhood bubble. I think you live a sad existence, since you antagonized the topic, I will tell you so. The world is not Stepford Wives, when you get out and discover it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

+2

I don't understand the bashing of people who actually have an opinion, and are heard - instead of squishing your thoughts down and not being heard: "oh this place is great!" No. No, it is not. Get out a little more and experience the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

Same. I'm sitting around my DC house today so bored I could cry. I have really been trying to figure out something to do, and now I'm just going in to work because I have absolutely nothing to do. I mean how many times can you go to those museums (and I work at one)? Hiking Great Falls is out of the question because the masses descend and there's not where to park, much less have space to actually walk. Seriously, what does an empty nester do on a Sunday afternoon?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

Same. I'm sitting around my DC house today so bored I could cry. I have really been trying to figure out something to do, and now I'm just going in to work because I have absolutely nothing to do. I mean how many times can you go to those museums (and I work at one)? Hiking Great Falls is out of the question because the masses descend and there's not where to park, much less have space to actually walk. Seriously, what does an empty nester do on a Sunday afternoon?

+1

Everyone seems to head to the beach, but that is three hours away. It is too hot and buggy to do much else (the bugs are at the pool).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

Same. I'm sitting around my DC house today so bored I could cry. I have really been trying to figure out something to do, and now I'm just going in to work because I have absolutely nothing to do. I mean how many times can you go to those museums (and I work at one)? Hiking Great Falls is out of the question because the masses descend and there's not where to park, much less have space to actually walk. Seriously, what does an empty nester do on a Sunday afternoon?

I'm here too, kids are gone three years. This morning my wife and I played 9 at Greendale and tonight we are hedaed to Wolftrap with a picnic.

If you are bored in DC you will be bored to death pretty much anywhere else outside of 6 other cities.

[Anonymous]

Ok. I can’t take the suspense anymore! For all those eager to leave the DMV, where do you think is better?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont get people who want to move away from friends and community they spent 18+ years building unless its totally unaffordable. When my kids are grown ill get to garden more, spend more time with the friends i made and enjoy my neighborhood more.

I get that…if I lived in an affordable suburb with nice weather. But I live in expensive DC, the mosquitoes make being outside unbearable, and I’m tired of paying for substandard services with no votes in Congress.

Another parent staying put here. I will go more urban, maybe a second place at the beach. Too many cultural happenings, excellent medical facilities, multiple airports. I love this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok. I can’t take the suspense anymore! For all those eager to leave the DMV, where do you think is better?

New England, despite the current flooding

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

Same. I'm sitting around my DC house today so bored I could cry. I have really been trying to figure out something to do, and now I'm just going in to work because I have absolutely nothing to do. I mean how many times can you go to those museums (and I work at one)? Hiking Great Falls is out of the question because the masses descend and there's not where to park, much less have space to actually walk. Seriously, what does an empty nester do on a Sunday afternoon?

I'm here too, kids are gone three years. This morning my wife and I played 9 at Greendale and tonight we are hedaed to Wolftrap with a picnic.

If you are bored in DC you will be bored to death pretty much anywhere else outside of 6 other cities.

+1 Definitely move someplace else if you don't like where you live, I know DC is not everyone's cup of tea. But if your reason for moving is "there's nothing to do," that is a you problem that is going to follow you.

What did I do on this Sunday -- sang with my church choir and then chatted with some people there about an issue for a committee I serve on, had lunch with DH, and then met up with a friend in the afternoon. We walked to a coffee shop for a nice long chat.

A quiet day but reflects my connections and commitments in the area. I know DC isn't perfect but I like the community I've built here and it really isn't appealing to blow that up just to try to build a replacement somewhere else. At this point in my life I can only see a strong enough motivation to do so being if I had grandchildren that we wanted to be near.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the relatively few who are leaving, it seems like they’re headed to lower-cost, but uninteresting parts of the country. It’s like all they want is cheap housing and warm weather. In the long-run, that seems pretty boring.

Because the DMV is that interesting? It’s mostly strip malls and cheap looking housing. A lot of traffic and bad weather. Hot summers but no beaches or large bodies of water. Most people are just here for the jobs. You may find this area interesting but many of us do not.

I totally agree

Same. I'm sitting around my DC house today so bored I could cry. I have really been trying to figure out something to do, and now I'm just going in to work because I have absolutely nothing to do. I mean how many times can you go to those museums (and I work at one)? Hiking Great Falls is out of the question because the masses descend and there's not where to park, much less have space to actually walk. Seriously, what does an empty nester do on a Sunday afternoon?

I'm here too, kids are gone three years. This morning my wife and I played 9 at Greendale and tonight we are hedaed to Wolftrap with a picnic.

If you are bored in DC you will be bored to death pretty much anywhere else outside of 6 other cities.

+1 Definitely move someplace else if you don't like where you live, I know DC is not everyone's cup of tea. But if your reason for moving is "there's nothing to do," that is a you problem that is going to follow you.

What did I do on this Sunday -- sang with my church choir and then chatted with some people there about an issue for a committee I serve on, had lunch with DH, and then met up with a friend in the afternoon. We walked to a coffee shop for a nice long chat.

A quiet day but reflects my connections and commitments in the area. I know DC isn't perfect but I like the community I've built here and it really isn't appealing to blow that up just to try to build a replacement somewhere else. At this point in my life I can only see a strong enough motivation to do so being if I had grandchildren that we wanted to be near.

Your post reflects you are a part of a community--that is great, but it does not talk about DC. there are communities in basically every place in the US and abroad-whether you are part of one or not has to do with your personality not with where you live.