I Want to Live near the Beach

I lived in Southern California for 10 years and the main thing I miss is the beach. I also miss the weather. I moved back to Wisconsin 17 yrs ago and right now it's 3* outside & yesterday we had wind chills of -15 to -20*. I have always wanted to live on the beach in Southern California, so I wake up every morning looking at the ocean.

I am definitely 'California Dreaming' right now :-)).

My dream is to live in San Diego or on the Island. I grew up spending a ton of time on base there and I love San Diego.

Amen Michelle they do not even compare.

I DO. I grew up in Maryland where the beach was between 30 minutes and 2 hours away (depending on where I was living at the time). Now I'm stuck in the Midwest too and can't wait to get back to the East Coast. It just feels wrong to not be by the ocean. Up here in Michigan they talk about how the Great Lakes shores are "just like the ocean." Been there -- they're definitely NOT. :(

I do not live at the beach, but I love to visit now and then. I have never been to the west coast so I can only comment on the east. I grew up in NJ about an hour ride to the closest beach (Sandy Hook). Now on the northern east coast the water is so cold even in the summer and there is usually garbage coming on shore (yuck).
Here in Florida I am about an hour and a half to either the Gulf (Clearwater, Tampa) or the Atlantic (Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral). The problem is that there are so many tourists in these areas it is hard to enjoy yourself. I do prefer the beaches here in Florida to the upper east coast, they are cleaner and the water is warmer.

I would love to live on a tiny, personal coastline that lives off the tourists in the summer :) My husband says it would be too depressing in the winter, but I beg to differ! I think it would be awesome living in a ghost town during the 'off season'.

So I guess HIS opinion is the only downside I could think of, well that and hurricane season, but it's a lifestyle, and you take the cons with the pros and follow your heart... if you're heart's at the beach, go for it!!

Oh heck yeah. Grew up in rainy Portland, Oregon, but I spent my 20's in So Cal. When I graduated from college, I lived in a rental house on the water on Balboa Island (Newport Beach) for 7 years.

While a lot of my friend were buying houses inland and building equity, I was paying rent to live in paradise. I was so fit and trim because every night after dinner, I could rollerblade, run, or walk in my very safe and beautiful neighborhood -- even late at night. I kept my window open pretty much all the time and fell asleep to the sound of the ocean waves and seals barking. Any time I wanted a little something sweet to eat, I just took a stroll down to the dessert shop down the street. On the weekends, my friends would come visit me or I just stayed home and relaxed. No driving to get away from it all. I was already there.

Yep, I sure miss the beach. It's not a good place to raise kids, but it's a great place to live as an adult. When my kids get older, I hope to do the annual one week rental at a beach house.

I have lived walking distance to the beach for the last 10 years . . . it is wonderful and I'm still not sick of it. I never, ever, miss snow or winter. I love the smell of the salty air, and I don't suffer through seasonal allergies whatsoever.

That being said, I do find myself getting really sick of tourists, and traffic, and rude people. I spent about 12 years in the midwest and just LOVED the people.

Our insurance is really high too - we put in all impact glass in a remodel and our insurance went UP $1000!!! (go figure). The cost of living is high here, too, yet wages are stagnant. I could live in a palace in other parts of the country for what we pay for a basic ranch home (built in the 60's) here.

There are positives and negatives everywhere.

Yes, I want to live near the beach too. I can't believe I live in NM now. It's beautiful here but it is just not right!

Our plan is to retire near the beach. :)

I live in the best place in the world and 3 minutes from several gorgeous beaches. Water is cold (and often dangerous) but the natural beauty is stunning, NO traffic and virtually no crowds except at certain beaches in the summer.
My daughter is taking a surfing elective at her school, we walk on the beach at least weekly and in the summer have campfires and cookouts.
I don't blame you for missing it and can't imagine living without it but I hear your area is surrounded by natural beauty too. This is one girl who thanks God every single day for how lucky we are to live in such an awesome place.

I grew up in Southern California and miss the beach ALL THE TIME! I grew up in San Juan Capistrano and have no idea what it's like now, but 30 years ago it wasn't so great.
I miss the ocean air, the sand, waves, heat. All of it. Would I move back? no. The cost of living is OUTRAGEOUS in CA and I can't justify moving my family there just because I miss the beach. I have family that still lives down there and through them I know that the area is dangerous and nothing like what I grew up in. It's sad.
My family went to the beach this past summer out here in WA. I have lived here for almost 20 years and never been to the beach. The waves were beautiful and my sons thought it was awesome. I was cold. You can't swim in the water here!!
Maybe when we retire. :)
L.

I would love to have a home on the beach.. But every time I go down there and stay in a friends home I am reminded of the different lifestyle.

The upkeep on everything rotting away due to the salt. The sand on everything. The cars wearing out faster. Having to worry about hurricanes. So many tourist. Everything fades.

The good things. Laid back, the smell, the breezes, the slower pace, the sounds.. ah,... I want..

My girlfriend owns a beach house on Newport Beach, CA.

She lives in Upland and goes to the beach for the weekend. She has had the house for about 20 years now. Her parents bought it - gutted it and remodeled it. It's absolutely beautiful!!

Downside? No privacy. You have people walking past your "yard". your neighbors are like what you see in Private Practice- RIGHT there. Thank God Kerry's house is at the end so she only has ONE neighbor. Because housing is ssssooo tight - driveways are REALLY short and pulling out onto PCH is a pain in the rear.

But that comes with the territory of living on the beach.

My I would love to be near the beach! Im in NY, just north of NYC and its so cold right now I hate it. Ive been begging my husband for years to move south but he does not want to. Calls me a gypsy since Ive moved over 25 times in my life and hes move just twice in his life. lol.

Florida beaches are nice but yea full of tourist, The Carolinas have nice beaches and you cant beat the beaches in Hawaii! Loved it there - perfect weather all the time but loaded with tourist and expensive. Key West is nice and all the islands in the Caribbean lol. San Diego is nice too!

Man I want to move now! I need warmer weather and dont want to wait 30 or so years at my 'retirement' to get there.

Yes. Have you ever been to Bear Lake (on the border of Utah and Idaho)? It is like heaven on Earth. It is a gorgeous turquoise blue lake surrounded by mountains. My Grandparents had a vacation home right on the beach. My parents met there, so my earliest memories are of spending summers at the beach. My parents would take us up nearly every weekend, as soon as they were done with work. Bear Lake is my "happy place", all my happiest times were spent there. I am lucky in that my uncle, who now owns the property, allows me to rent out the place 1 week a year for a very cheap rate. One day I would love to have my own vacation home up there, although to get something on the beach and next to the resort up there would be impossible these days unless I was extremely wealthy.

In fact, if I could make it work, I would love to live there...the things that keep me from that are that the winters up there are severe and long, there are no real grocery stores nearby- you have to drive maybe an hour to get to one- and while I work from home and just need an internet connection to do my job, I am sure my husband would have to travel quite a bit each day for work. *sigh*

I lived in So Cal my whole life, until moving to AZ when I was 35. I loved it. Had the convertible, drove down to the beach every day during lunch and ate at the beach, on the cliffs in Newport looking over the water, so pretty and peaceful...and EXPENSIVE!!! Still have family and friends there so we go out a few times each year and spend some time on the beach. Hubby and I keep saying we will go just on our own so we can REALLY enjoy it and sit there without having to entertain the kids. On our wish list is a condo on the beach so we can go alot. =)

YES. I lived in Santa Barbara for 5 years and San Diego for 7, various proximity to the beach. From having the beach as my front yard (twice), to up the street (twice), to being a 20 minute drive from my choice of beaches (my last place when I finally settled down got married and started a family... had to move to the 'burbs!)

Now, I am about 30 minutes of LA traffic to my nearest beach and it's like I might as well be 3 hours away. We only go for special occasions, or once a week at most during the summer if we are being really ambitious.

What I miss most is biking and running along the boardwalk. I also miss the beach bar atmosphere... where you can have a mimosa brunch on the water, or a few afternoon cocktails on a patio in the beach air.

Oh well I'm guess I'm lucky to still live within an hour of OC and LA beaches. There was nothing I didn't like about living by the beach, except in the one case where the front door was literally 30 feet from the sand, there was always a TON of sand in the house.

I live in Long Island. I don't live "on" the beach. I live a 20 minute drive from the beach. Right now it is 30 degrees out so I am certainly not going to the beach. We have our town beach, plus choices of about 10 other very nice close by beaches we can go to. We go to the beach all the time in the summer. Swimming is great in June, July and August. Off season, I like to go with the kids to fly kites, collect shells and just to walk around.
There are downsides of where we live. No really close by mountains, crowded, high home prices.
Good sides - generally better job market than other areas, good wages, good public transportation, convenient location close to everything like malls, shopping etc.
I also love Manhattan and like to take the kids into the city regularly. In a few years, when they're a bit older, we'll go routinely for broadway shows. Now we go in to go to the giant Toys R Us, or to the M&M store, or central park.

I also grew up on the beach in Ca and although I loved many aspects of it, I love where I live now too. Just go visit. I don't miss the traffic, I don't miss the constant overcast skies and fog that made it sort of depressing. I love the dry air in the desert, and Boulder has it too. I also think about what a pain it would be to drag kids to the beach and all the junk you'd have to take. Where you are, you have skiing and beautiful mountains. Love where you are.

I used to live at the beach, in Long Island, New York. It was beautiful in the fall and spring. The summer was way too crowded (everyone came to my town!) and the winter was absolutely freezing, much more so than the rest of the towns around mine. Plus, it was quite difficult to get flood insurance. Just another point to consider.

Don't we all?!

I, like you, grew up less than an hour from the beach. I now live in the desert. I feel sad that my DD won't grow up the way I did.

And, yes, I would move back in a heartbeat if I could afford to live where I grew up, but I can't, so here we stay.

We went to Jamaica and had a cabin about 50 feet from the beach. The water was warm, the weather fantastic and I would have stayed there a month IF I could have afforded it.

The local fishermen came by and sold us what ever they caught that day including lobster. We loved it. It was cheap lodging, but real expensive food wise.

But I love America and would never live elsewhere except to vacation. I have vacationed on a lake and would be just as happy on a lake as I was on the ocean. I like California beaches, but the water is way too cold to enjoy for anything length time, but a few minutes. I was in the warm water in Jamaica for at least 8 hours a day. If the water is too cold to swim in its not a desirable beach, at least to me.

Good luck to you and yours.