Have you ever picked up your life and moved?

Where did you live? We have multiple climates on the Olympic Peninsula, can range from 40" a year to over 120" a year, all within driving distance of just a few hours! You can drive to all the climate variations

When we were looking for property on the OP, we decided to move to Seabeck for a variety of reasons. It is a small town, mostly residential, rural, unincorporated, access to the Hood Canal (fishing, crabbing, shrimping, clamming, harvesting oysters, all within 5 minutes away, since we have a boat...), also offers a beautiful waterfront park w/camping, another waterfront park with a lot of hiking trails, horseback riding trails, motorycle trails, and the list goes on. We also picked 47#s of Chanterelle Mushrooms during the last few months of Dec 2012.

Here are a few more reasons (last one our backyard taken yesterday), why I think I'll stay put (I have seen enough of the rest of the Country).

Attached Thumbnails

         

 

__________________

Christie Acres
www.SequimForLife.com
http://www.irealtyvirtualbrokers.com...lori-christie/
http://luxurywaterviewhomes.com/
SequimLiving@gmail.com

I have a few times packed up the family and moved away, though most times were the result of military orders. I hate uprooting though my wife loves it.

I'm a bit confused... your moving SOUTH because there is not enough snow???

Yes, snow was at least pretty and enjoyable if you had to hibernate through the winter. Nowadays, mostly 30-45 degrees all winter with no snow = black skies with rain and mud for half the year. Not to mention all of the trees and grass are dead and brown.. I can remember as a kid, having snow all winter that was so deep, we would build tunnels through it.

__________________
"For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book... making love whenever you feel like it, then you know. The south has got you.”

moved across state couple of times. the last time was 12 yrs ago. i was 28 yrs old. was divorced. got ----ed off about my job, and came back to the mtns of VA where i lived for 10 yrs of my younger life. it was the best move i ever made. i became self employed, met my wife. and ive been happy ever since.
about 6 yrs ago, she lost her oldest son to suicide, and she wanted to move. we looked at mexico, we had friends there, and alot of folks retired to that area. we couldnt retire, and mexico is to hot in summer for her, we looked at montana, everyone kept raving about how its the greatest place since Eden. i was severly dissappointed after all the raving i heard about it. we decided to stay put here in VA. this is home, and we are happy.

but yes a move can be a great thing. starting over is good at times.

I live about 15 miles from where my (7th)-G.Grandfather settled in the 1720's, I guess my folks think the grass is greener here.
Actually it is- we average about 60" of rain per year.

__________________
"In America, there is New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Everywhere else is Cleveland."
- Mark Twain

I know moving to some tropical place is a dream for a lot of people. My mother travels the world and has looked into places in Mexico, the Carribean and South America. Unfortunately once you talk to lawyers and real estate brokers down there, you start finding out about nasty murder rates and really bad laws regarding property and land rights. She is trying to buy a place in Aruba right now, so good places do exist, you just have to be very careful!

__________________
"For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book... making love whenever you feel like it, then you know. The south has got you.”

After the death of my mother and my MIL and FIL all within a two year time span and to top it off the moving in of my stepfathers GF a few weeks after momma's death I just needed a change. I think quite honestly I was as close to a nervous breakdown as I ever want to be again.
My DH and I came up to visit a small cabin we had looked at online and after a few days we felt so relaxed we knew it was right for us. We sold a 3 bedroom 2 bath beautiful home in the place we had lived most of our lives and headed to the Ozarks. We had no jobs. We did have faith and hope.
Although at the time we did not realize how much that place was holding us back. We never followed our own hearts and it took tragedy to wake us up to that.

We too have found the Ozarks to be a wonderful place and its like we always should have been here. I have never really had a "home" area because I am not really from anywhere...until we moved here. Now even the locals think we were originally from around here and thats a compliment in my book.

__________________
www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

Last March, I decided to move back to the city I consider my real home, and also change careers (although to what I haven't quite decided yet). I also moved from a 3BR house with a garage to a 2BR apartment with minimal storage space, and it made me realize just how much stuff I had that I didn't use. I sold what I wouldn't use in the apartment, also gave plenty of things away, and STILL had more than I needed!

I'd like to buy a house, but I don't want to move again; I only lived in my prior location for 8 months, and had moved there for a job that I realized was literally killing me. Yes, I was making a 6-figure income but some things are just not worth destroying your life for.

We picked up our life 5 years ago and moved from a development type house in PA (we were bored to tears living there, among other things) to a large home on 25 acres on the Cumberland Plateau in TN. It has been by far our most favorite place to live and has been worth picking up our belongings of 10 people and moving here. We did the back and forth thing in our hauling things down here because we had the ability to do so. My husband has a HVAC business still in PA and we moved down here with the notion that we would be able to conduct the business via internet and phone as that is how much of the communication is done anyway, and him going back and forth to deal with the things that need his personal attention, with the idea of totally relocating everything one way or another eventually. But, after much prayer and the business surviving the last few years, we feel directed to move back to PA.
Anyway, that's how it went for us and our house in TN is for sale if you are looking for a big house with an in-law suite or rental apt. or super nice office space, please feel free to check it out in the Real Estate section here on HT! Hope it all goes very well for you, whatever you decide!

We have moved several times, and are about to do it again. Sell EVERYTHING. Of course there are family heirlooms you just wont be able to part with, BUT other than that sell it all, the tractor, the animals, etc. You will find that it is MUCH cheaper and easier to replace it when you get where you are going.

I have moved 22 times in the last 18 years alone (over 50 times in my life). Getting ready to move again later this year.
Several of those were across the state. A few were across the country. Three of those were blind moves.
Have never had to move with anything more then house pets tho.

We've always done everything ourselves.

Someone mentioned a tractor not fitting inside a Uhaul. You can tow trailers with the U-Haul (or other moving trucks).

Best advice I can give is pit the competitions against each other. I have rarely paid more then 50% of the original advertised price.
Only keep those things that have real sentimental value for you.
We always rent the largest truck and fill our van. Everything we're moving must be able to fit into those vehicles (we rented a trailer too once).

__________________
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I moved five+ years ago about 22 miles to where I'm at today. I moved from suburbia to the country, and it was a huge adjustment!
I had a big garage sale, pared down what I could, and still had too much. I shudder to think about moving again. I have a lot more tools and equipment that I've accumulated living on my farm.
Not to mention animals. I don't know if I could outplace my cats - the horses yes, the chickens yes, but not the cats. Well, maybe one or two.
The biggest thing I found once I moved was the unexpected change in culture - it took me a year to really understand the local slang and the inflection. It took me a couple years to really settle in as I had to change a lot of expectations once I got there.
Overwhelming is an understatement. But stick it out, and don't sell anything you can't part with or can't reasonably replace like tractors and farm implements. Those are all $$$$ now to buy, regardless of where you are in the country.

This thread really points out how different everyone is, and how there are no right answers.

I have moved a dozen+ times, and while I agree that getting rid of all the pointless stuff is your best bet, I am not a fan of getting rid of things just so you don't have to haul them when it will cost you more to buy new when you get to the new place.

Animals are something you have to judge on a one-by-one basis. If you have animals you aren't attached to, they're easier to send off. I've looked at my animals in terms of, "What do I have here, am I attached to it, and will I be able to replace it where I'm going?" If you have a flock of identical sheep that are a popular breed, you can sell them without too much heartache. If you have a few goats that are harder-to-find colors of a certain breed that is not easy to find where you're going, and you've had them for almost a decade, they just aren't going to be as easy for you to toss onto craigslist. I wouldn't get rid of my dogs for anything, but they are not LGD's or some outside-on-a-chain types, they are my kids.

I think the overwhelming part isn't the move, it's the junk you have to go through on the WAY to the move. It DOES get overwhelming. I'm in the final stages of purging right now, and it's just hard to keep your momentum going at that point. Sorting through boxes of stuff that have needed sorted for years, figuring out every little thing's true worth to you... Ugh. I've done almost all of it, and I wish someone else would step in and finish the small amounts of tedious things that I have remaining, because I'm ready to throw in the towel.

I've lived in many different places, from one coast to the next and every single place has had great things about it, if you take the time and make the effort to get out and about. So criticizing places that people choose to live (or stay or move) is just showing a lack of knowledge.
I love where I live because I don't deal well with the heat,hate poisonous snakes, love lots of space and wildlife and love living near the ocean. So do I think it is perfect- no. If I liked soaking in the sun or shopping til I drop or going to big name concerts or theater, then I would choose somewhere else. It depends on what you value the most and what you can live without. And thank goodness that is true. Too many people around here already.
And as for staying put- there is virtue in that too. I still get a thrill in knowing where I live well enough to find my way through town away from other traffic or know all the hidden spots that takes years to find or seeing places that remind me of my own history. I moved so often when I was a child that I can remember panicking in my own house, waking up at night, because I wasn't sure what country I was in or where the stupid bathroom was.

__________________
For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

Years ago I picked up and moved. It would have been better for me to have a better plan then. I wish I had done it a lot sooner in my life.

All of these stories are helping so much! I already started cleaning out a few rooms this morning, and hauling some items to the garage for a future moving sale. I have absolutely no plan in place at this point, but things need to move forward and progress a little bit each day so I don't get overwhelmed all at once if I end up getting an offer on the property sooner than expected. I have more than 1 property to sell, and a business, so that complicates it further.

I think the best advice so far has been to sell everything as long as it makes financial sense to do so, as far as having to rebuy it later. To be honest, the thought of not having to move so much furniture, and large items, is a huge weight off my shoulders.

__________________
"For if you start dancing on tables, fanning yourself, feeling sleepy when you pick up a book... making love whenever you feel like it, then you know. The south has got you.”

I want to move and not tell anyone where I moved to. Sometimes the phone just rings off the wall all the time and I can't get any relaxed time in. Just this evening since I came home at 5 O'clock, the phone has probably rang at least a half dozen times with someone wanting me to do something or complain about something. Sometimes I get so busy doing other things for other people that my place looks pityful. It does right now.

I'd like to move close to a lake and just fish all the time.

__________________
r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

just do it man.