Anonymous wrote:Having lived in both places (but I don’t have kids) the people in DC/NOVA are so much more educated and interesting. I found San Diegoans to be quite dull. They were very into the beach and the California laid back lifestyle, and that was about it. In DC there are so many interesting people who have done super interesting things in their lives. The city has a more global/international feel to it. That being said, I would kill for some San Diego fish tacos. Nothing comes close here in NOVA.

Anonymous wrote:I have done both - Del Mar with little kids and now NOVA with HS kids.

I would only live in SD if I could walk or bike everywhere including schools, shops, Drs and the beach. That might only exist in Coronado.

NOVA wins for us bc of the state public university options and housing. We have a nice house in a walkable neighborhood close to dc with good public schools. Not gonna happen in SD.

Anonymous wrote:One thing that I would add is that although I think there are more resources generally available in NoVA, it is much more competitive to access those resources than it feels in San Diego. For example, when signing up for summer camps in the DC area, my family would make sure to sign up in December/January prior to summer and would make sure to do so as soon as sign ups opened up. In contrast, in San Diego, I didn't have to sign up until March/April and there was no issue whatsoever in getting access to summer camps.

I know people knock the schools in California vs. Northern Virginia, but I think that you can find very similar school districts in San Diego (especially around North County as someone mentioned) to anything that you can find in Northern Virginia. My family and I moved between the areas and I once remarked to my spouse that the activities that we do in NoVA have ended up being the same as what we had available in San Diego.

If you expect your kids to be into sports, I suspect San Diego will have an edge over Virginia simply because the weather is better and so it's much more accessible. For example, one of my kids plays tennis here in NoVA and it's so difficult to find a good coach, unless you are already a good tennis player. I realize that there aren't many coaches because the coaches don't have easy access to tennis courts and so they can only work for 1/2 to 3/4 of the year. In contrast, in San Diego and Southern California more generally, courts are widely available and the better weather makes it possible for coaches to work year-round. Thus, we find when we visit during the summer, that tennis instruction is, on average, much better in Southern California. That said, we now have a coach in NoVA that we like and there are places like JTCC, which are excellent, but we find that everything here is catered to kids who are really committed. Beginner lessons around NoVA are uniformly awful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So DH and I lived out the pandemic (pre-kids for us) in San Diego and always talk about moving back the second we can. Unfortunately, my husband's job is very much here (though he did try for California state lobbying jobs for quite a while) and since we just got DS into one of the top tier DC privates, we are here for the next 15 years...

I did work out on the playgrounds in San Diego a lot and the playground culture in DC is about the same (not quite sure for Nova, but can't imagine much difference) except DC kids come out in worse weather though thanks to the nice weather in San Diego, playground time is about the same.

Your pro's and cons lists are pretty on point. The only thing I would add is in DC there are a lot of free activities that I didn't see in San Diego. For instance the Smithsonians are free with regular festivals and weekend activities for the kids. They are super educational. Pretty much all the school systems are great, though you definitely want to do your research on them because we have a million different options and you want to make sure you end up in the school that is best for your kid/family (even for public school).

I think this area can definitely produce happy children, but can also be a pressure cooker if your child ends up in a school that doesn't match them. I think the most important thing is to not be afraid to revaluate your school choice as your kid grows and give them the opportunity to lean into their talents without feeling like they need to be the top math-lympian of the area. Keep the education fun (easy to do here) and the love of learning alive.

OP here. Thanks, this was helpful! The free educational kids activities at the Smithsonians sound great, although I heard that getting to these museums from NoVa can be a bit of a pain with parking, traffic etc that most people don't go to the DC cultural attractions as much as they would like? (Curious if you see this actually happening.) What appeals to you more about the SD area over the DC/NoVA area? Do you feel like the kids at top tier DC privates are really cutthroat? Of course I know this may be dependent on many variables, just wondering if you have noticed any patterns.

Anonymous wrote:So DH and I lived out the pandemic (pre-kids for us) in San Diego and always talk about moving back the second we can. Unfortunately, my husband's job is very much here (though he did try for California state lobbying jobs for quite a while) and since we just got DS into one of the top tier DC privates, we are here for the next 15 years...

I did work out on the playgrounds in San Diego a lot and the playground culture in DC is about the same (not quite sure for Nova, but can't imagine much difference) except DC kids come out in worse weather though thanks to the nice weather in San Diego, playground time is about the same.

Your pro's and cons lists are pretty on point. The only thing I would add is in DC there are a lot of free activities that I didn't see in San Diego. For instance the Smithsonians are free with regular festivals and weekend activities for the kids. They are super educational. Pretty much all the school systems are great, though you definitely want to do your research on them because we have a million different options and you want to make sure you end up in the school that is best for your kid/family (even for public school).

I think this area can definitely produce happy children, but can also be a pressure cooker if your child ends up in a school that doesn't match them. I think the most important thing is to not be afraid to revaluate your school choice as your kid grows and give them the opportunity to lean into their talents without feeling like they need to be the top math-lympian of the area. Keep the education fun (easy to do here) and the love of learning alive.

Anonymous wrote:If you are already living in sd, I’d say it depends if you have good community for your family. If you do, I would not move to dc/nova to start over socially, even though nova is nice. Dc/nova are much more transient, and it can be hard to build a village or deep friendships. Not impossible, but there are things stacked against it happening. Like if you have family on the west coast and friends where you are, I would not give that up to come to nova.

-pov is someone who lived in la for 6 yrs and still misses my old community/family there. Have made new friends and started a family in nova, and it’s fine but I made do bc I had to come out here for work. That said, the wildfires are real (though is sd at big risk?) so we are staying here instead of moving to Cali. We have a great church community here, and have been there for 15+ yrs, which has helped a lot.