Hey guys,

For those of you living in Calgary or the neighbouring towns, what do you like most about Calgary and what do you like least? Which neighbouring towns are best for young couples starting out? My fiancee and I are hoping to get over next summer - fingers crossed! We've got a mate in Cochrane.

Cheers!

I love the space (compared to London), the varied facilities, having lots of outdoor stuff to do summer or winter, the proximity of the mountains, the housing (compared to London again) the amount of green spaces, Stampede, the low crime rate & the general friendliness & acceptance I've encountered both at work & out & about.

I don't like the fact you can't buy beer/wine at the Supermarket (although that's probably a good thing too!) The driving can be interesting & I hate the way pedestrians step out in front of you without even checking you have spotted them! There is no real night life downtown (excpet during Stampede/major sporting events) and the public transport is not great, to put it mildly.

As a family we definitely prefer it here to London though & none of my kids want to go back. So it's a general thumbs up from us.

Cochrane is nice but I prefer being in the Calgary suburbs because it's such a short hop into town when we want to go. Currently the outlying towns have little to no public transport into Calgary (altohugh they are supposed to be doing something about that) so you always have to drive, which could stifle your partying as you don't want be caught DUI!

Hi there. I too live in Cochrane and love it!

Hmm - what do I like about Calgary? Well, for one, it provides my husband with a job! As far as cities go, it's not too big but provides all that you expect a city to have. It's relatively clean although much of it seems like a building site at the moment. Not that I use it very often but I understand the city's transit system is good too.

Personally, we're not really city people which is why we live out here in Cochrane. Obviously, we do need to travel to the city sometimes and it doesn't take long to get in (half an hour max). Also, we're not far from the mountains here too which is great. My husband and daughter like to go off skiing in the winter and it doesn't take them long to get to a few of the resorts.

If you have a mate here in Cochrane then I'm sure they can tell you all you need to know about the town. Personally, we feel it is a great place for families. We have two children, aged 4 and 8, and it's perfect for them. There's plenty here for kids - endless parks and playgrounds, the river, sports centre, swimming pool, ice rinks, bowling, lots of clubs etc, the list goes on! We are really pleased with the school our daughter goes to and I can't say I've heard anything bad about any of the local schools. My son is still at pre-school and, again, no problems with that.

We did look at some of the other areas around Calgary and, although some of them were very nice, for us, Cochrane just felt right. You just need to visit them all yourself to get a feel for the areas. We knew we wanted to be to the west of Calgary to be nearer to the mountains but couldn't look too far from Calgary because of my husband's job. For us, Cochrane just ticked all the boxes.

If you're coming over next year, I presume you will be staying with your mate. However, if not, we do have a rental suite you may be interested in. Just let me know if you'd like the details.

Anyway, I'm sure you'll love it over here. We have a lot of friends over here who have moved from the UK and everyone loves it. There's a great community feel here too which I like.

Well, good luck with it all and don't hesitate to ask if I can help you with anything else or if there's anything specific you'd like to know.

Best wishes.

If you are young-ish and child-free, I'd go for an apartment or house near-ish to the downtown area/beltline, etc. There's enough in the bar and restaurant field to keep you out of mischief (but I still wouldn't say it's exactly a jumpin, bumpin nightlife ), or get somewhere on the west of the city for fast escapes to the mountains.

If you have young kids then moving further out to the burbs will afford you a little more space and potentially more child-friendly facilities. Be prepared for cookie-cutter heaven, and find an area with established schools.

If you have "middle aged" kids (Gr 1-8) then I think the outer towns like Cochrane where we live are brill. Lots of space, lots of facilities and clubs, etc - smaller-town community feel to it, lack of crime, all the usual things we all say we are looking for. I've found it, and I'm quite happy.

However, not that I think we will move, but when kids hit that mid-teens age and they have a skill for sports or drama or something not quite accommodated in the smaller towns, (and if you have the budget to pay for it anyway) then don the chauffeur hat and get ready for pain-in-the-backside journeys to and fro all areas of Calgary.

Thanks for the fantastic replies guys, I really appreciate it.

We're both in our mid to late twenties, no children at this point although that's almost inevitable in the future, biology and all that permitting! My fiancee is a horse nut so the Calgary area is good for her being horse country. I'm a motorcycle junkie and love to snowboard so again, the areas good for me. I've also got a dog and we love being out walking so that's great too. We're not city people, but we like having access to them so 'tick'. We're also not big on going out drinking etc, we prefer to spend our time relaxing at home or with friends and then play hard on horses, bikes, snowboards, climbing or whatever.

Sounds like it's going to be a good fit for us

Thanks for the information about your accomodation, also. I'll definitely bear it in mind, I've read good things about you (TheThornes)!

Thanks guys, keep 'em coming though!

Cheers!

The areas outside of Calgary are very nice, you need to visit before deciding which one suits you best. We are not city people yet we live in the city. Forget an english view of cities (miles and miles of concrete). The suburbs of Calgary look nothing like that and, as I have said before, other than their locations, living in a suburb of the city will feel very similar to living in a neighbourhood in the likes of Okotoks/Cochrane etc (unless you live very close to downtown). A housing development is a housing development and they don't change just because they are outside of the city limits.

We have views of the Rockies from all of the south facing rooms in our house in the south of the city.

I would choose Cochrane over all of the towns close to Calgary, primarily for its proximity to the Rockies, but with youngish kids that are sport mad, it doesn't make sense for us to live outside of the city.

Thanks for the thoughts. As you say, we'd need to visit the individual areas to be able to decide which ones might be best for us

I like the older areas like Ramsay - almost downtown and ranges from seedy, through intersting to highly desirable. Also Willowpark, Acadia, Bonavista, Midnapore. Older, bigger trees, wider lots, more family-style houses, wider roads. Especially if they come with a community lake - Like Midnapore and Bonavista.

Is anyone here familiar with the MTV Canada television program called "Cribs"? Evidently "crib" is American slang for one's abode. There's a episode of Cribs describing the house of a woman called "Cassie" Campbell who talks about iced hockey for the CBC, this on the strength of having played Olympic iced hockey. Her place is in Calgary, though it might be in any North American housing project built in the past ten years.

I'd be interested to hear if that's the sort of house to which people in Calgary aspire. Interested of course, because I'd sooner live in a tent. I was taken aback that a celebrity, albeit z list, would admit on television to having done no better.

It's not specific to Calgary. Yesterday I was waiting in a pizza store to pick up a pizza... Cribs was on the TV, and I saw an apparently famous Canadian rapper called "Belly" showing off his gaff somewhere in Ontario. Other than the studio in the garage, I think it could have been any one of a million recently built Canadian homes... typical 5 bed, cookie cutter detached house. I agree, I think it shows a startling lack of imagination amongst the Canadian 'doing-reasonably-wells'. Not to mention being the most 'un-street' house possible for a rapper.

A prepostorous concept. "Straight Outta Mississauga". Piss off back to your 'burb.

Mr. Belly looked like the sort of guy who phoned his mum every evening and who shovelled his neighbour's drive... a real Canadian rapstah.

Don't be such a ****** snob DBD. Women in Hockey don't make a lot of money, despite being gold medal olympians. And I'm sure she's proud of her home, having earned the money to pay for it. And if you could survive Calgary winters in a tent then I say go for it! There'd be no room for a vibrating rabbit though.

You mean the spokesperson for Scotiabank, as well as a motivational speaker for three agencies, a TV host and published author...

All nice little earners.................