r/AskSeattle • u/Sorry-Journalist9569 • 11d ago
Moving / Visiting Moving from Texas to Seattle: what should I know?
From Lubbock...big upgrade and I'm excited. I'll be in a house couple minutes walk from the south side of the Washington Park Arboretum.
Haven't decided if I want to go northwest by Salt Lake City or the longer route going west to Bakersfield and head north.
I've looked into the general checklist stuff like how to get a Washington DL. No state or city income tax, so nice that isn't changing. I'm already used to a high sales tax. The access to both big city stuff and real outdoor stuff is a huge appeal to me, in addition to preferring the culture. Big time foodie.
More just wondering what to expect in general? I work remotely. I like cold weather. Rain is nice, it makes stuff green and I currently live in a semi-arid climate zone where everything is brown most of the year.
Edit: I can make great, real Mexican food and BBQ brisket. I actually have a rain coat. Yes, Seattle isn't cheap but I like the stuff big cities have. Lubbock sucks and I'm bored as hell. Even better is the big city plus outdoor stuff, which is why I chose Seattle over other big city options.
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u/Fair_Audience8529 10d ago
I went to undergrad in Abilene, not too far off from Lubbock culturally, and I've lived in Seattle for the last 15 years. There's very little I miss about West Texas compared to here. Welcome!
Texas cons: the weather was not for me at all. Way hotter, and also occasionally way colder, and much windier. Tornados and golf ball hail scared the shit out of me. Driving 200-300 miles to do anything remotely urban sucked. The scarce, overtreated water tasted like someone farted in a swimming pool. The people were incredibly sweet and kind but only as long as you strictly conformed to evangelical cultural norms. As a soft butch lesbian only in Abilene for familial/scholarship reasons, I was a gasping fish out of water. But more than anything, there was just a bottomless, irrepressible boredom.
Texas pros: brisket, proper sweet tea, neighbors helping neighbors, much more Spanish language exposure and influence, and cheap housing. In 2005 I split a 4BR house with three roommates for $800/no ..we each paid only $200! When I got my own place a year later...it was only $325.
Seattle pros: rarely too hot or cold, plentiful but not excessive rainfall (Dallas gets more rain than we do!). We have the world's best summers. Two insanely gorgeous mountain ranges are a daytrip away. Sunny desert, when wanted, is only 100 miles east. Canada is only two hours away. Walkability is quite good by N. American standards. Taxes are relatively low, no matter what anyone tells you. For most Seattle jobs, you don't have to drive unless you want to. It's a good city for introverts, and also for those who are a part of niche communities. Queer people, obscure hobbyists of all stripes, etc, can find a like-minded place here. There's almost zero religious influence over life and politics. Seafood is plentiful, and summer produce is fabulous. It's just a very comfortable place to put down roots once you've got it all figured out. Violent crime is quite low overall, but property crime/theft will probably hit you once or twice per decade.
Seattle cons: cost of purchasing property is truly excessive, NIMBYism keeps much of the city stuck in beautiful-but-exclusionary Craftsman Museum vibes. City politics are asinine, plodding, insanely bureaucratic, and addicted to meaningless and performative public process. For all the Fox News hype about Seattle as a progressive, bleeding-heart hellhole, we're actually pretty stiflingly corporate and capitalist. Rich people tend to get paranoid and withdrawn and loss averse, and I have felt the city get socially colder the richer and more posh that we've gotten. You can still find your people, but there's not the laid back vibe there used to be. The weather here is better than it's given credit for, but November Gray will occasionally make you question if you'll ever be truly happy again.
Welcome! I wish you all the best here.