I’m from Saratoga, NY (not finger lakes, but still upstate NY vibe). My parents and extended families are both there. While I hate that my kids don’t see their grandparents as much as I did growing up I would never move there. The job market is blah, taxes suck, no diversity, nothing much to do, a hike to any real city etc.

I’m curious what you and your DH do for work OP.

I spent about 5 years in Ithaca as a kid and honestly those are some of my fondest childhood memories. I still miss it. If there was some way I could go back I would do it in a heartbeat!

There's a lot of DCUM snobbery on this thread. I grew up in that region. I'm tempted all the time to move back.

It's interesting that so many people assert that the schools will be terrible, when people complain endlessly about the schools around here! There are many perfectly decent schools in the suburbs of Rochester and Syracuse. Corning is a gem.

It sounds like you know what you're getting into. The winters can be brutal and no, it's not very diverse. But it's more diverse than it used to be and it's easy enough to gain access to the things you might miss.

A lot of the housing savings are eaten up by the property taxes, which as others have noted are absolutely insane in NYS.

I grew up in the Syracuse suburbs, so not truly Finger Lakes but Finger Lakes adjacent. I feel like there's a sense of fatalism in that entire area, that things will never get better. It might be because of the winters, which really start to wear on you.

That said, there are a ton of people from my (enormous) public HS that still are living there and seemingly enjoying good lives, but they're all in the burbs still. The schools are better than a lot of people are claiming here.

Anonymous wrote:Diversity is neither a feature nor a bug.

I would totally go. Nova is a soulless shithole.

“Nova is a soulless shithole”?

That’s a bit harsh.

I would worry that the grass really isn’t greener.

Heck, there’s a thread complaining that target doesn’t open until 8am. That’s emblematic of what Dcumlandia is accustomed to, right? Are you really ready to adjust to a slower life?

My husband and kids were kvetching about how slow everything was at the DE beaches: lines, slow service, weird hours, etc. They’ve clearly been inculcated into the DC metro go go go pace of life.

Anonymous wrote:Anyone I know who has made this kind of move has moved back.

The schools will be terrible.

Not sure where OP is going but some of the schools in the rochester area are very highly rated. We are actually making this move next month and I'm glad to be leaving MCPS. I do worry about the lack of diversity though.

Anonymous wrote:I would not do this for any reason, ever. I grew up in that area and spent the first 25 years of my life in the Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, north country area. Yes, summers are beautiful. We like taking our children to visit family. What you don’t realize when you are visiting for short periods of time are the long winters and worse, the nonstop grey skies and rain. Cold and dreary.

It’s a nice escape from DC in the summer but I would never move back. It is so depressing there and I didn’t have nearly the opportunities growing up that my kids do.

Move to the suburbs, we did it and have land. We got different jobs and are no longer in the DC rat race. I like the VA burbs better. Or move away from this area to a different city.

+1. I’m from upstate NY. Depending on what town you are in, the people are insular and not particularly warm to outsiders. It’s generations of people who haven’t left. The winter is long, grey, cold, and wet. April sucks in upstate NY. I also hate living in the country as a kid. I couldn’t just walk down the street to a friends house, we all lived miles apart on long country roads. There was a very high profile kidnapping of a girl kidnapped off of those roads when I was growing up (Sarah Ann Wood), so parents were more cautious. My kid can easily ride around the corner in my suburban neighborhood. Property taxes are high, mainly because of the municipal setup, which is inefficient and insular.

You have to reallllllllly love snow.

Seneca lake is getting hot because if a Bitcoin mining server farm.
As others have noted , schools and poverty would be my areas of concern. It’s beautiful but nit sure I could live there full time

Anonymous wrote:Op here - interesting that everyone is talking about Ithaca. I am actually from another finger lake and closer to Rochester (about 45 mins away). Very familiar with Strong Hospital and the University of Rochester.

Ah, near the Grant Canyon of the East.

Yes, I would totally do it if I were you. In fact, my family has been thinking of moving and we randomly were looking at real estate in upstate NY and it seemed great (but rural) but that's okay. It seemed ideal to me.

If being really close to family is the main driver, then the other stuff will work itself out.

We lived in a nova community with A+ schools, good Virginia weather, opportunities for us to make more money. But for us all that wasn’t as important as having a daily relationship with other generations of their family - not just a couple times a year, but together for Sunday dinner, attendance at sporting events, cooking together, etc.

Anyone I know who has made this kind of move has moved back.

The schools will be terrible.

Anonymous wrote:Op here - interesting that everyone is talking about Ithaca. I am actually from another finger lake and closer to Rochester (about 45 mins away). Very familiar with Strong Hospital and the University of Rochester.

We're up in Rochester and our DD plays travel sports with girls from Livonia. It's an easy drive - they come up twice a week for practices and they're well-integrated into the team. Their parents seem great, too.

Canandaigua is also an easy drive. We're down there often for concerts, to spend the day at the lake, and again, for sports (our school team plays a team from there).

I'm more of a suburbs girl than a rural girl, so I can't speak to what it would be like to live on a large farm. But I will say that we're incredibly happy here in Rochester. We left DC 10 years ago and never regretted the move. There's a tremendous sense of community, our kids are getting a terrific education at the public schools, and we have wide circles of friends. We also love being so close to family. Our kids are growing up with one set of grandparents, an uncle, and some cousins integrated into their lives. It's a great life!

Absolutely.

I live in MoCo, but Nova is similar. Would move in a heartbeat, especially in your situation.