Budgie1

I can't answer all of your questions but I'll put in my two cents for what it is worth.

BTW my background is I'm an Australian who moved from Sydney to Vancouver for one year and then moved to Calgary. My family have been in Calgary now for 3 years.

[QUOTE=Big Bear;9268639]

- Easy access to the great outdoors with the kids - skiing, camping, hiking, etc. Is this better/easier in Calgary or Vancouver?

Both good opportunities, personally I'd give Calgary the edge as I love being close the the Rockies proper along with Kananaskis Country which is also beautiful.

- Cost of living. I know that buying a house in Vancouver is more expensive (I think) but what about renting? Are the costs of buying a car, fuel, food, etc the same in both?

No contest here, Alberta is way cheaper for basically everything as there is no PST/HST, provincial health insurance premiums, cheaper fuel etc etc etc.

- Weather - I have heard that it rains a lot in Vancouver and gets ridiculously cold in Calgary but that both are nice in the summer? Does it really rain that much in Vancouver (I am originally from Manchester, UK and we got our fair share of rain) and how extreme is the cold in Calgary/does it last for months or a few weeks?

Summer in Vancouver just can't be beat, it is absolutely glorious! That said we found the other 9 months rather depressing with the almost constant overcast weather and drizzle. Calgary is definately colder, winter lasts much longer but overall we are happy with the sunnier weather overall you get. We were surprised as how much of a non issue the cold was on your day to day life.

- Being able to live in 'nice', safe suburbs that are close (less than 30 mins) from downtown. This one is key. We are going to want a 4-5 bedroom house with a reasonable sized garden for the kids and dogs. We are coming from Sydney where houses are VERY expensive and our budget will be in the $700k-$1M range. Which city will give us the most choice - Calgary or Vancouver?

Hands down Calgary here, even coming from Sydney like you are we found property prices to be crazy, crazy, crazy in Vancouver given the very poor economy it has compared to Sydney. Your budget just isn't going to stretch that far in Vancouver versus Calgary given what you are looking for.

We settled into Vancouver very quickly but found it a bit longer to form friendships in Calgary but we did and our circle is just as large and friendly - school, daycare and work relationships should soon get you up and running in either city fairly quickly I'd have thought.

Ultimately the lack of work and crazy high cost of living drove us out of Vancouver and three years on I have no regrets at moving to Calgary, we call it home.

Big Bear

Thanks for all of the advice and taking the time to reply. Much appreciated and certainly helps!

Cheers
Big Bear

Big Bear

[QUOTE=Budgie1;9269918]I can't answer all of your questions but I'll put in my two cents for what it is worth.

BTW my background is I'm an Australian who moved from Sydney to Vancouver for one year and then moved to Calgary. My family have been in Calgary now for 3 years.

Where are decent places to live in Calgary? I am going to be working DT (5th Avenue SW) and don't mind a bit of a commute if it means living in a decent area. Will also need to get to the airport a fair bit as my job will require travel. Our budget will be C$0.8-1.3M and really would prefer a 5 bedroom house as we will have family visiting from the UK a fair bit so space is important. We also want to live in an area with lots of families. We have 3 kids and it is important to us that they have other kids living near by so they can play together and all that fun stuff.

Thanks
Big Bear

ann m

If I had a million dollars to spend on a house, that house would not be in Calgary

shhhh

From a fairl yrecent move to Vancoouver, w ecan only really give the Vancouver perspective, though we did previously turn down an offer to move to Calgary, so we had given that some thought and investigation too...

There is one row of houses beteen ours and the rest of BC, so getting to the outdoors is pretty easy We live at the bottom of Mount Seymour, which though not the greatest for skiing is rather convenient as is Grouse Mt. Cypress is a little further. Whistler is about 1.5 hrs drive

Compared to the UK cost of living is generally high. Houses are the obvious expensive thing here, but had it not been for the plummeting pound would actually have been quite cheap relatively.

We've not reached th eschool stage yet. Compared to where we were in the UK I'd say not quite as good.
Childcare was actually (one of) the reasons we bailed on the idea of Calgary, as we found it a real struggle to find anything

Loads of parks everywhere here. Unfortunately all the kids in our street go out and play hockey together; we will shortly import a kwik cricket set to straighten them out!

It's raining pretty hard as I type. It does rain a lot (and my other half is from Manchester too), though we have only been here since October so too early to be representitive. It's kind of different to the constant Manchester wetness. The plus side in the winter is that it often means snow on the mountains, rained hard all day Monday, then went to Grouse after work to ski 60cm of fresh snow

Not really looked that hard in Calgary, but pretty happy with where we are location wise. (Indian River/Deep Cove)

Can you set something up here Getting a family doctor is a pain as there doesn't seem to be enough of them.

Daycare is one thing that is way cheaper in Canada. Don't know if there's much difference between Calgary and Vancouver, however we couldn't find an infant place in Calgary a while back, and a friend from Calgary whose sister has a young family there said it was a bit of a problem.

Guess it depends what you like doing skiing wise. I quite liked Lake Louise, but I've skied several seasons at Whistler for a reason There are also loads of good places you can reach in the BC interior from either Calgary or Vancouver.
For starting off (with a then 2 year old), Grouse Mt. is actually really good.

Not the place for me, but perhaps Kelowna might work for you?