Hi all, again.

Well, we now have our tickets for our trip to Vancouver Island in January. We are coming over the week of 19 to 26 Jan, and hopefully staying with some friends in Victoria and Nanaimo.
This trip will be a researchy kinda trip, but hope to get at least 2 or 3 days skiing in on Mt Washington.
I ( Mike) will be talking to my prosepctive employer, Wendy will be checking out new premises for her hair and beauty buisness, and we will be taking the kids to see schools in the Nanaimo area. ( oh, and university in Victoria for our No 2)

Anybody with any advice about good residential areas in Nanaimo, then kindly let us know.

Mike and Wendy

hello..i don't know much about real easte in that area...but just wanted to say have a great trip!!....sounds like you and your family will have a lot of fun and a wonderful adventure!

Hi qman8166

Welcome to the island,

There are quite a few nice areas in Nanaimo such as Cedar,Jinglepot, North Nanaimo, Hammond Bay area, Jinglepot. best bet is to drive around first to check out the areas (also find out where the schools are) then check out some properties with a realtor you will then soon have a short list.
Your budget will also decide the area i.e. North Nanaimo at the moment has the highest average price with the South a lot lower.
Do not expect the same public transport as England either this could also decide where you end up.

Hi, I hope you enjoy your trip to the Island. We emigrated here 3 1/2 years ago and definitely have no regrets. It sure is a nice place to live and bring up a family. Good luck and best wishes!

Hi Mike & Wendy,
Don't let the horrible highway put you off of Nanaimo as you drive up from Victoria our first impression of the place was pretty negative ...... it took a few months of renting to get a feel for the place.

Hammond Bay & Departure Bay are both good areas & lots of homes have ocean views, downtown Nanaimo & the south of the city has more 'character' homes & tends to be less pricey, Cedar is interesting although the local there is great. www.crowandgate.com Jinglepot (I'll never get used to that stupid bl**dy name) is more rural but handy for shopping/highway (We live in Jinglepot ). Benson Meadows & Shady Mile way (IMHO) are lovely.
There are loads of new builds at the mo ~ commercial as well as residential so you should have plenty to keep you busy when you visit

If you have high school age kids you might want to keep an eye on the pending school closures ......... www.sd68.bc.ca

Hi Mike and Wendy,

What a coincidence, we are going to VI from 15 to 22 Jan. We will be staying in Nanaimo and Campbell River. We bought a house in Nanaimo in 2005 in a nice residential area called Diver lake although I do like the more rural atmosphere of Jinglepot. Our renters say it is a nice area and has a good school nearby. We will be landing on this trip, but unfortunatley we cant move over until Oct 2008 If I can be of any more help just ask.

Graeme and Sue

Hi retro,

thanks for the comments, where you flying from? We are doing the manch - vanc with zoom, and looking forward to it judging by the zoom thread comments.

I work on Wilton at teeside, and we live in Newton Aycliffe, what about you?


Mike

Hi guys, not been on for a while and there seems to be a flurry of people coming here! Enjoy your trips and let me know if I can help.

Hi to you all on this thread, great minds think alike!!

Love reading all your comments regarding Nanaimo and the wonderful Vancouver Island. We went on our 1st recky visit in Feb '05, did lots of travelling around Vancouver and the island, but all in all felt that Nanaimo was the place for us. We left having started the purchase of a property in the Jinglepot area, it's beautiful and is my dream home We are planning to run our own business in Nanaimo and purchased our property to operate an upscale, boutique style B&B and am looking forward to putting all our business plans into operation. The only problem being we are still in the UK awaiting the completion of our sw application :curse:.

Our daughter is 18yrs and is hoping to continue her studies at the Malaspina University College in Nanaimo, while our son who is 13yrs is already enrolled to start at the Nanaimo District Secondary School. We meet with the education department on our last visit (Oct '06) and took a tour of the school. Everyone is so helpful and even rec'd a call from the principal during the Summer '07 regarding the settlement of our son into the school.

Mike & Wendy, I can recommend and give you contact details of the realtor we used when we purchased our property in Feb '05. She was fantastic, and has lots of local knowledge & information for Nanaimo, so good she has now become a personal friend. You only need one realtor as they have access to all the property for sale. Have you checked out where you can find all the property listings for Canada and can drill down to find what particular areas you're looking for.

We all can't wait to arrive at our new house to start our new life in Nanaimo. We applied at the begin of Jun '05, returned our upto date info end of May '07, but still haven't heard from the CHC, who appear to have come to a grinding halt on the visa processing of application beyond May '05. So now we have to reside ourselves to the fact we'll be spending another Xmas in the UK . but are keeping our fingers crossed that we may get there for sometime in the New Year .

Good Luck with your trip, and yes Zoom Airlines are very good and would have no hesitation in recommending them.

Great to hear from other islanders!! Would love to invite you to our business opening sometime next spring, (we hope!!).
Best wishes
Sue

Hello 'almost' neighbour .................. our 18yr old daughter goes to Mal U also

Just to 'wet ur whistle' a photo from the Uni car park......

Hi Bananahammock

You sound as crazy as us would love to get together once we're landed. Our house is very near to the Shady Mile Way and a very short distance from the Farmers Market on Jinglepot Rd.

Thanks for the photo, you make us feel

Keep intouch Sue x

Are you gonna be at Benson Meadows then? ................. we live about 2mins from the Shady Mile, went there last night and videoed (sp?) the hundreds & hundreds of pumpkins put there for all to see there were even people there with bags of tealights re-lighting the pumpkins that had gone out

Hard to see on the photo but the welcome sign is a carved pumpkin for each letter

Nice photo's B/H mine didn't come out - camera shake (technical term Eh)

living in the comox valley i'm not much help about nanaimo - but:

welcome to vancouver island!

...............well it was a bit chilly . I took a short video but I don't know how to post it duh!!!