Steve_

The one thing I'll say about Kelowna is you absolutely need a car. Can't quite understand it because there are so many old people there. Even by Calgary standards it is extremely car dependent for getting around.

Theoldfields

Sounds fun. We have a ten year old yellow lab we brought with us from England plus the puppy. Just up the road from you at Predator.

scrubbedexpat091

Unless in Metro Vancouver (and even there some area's have less then ideal transit) you pretty much need a car anywhere else in BC if you value time.

Theoldfields

For sure.

Stinkypup

Posh golfers eh?!

BristolUK

But there are a ton of properties on mls with "walk scores" even better than we have at our house, where just about every food or household item one could need is within a ten minute walk.

And there's a bus service.

What's this great need for a car? (serious question)

Theoldfields

Don't think I've ever been called that before but I've definitely been called worse

scrubbedexpat091

You can probably get around okay without a car if you live in the right area's, but outside of Metro Vancouver, transit in BC isn't all that great, can be time consuming, limited schedules, and less then ideal things, but they do have transit, and well if you pick the right location can probably do without a car.

I went years without a car in an area with basic transit services, I walked everywhere and made sure I lived in an area within walking distance of the basic things and used the bus when needed.

BristolUK

That's the impression I'm getting from Kelowna.

Sometimes people get so used to a car it becomes a need. Back in Bristol, for example, people used to say their car gave them door to door convenience. And for some it did.

But most people travelling into the city by car to work didn't have a workplace carpark. While it was convenient at the home end, at the workplace end they'd have to find a residential street on the edge of town and walk (or bus it from there anyway) or use a city carpark at a fee way more than the bus would cost and still have a 15 minute walk anyway.

So they'd spend more to park and very often walk further than bus users as well.

But I digress. We live five minutes walk from the hospital, a big Shoppers Drugmart, 4 full service banks, 2 buildings full of suites for dentists and doctors, a grocery store, 2 Chinese take-aways, a Dominos, Vietnamese restaurant, French/Korean restaurant/bakery and an Indian restaurant.
Another five minutes takes in the liquor store and some fast food places and the sports centre/pool, baseball venue (not that I've been). Canadian Tire, Home Hardware, Giant Tiger, Dollarama all within 25 minutes.

Buses to both ends of town are better than every 15 minutes and the stop is 5 minutes up the road. Different bus stop over at the hospital takes me to different places.

Bus is $2.25 a trip or less if you buy advance tickets. Could be as little as $1. The $2 or $4.50 will take in all the colleges, sports venues, cinemas, theatres, concert venues, hospitals...you name it.

A 'big shop' involves a return journey by taxi for $10 or $12 depending on which store used. The city is exceptionally well served by taxis.

MLS has so many places in Kelowna with similar or better walk scores than ours.

Of course the bus service may not be as good and maybe there are not as many taxis. But then there's this big shiny wet thing in the locality whereas we only have local parks and a more expensive taxi is needed to get us to our beach

the_tones_guy

This is also one of the HUGE reasons in moving to kelowna, there is everything there, in NL, you're limited with shops and places to go, it's an island etc... Quick question for the locals, are there are new build sub divisions going up you can link me too?

Theoldfields

You could look at this one

New Townhomes For Sale | Lower Mission Kelowna | Brighton

Its based in the Lower Mission area

jossie

For info, here are a couple of new developments just down the road in Penticton:
Sendero Canyon Homes | Penticton's New Planned Community or Skaha Hills Homes | Penticton Real Estate for Sale

BristolUK

At that price, looking is all I can do.

Steve_

When I was nosing around Upper Mission last time I was there, there were virtually zero shops, certainly no grocery-type shops. So it's about 12km to get into the centre of town. There is a small Save-On-Foods about 6-7 km up the road but that's not near.

Click on the link for those townhouses, see where they are and do a search on Google Maps for "supermarkets". To get to the Real Canadian Superstore which is the nearest big supermarket is 8km.

That does not qualify as "walking distance" for "shopping districts" to me.

And that's Lower Mission, Upper Mission is even further.

And what if you want to go outside of Kelowna?

Steve_

I thought Penticton was a bit of a dump compared to Kelowna when I had a look around it.