Southern California
 

Hi All

I am moving to Southern California (on L1-B Visa) in the next two weeks. I shall be staying with family for a short while and working out of Aliso Veijo (but my job does involve travel) can anyone give me any advice or ideas on the following:

1) Ideas on where to live - commuting times - good areas etc.
I have posted a thread before but thought I would start a fresh as I have some further ideas.

I was thinking about San Clemente as far north as Huntingdon Beach - but I do not know any areas in between.

- Also my wife shall more than likely be working in San Diego - so we need a balance between Aliso and San Diego - so I was thinking around North San Diego - Cardiff etc

We are a young couple and are keen on surfing so a short walk to the beach would be ideal.

Budget wise we were looking at no more than 2750 a month.

Any advice?

2) Car Hire. During my first month I was thinking of hiring a car - can anyone suggest any alternatives or good hire firms? I will be on a UK driving license until I get a CA license.

Hope somone can help or make some suggestions!!

Thanks

Re: Southern California
 

Here's advice that you were offered two weeks ago

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=510758

We may be having a San Diego meet-up mid March - I'll keep you posted.

Re: Southern California
 

You would consider living in Huntington Beach and your wife would be working in San Diego? Wow, that would be quite a commute for her.:ohmy:

Re: Southern California
 

I'd put that commute at 1hr 50mins with a 5.15am departure time.....at a guess...

Re: Southern California
 

We went to San Diego last summer for a holiday.....and stayed a bit further away from where we were going (SeaWorld) to save money. :o Couldn't believe the horrible traffic on the freeway and this was in non peak times. :ohmy: I wouldn't want to live down there.....although the weather is very nice. :)

In saying that.....that commute time is really no worse than what my husband currently does now.....

Re: Southern California
 

Yeah.... that's one very busy road, even when it's not rush hour.

Re: Southern California
 

Hi
Thanks for postings - I obviously have already read details from my last thread - I simply wanted to gain further advice after the thread died down from two weeks ago!
With regards a commute from Huntingdon Beach to San Diego - I was after constructive advice - so as you mentioned 1 hr 50 mins is obviously far too long! Living and working in London we are quite used to lengthy commutes but that really is too much!
Cheers

Re: Southern California
 

San Clemente, Dana Point or Laguna Beach may be the ticket. Be careful about cliff-side housing though. The views are spectacular, but the houses are built on sandstone (really soft and unstable) and do occasionally slip off the foundations.

Re: Southern California
 

Hi Clifford,

I mentioned in my last thread that I have a colleague that commutes from Oceanside to the San Diego tech park and he only comes into the office about once a week because of the commute (or at least that's his excuse!). I may be corrected by someone living near AV but I would suspect if you chose to live exactly halfway between AV and San Diego, your wife would be getting the raw end of the deal with a longer commute.

If you are looking closer to San Diego, personally I would avoid Oceanside (although you may find cheaper rents there), but then all the beach towns down the coast - Carlsbad, Leucadia, Encinitas, Cardiff, Solana Beach are lovely. Depending on exactly where your wife ends up working from some of these towns the coaster might be an alternative to driving (have a look at www.sdcommute.com). Public transport is fairly limited but it is worth checking out.

If you travel quite a bit presumably you won't necessarily be doing the commute everyday which is probably another reason to look a bit further south.

As far as accomodation goes you will need to decide on a balance between what kind of place you want and how close to the beach you want to be. If you want to be able to walk to the sand you are likely to be in a much older, smaller place that if you are a short drive away. In most of the towns I mentioned above there is a big premium on housing that is 'west of I-5'.

I can't add much advice about rental cars - our company rented cars from Avis for us when we first got here and there was no problem using a UK driving licence, although you are meant to go and get your CA licence without about 10 days of moving here. Having said that it took us about six months, but I would not necessarily recommend waiting that long!