everyone is. If you get farther out than DC bedroom communities, the VA countryside is extremely conservative. It can be beautiful out in the country, but the people will almost all be the kind of conservative that you would feel unhappy about.

As for retiring in rural VA or PA, don't, unless you are willing to deal with very religious and/or wingnut conservatives. I have personally found PA in general to be a very insular and unfriendly state; my MIL, visiting from Montana, commented, "These people aren't too friendly, are they?" so I'm not the only one who got a weird vibe from PA. And, as I said, VA (outside NoVA and parts of VA Beach) is very conservative. We moved to Richmond from Chattanooga 25 years ago and have had a very hard time making any friends at all. We had no problem in Chattanooga.

I don't know anything about rural NY.

Depending on how much room you need, have you considered renting for the 5 years until you retire? Less hassle.

in the Midwest, my husband in NW PA. So yeah, we know how conservative country people can be. We'll have time to hunt around though so I'm hoping we can find a semi-rural area near a nice, medium size town. At least somewhere more rural with a lower cost of living than So Cal or the outskirts of DC.

liberal towns. The area around each of those towns is breathtakingly beautiful, so you may be happier there. Good luck!

I'm sure many Virginians will respond, and there are a few 'here' from DC suburbs. I'm in Maryland (was in DC for 20+ years) so not an expert.

Cost of living probably comparable to southern CA; your budget sounds reasonable for the area to me.

Wiki tells a lot: In August 2013, CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Vienna, VA third on its list of the 100 best places to live in the United States. In addition to highly ranked public schools,[4] its assets include a downtown with many small businesses, a Washington Metro station with large parking garages (the western terminus of the Orange Line) just south of the town, and a portion of the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park hiker/biker trail cutting through the center of the town. Tysons Corner, a residential, commercial and shopping district, is nearby, as is Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna,_Virginia

Very good schools, and northern Virginia is 'liberal,' compared with some of the rest of Virginia.

As to nature etc, LOTS, a lovely area.

C'mon over!

I wasn't really thinking that until I looked at the map. I wonder what the pros or cons might be but maybe this isn't the place to ask.

Glad to know the budget sounds reasonable. I was looking at homes on Zillow all around the area. I think we'll have to live out from Vienna a bit for breathing room and space for our two big dogs. But it sounds like a nice town.

but sounded reasonable to me.

As to commuting MD - Vienna, I think probably not a good idea; too damn far, aggravates commute issues already expressed, but do visit me! I'm on a river in southern MD, 78 miles from Vienna. However, Vienna is 20 miles from Silver Spring, MD.

Rova-rest of Virginia. I'd sell you my house for 125k but it's 2to6 hours from DC depending on traffic. And I live in a swamp. I'm retiring and moving closer to services, if that gives you any indication of rural Virginia.

I am originally from NYS. Rural NYS.

I find Virginia to be closer to NYS than many people want to acknowledge.

I've been here 20 years and it was wonderful when I had my small farm with horses, donkeys, goats and chickens but they are all gone now and it's just too hard to keep this place up. I am ambivalent about leaving, I sit out on my porch and can't see a house. I spend hours looking at birds and bunnies with old Joe and little ginger, 2 ancient dogs, the last ones left. We talk about all the fun we had with goats, trail rides and swimming in the pond. Sometimes a couple of days go by and I realize I didn't talk to people. I don't know if that's good or bad.

I never knew if it was good or bad either.

Truthfully, I still don't know. I am glad I left and still miss parts of the Hudson valley.

Especially if the fishing is good. But yeah, what a commute that would be!

Check out Loudoun County and Prince William County. I used to live in Woodbridge and I really liked the community and the schools were excellent. But check neighborhoods and schools online fore yourself.

The Vienna Inn and Anita's. Thanks!

and I called it Naziland. Was so glad to leave.

What made you think it was naziland?

and they thought they were perfect and the rest of the country was said to be 'stupid and have bad schools'. The stores I dealt with were horrible, one grocery store manager thought children should not be brought to their premises, and told me I should buy a cow because I bought 2 gallons of milk. I was denied entry to a store once and had to stand in the road to get entrance. One store allowed me to buy an expensive item which was supposed to come in 6 weeks or so and when it didn't come by 8 months later, I asked for my deposit back, the store manager was aghast at my hubris. I also have a retarded daughter and faced prejudice in that area all over the place. My son was kept after school because of it, as I was assumed to be a bad parent. They tell you this right to your face. Most of the parents with handicapped children were assumed to be bad parents if they had handicapped children.

I'm especially sorry to hear you went through the stuff with your son. It's hard for me to imagine anyone being so rude! I hope you're living somewhere you feel better about now.

If it works out and we end up going, we'll just have to hope we're lucky enough to meet mostly nice people. For now though we just need to be somewhere back east because our whole family is there including my parents who are quite elderly and really starting to need help. As much as I love it, California is just too far away.

and our daughter and son-in-law currently live in Ashburn, VA, also in Loudoun County. They love it, as we did. It's a diverse area with lots to do, plenty of shopping, and planned communities.

Good luck to you!

Plans. NoVa has been screwed by the rural dominated legislature for years, so roads are woefully inadequate. There is a train from further out, but I don't know much about it. The further out suburbs, for example, Loudon, were hit hard by the housing downturn and the awful commuting times.

We finally have a Metro general manager who is willing to take the heat and do long deferred maintenance, even though that will mean shutting down lines. He just fired 20 subway managers: a good start. The Silver Line is slowly being extended from Tysons Corner to Dulles Airport. However, the whole system has some inherent limitations which need to be fixed to increase its capacity.

Finding some place close to nature won't be a big problem. In general, the closer in to DC you get, the smaller the lots. On the other hand, stuff grows so damn fast here that I've found it very difficult to keep up with my 0.6 acre lot. Maybe you want my house?

One resource you might check is the Washington Post. Every week they feature an area. The column is called "where we love". Pretty good information.

If you expect your daughter to live with you for college, I think the only public colleges are George Mason and NOVA community college, both of these would be reasonable accessible from Vienna. There are several excellent private universities in the district.

Good luck! If you have other questions I'll try to answer, but I'll be overseas til June 5th. PM me.

I'm kind of a country girl at heart. But I can be happy if I just have a lot of green around me and somewhere nice to take a walk. I'm sure it will all seem amazingly green after living out here for 20 years.

Yes, our daughter will likely live with us for at least the first two years of college and then actually, who knows what direction she'll want to take. The more options the better. A decent community college nearby would be a good option at first anyway.

I'll check out the column you mention, thanks.

If so, you have a lot more options regarding price of housing. Try looking on Zillow for houses along or near the stops on the Metro line. As someone said in this thread Metro is going through some pretty serious issues but we have a new General Manager that is not screwing around when it comes to bringing the system back to the way it should be. You can read about that mess in the Washington post and elsewhere. Having said that I wouldn't let it deter you from moving to NoVa.

Zillow is a pretty good indicator of houses and prices in different areas.

I have been told by friends that Fairfax County has a very good public school system. I don't have children so that was not a factor when we moved to Nova in 2009. I do know that going to NoVa Community college will get you guaranteed admission to these schools. I have a few friends with chidren who were able to take advantage of this program.

We moved from Atlanta and I knew NOTHING about the area.

What I did find VERY useful in trying to decide what neighborhoods would work for us what this forum: http://www.city-data.com/forum/northern-virginia/ It was a tremendous help.

The website itself is far more than a forum, http://www.city-data.com/ so you and really get into the weeds and see the type of area you are looking at via public records like Census reports and local government reports.

At one point you could look up how elections went. That was helpful in seeing whether or not it is a blue, red or purple town.

There are some conservatives in NoVa but generally, it is a liberal blue sea in Virginia.
We live in Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria and our elections are usually primary day.

I hope you can make the move, we love having liberals in Virginia!

Thanks, Ellen!

Also, it's still raining here. SO OVER THIS WEATHER!

This is just not normal.

raining here too, and sunny and high 79 Wednesday!

Can't wait to dig in and see what I can find. I did check a few random towns on Zillow but without understanding the community and commute it's hard to know if any are in places we would want to live. What looks like a reasonable commute on a map may be a traffic nightmare on the ground. Yes, the office is in Vienna, btw.

I have friends all over the place as we're in a home brew club (or 2 or three) -- that really helped us to get to know people all around the region.

I know it's a big undertaking. The job my Husband got was out near Reston. We moved closer to DC because it felt better and he was willing to do a 'Reverse commute'

"... we'd be looking for something to take us to Vienna from somewhere further from the DC area cities."

Okay, now I get it. The job is in Vienna. You would like to live someplace where you can get to Vienna.

Metrorail is not the only game in town. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) operates bus routes, known collectively as Metrobus, too. The bus lines go lots of places the trains don't even get near.

Further, many entities in the DC suburbs run their own bus systems. These systems use city commuter buses. The main point of these separate systems is to channel patrons to Metrorail stations. The independent city of Alexandria has a transit system, and so do Arlington and Fairfax counties. You'll find that the Fairfax Connector bus system provides service to Vienna.

Farther out counties, like Prince William and Loudoun, also have bus service, using over the road buses, to take patrons into the city. These services deliver their passengers either to the Pentagon or stops in downtown DC.

...but Leesburg, Sterling and other communities out Route 50 (Leesburg Pike) are quite green and beautiful. That's where I would begin to look if I were moving back to the area.

I LOVED living in the D.C. metro area. Lived in Reston, and Fairfax, and Falls Church. I commuted from Falls Church to Georgetown by bus, and it wasn't bad at all.

Mmmm. Now I miss it!

My first sight of D.C. is one I will never forget. Flying in to National Airport, taking the shuttle to the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. The lights, the air, the Mall. Nothing like it for a feeling of fizz.

The good news, working in Vienna makes living further west an option. Warren ton is nice and has pretty good schools. Virginia has a great state university system, UVA, William & Mary, VA Tech, Old Dominion, James Madison, George Mason, Christopher Newport, all very good schools and all very reasonable priced for instate students.

On the down side, 350000 does not buy much of a house in northern VA.

Hope you move here. We need every Democratic vote we can get our hands on.

The northern part of the state is very democratic and somewhat progressive as are parts of tidewater, and Richmond. The loss of coal and tobacco jobs has made rural VA even more bitter and angry and hostile to democrats, but not always the democratic message.

Hope we can welcome you to northern va

with hiking/biking trails and lots of wildlife. There are 2 commuter train stations in Burke that run to DC during rush hours.
Fairfax County has great schools.
Most of No. Va is blue.

It looked pretty nice. I have a map of housing affordability I've been checking out because our budget tops out at about 350k. It shows that just south of the Burke area in the Woodbridge / Lake Ridge area homes are a little more affordable. Is that true? I guess that would be Prince William County? I can't tell how much of a commute it would be to Vienna. Burke would probably be easier. Is there a train from Burke to Vienna? There's a metro station right across the street from the office I would be in. (Which is in Vienna or maybe more like Tysons Corner?) But I don't know what line it is. I think it goes from somewhere around Gainesville to downtown DC, which doesn't help me any unless I move out toward Gainesville.

happening. You might want to get in touch with the local democrats' group to get ideas for liberal enclaves as well as neighborhoods that might fit the bill for your other preferences. They could probably suggest a dem realtor if you're interested in talking to someone over the phone as you make your decision.

I'm in fairfax county, and we desperately need more Dems in Loudon... FWIW, your vote will mean more there than most places in the country.

http://loudoundemocrats.org

https://www.facebook.com/LoudounDemocrats/

While the orange line starts in Vienna, the silver will be extended over the next several years, so you might want to look at a map of that; seems there should be buses from the silver in Reston to Vienna. Also buses from all around the area go to the Vienna metro, but I'm not familiar with how to get from the Vienna metro to where your work will be, since the station isnt near the town's commercial area. Maybe the employer's relocation person could give you more info on that, or really, any realtor can as well. Some employers have commuting boards, as well.

One if the bonuses there would be close proximity to genealogy records. I have ancestors from those two counties.

I know I can get a lot of info from the company if/when the relocation happens. But for now I'm just trying to decide if living in the area really is right for us (and our budget) before I push for the transfer.

other locations, if you haven't searched for that yet.

I've lived in a number of other states and parts of the country (Midwest, south, New England) and love it here. A wealth of interesting things to do, including cultural, outdoorsy etc. in easy distance. The weather is pretty decent and many, many people you meet do interesting, public-oriented work.

Good luck with your choice...