I find it frustrating too but there’s more than people give it credit for. The lack of public interest/sharing of stuff like the Little Grand Canyon of Mississippi/Red Bluff (2 hours), Tunica Hills/Clark Creek waterfalls (2 hours), Bonnet Carré spillway trail (30 mins), Bogue Chitto (1.5 hours) makes it harder.
There’s also a good amount of truly worthwhile mountains in the 4-5 hour range, which isn’t that bad for weekend getaways. Around Birmingham (Oak Mountain, Coldwater Mountain, 5 hours), around Natchitoches (Longleaf Vista, 4 hours), around Ruston (Driskill Mountain, 5 hours). And pretty decent hiking in Kisatchie in the 2.5-3 hour range around Alexandria.
Portland (specifically) weather honestly isn’t bad. I went from Louisiana to living in Southern California near the beach to Portland. You get used to the winter and it doesn’t get as cold/snow like it does in a lot of other states. The spring/summer is insanely beautiful, too.
I work for UW and my wife and I keep tossing around the idea of moving to Seattle. It's tough because it's so far from our family but it's such a beautiful area and city.
Understand. I contrast moving back to Colorado vs here and I can't even begin to believe I could afford a basic house that is going for $700k. My family still lives there and it's insane compared to New Orleans metro.
Hey, same here! I moved back up there in 2018. My wife and I dated long distance with me being down here, and I made the move Sept 11 2018. Could not make any moves until her oldest son was out of high school, December 2021 we packed up our cars and U-Haul and we bought a house in New Orleans
I totally understand. the car insurance def is a pain, but my wife does well working remote for a WA corporation and I am remote as well… so we are making it work
I was gone for fifteen years. Moved back when our twins were ten weeks old. They are eleven now. You see things more clearly having been away, but I am glad to be home and raising our girls as New Orleanians.
I have a podcast about a New Orleans and a published book. I’m a 7th generation New Orleanian, and I think the people who say you need my lineage are full of shit 🤣
I’ve met plenty of new New Orleanians far more appreciative of the culture, but I’m aware of the bias. 🤷🏼♂️
Took me four years. Four very long years. I moved to the Nashville area with an open mind and a sense of facing a new adventure. Mistake #1: moved to the suburbs. After having everything I could want within a 10 minute walk, the 10 minute drive to get anywhere was more oppressive than I anticipated. Mistake #2: assuming that I'd "find my people" in a deep red state. I had nice neighbors with whom I could chat while watering my flowers in the yard, but that's as deep a conversation I had in 4 years. This was exacerbated by COVID, with anti-vax sentiment the rule there, as well as all the associated craziness and nastiness. Mistake #3: thinking I could find a place to feel at home in a place where everyone is 1 color, 1 religion, and 1 mindset. Mistake #4: thinking listening to OZ, importing crawfish, and making a couple trips home per year could sustain me. It cant. It might've just helped me realize you can't replicate what we got at home. I liked having 4 beautiful seasons there, and a big yard and big house, and great public schools, and safe and smooth streets, but it was not living. Relaxing on my front stoop drinking a beer, talking to my neighbor on his porch across the street, sweating through my shirt, listening to the faint sound of music from the Maple Leaf on the next block last June was like waking up from a coma.
I moved to arkansas 1 week before Katrina, and not a single minute there was spent not wanting to move back, and I finally had the money to do it after 6 months.
I moved in November of last year. I'm just now starting to think I might have made a mistake.
I'm trying to do the pros and cons; crime there, noise there, rent there going up, no jobs there, never felt like I really fit in there. Constant stress and worry and irritation with so much of the city.
But...Bayou St John, Napoleon House, the houses and streets and trees and smells and characters. My best friend is still there, I miss him more than I ever dreamed I would. I miss being able to go into a bar at any hour, no judgement, and the strong possibility I may have a great conversation. The Cleopatra parade was always one of my favorites, it reminded me every year of the happiness I experienced on the parade routes. So I've been very depressed since last Friday. I've referred to New Orleans as "home" to my friends and family here recently and they give me alarmed looks.
This will sound like whining but...it's so fucking cold here! Cold in my house, cold in my car, cold in everyone's house I know. I feel like the only time I'm warm is in my bed. Yes, the heat and humidity and hurricanes suck in New Orleans, but I'd rather that than being cold all the time.
I don't know. I almost got shot in Baskin Robbins there last year and it freaked me out and I left. But I think it's home. Maybe I should try again.
I moved away to a very cold place and it was miserable. Wanted to come back the second I got there. Finally came back after 2 years and now am probably getting priced out
I grew up here (not born but moved here when 9yo) and moved away in 1988 because it was a hard time to be young, broke, and wearing out your parents’ kindness. My friends and I were all competing for the same shitty $4/hour jobs. So I took my dad up on a deal to move to Birmingham where I was born. I ended up staying there almost 23 years: college, grad school, boyfriend, good job. But all that time I missed being here, so I came back in 2011.
It’s mostly good, but I feel like it’s changed a lot here. All I know is that every time I away more than a week, I get antsy to be home. Ida almost broke me. Climate change and increased hurricanes and the whole flood/homeowners insurance situation is getting to be too much, but I’m not quite ready to dip out just yet.
Two years. I moved to get away from a relationship and start a new job. NYC was awesome but I missed NO so much I was back every few months. My second Mardi Gras as a visitor, I brought my then-boyfriend down and he was like, Yes. So we moved and now we have a yard and dogs and a Mardi Gras krewe.
Since the late 90's, not including Katrina, twice...both less than 3 months. It couldn't work if you are too much of an older New Orleanian.
Once pre-K was to NYC where the girl I followed had a bartending job that most anyone would be jealous of, I didn't have to pay for drinks or drugs, and I still came back after 4 months. It was funny, the reason I say older New Orleanian is there were no such things as leases anywhere I rented, I had no phone numbers of anyone I rented from and was fully unable to prove I was a real person when I went to a real city.
I realized my New Orleanian-ness had me swamped down and unable to leave.
Now, rentals here suck like everywhere else, so others would not have that problem today.
It was not my decision to leave in June 2019, and while I have been successful in the new town, anytime someone asks where I'm from, the answer is New Orleans. Some ask if I'll go back, and I say **As Soon As Possible**, which is informed by my co-parenting situation. I will live near my son until he decides to move away from his mom.
The day I know where he's moving, I return to New Orleans.
It took me three years -- the covid was a hard nudge
I'd moved for work and was already desperately homesick living away, like to the point I'd involuntarily cry throughout my visits, knowing I was about to leave again in a few days. When the pandemic came, it made me realize no job is worth spending the rest of my life away from the people I care about and this city, which is so much a part of who I am
It was a great career. I loved it and was good at it. I still feel sad that it couldn't go on. But there really is no place like home
I had to leave after Katrina to find work. I am planning to move back next year. My family actually immigrated through to port of New Orleans in the 1700s. I just feel like i need to be there.
I, too, became exiled in the Katrina Diaspora because I lived in Lakeview.
And I would love to come back if the city was like it was before Katrina. Hell even Lakeview ain’t Lakeview anymore. I feel sorry for y’all who weren’t here to experience it then. This city never got back the heart it had before we were spread like the wind across the US.
19. At year 18, I actually said “I love this city but could never live here again.” Six months later realized it was time to come home. Life takes some turns.
One year. After two decades I don’t seem to function outside of this crazy place. It’s not ideal but at some point it will either cost too much, the political situation may get too bad,
or I’ll just not be able to deal with hurricanes anymore and I will have no choice about leaving.
So far, 47 years. But seriously, not like I don’t miss it often. From a small town in east Texas, moving to New Orleans as a young kid was like my first breath of real life. But then being so often drunk from age 13 to 16, I’ve needed a few decades to dry out.
Well I had to leave the year after Katrina bc my job transferred me to Houston. Just moved back in January and I’ll be here until I go in the family tomb haha
Edit: last January I mean.
I spent the first twenty five years of my life here. Left for California, burnt out on the animation industry, eventually moved here three days before Katrina. Lost 90% of my stuff and ended up with friends in Boston, then in Seattle; all told it was about fourteen years before I decided I could not take any more northern winters. I came pretty close to going back to Los Angeles again for another go at animation but decided I’m just not enough of a workaholic for that.
I came back here in early 2019. Even with the pandemic making a mess of everything the next year it was still better than more miserable Seattle winters.
Today marks 10 years that I left New Orleans for the West Coast. I miss it dearly, of course, but I don’t think I’d ever move back. My entire family is still there, so I visit often, but I just don’t see it as a place I could move back to.
This is probably where your emotional side of wanting to be in New Orleans is conflicting with your rational side of not wanting to deal with crime, hurricanes, high insurance bills, etc.
That’s exactly it, sadly. The heat+humidity is also a big thing for me. I know it’s not up there with the things you listed, but I feel like I couldn’t live in a humid place again. I definitely will never find a place like New Orleans as far as the people, culture, food, music, etc. goes but I gotta do what I gotta do for my family and I.
Moved to Austin and came back two years later almost to the day. You can take the girl to a well run city, but you can't take the New Orleans out of her! I came home once a month while I was there and it was missing my first mardi gras and hurricane that made me want to come back!
This is a subject I am struggling with myself. Truthfully, some terrible things happened to me there, but I can't seem to shake it no matter how hard I try. I miss my friends, food, hangouts, and haunts. I don't miss the abject piece-of-shit drinking I indulged in, but that's on me. The problem is I have an awesome person I'm with, but I won't say I like the area we are currently in, and I'm confident it'll be the end of the relationship if I make a big deal about it. I was forced out to take care of a family member, and I really miss it. A lot, a lot, a lot. I would really like to go back but jobs and all of that are a bit of an issue at the moment.
It’s been almost 10 years but I don’t think I’ll ever make it back at least not as a full time resident. I loved living in Colorado but got priced out of there and just got priced out of Tampa, Fl so not really sure what my plans are now.
Siblings have been gone for over a decade and they all said they are never coming back. I’m still here and haven’t left. It’s finally getting bad enough I’m considering leaving but for all the bad, there’s some good reasons to stay. It’s tough. If we can get crime under control and maybe a voucher program for private schools, leaving wouldn’t even be considered for me.
My father was in the Navy and we got sent to Annapolis Maryland in 1983 when I was five years old. I moved back here to New Orleans about five years ago or so. It took me 30+ years to get back here but I finally did it and I’m so glad.
Moved to Austin, Texas after Katrina thinking that it would be able to match the “weirdness” of home. I lasted just over two years there before finally moving back. I always knew I was going to move back eventually, but I thought I’d be able to last a bit longer than 26 months.
Moved last August to go to school in Ohio and shack up with my folks, couldn't afford to live there anymore and the jobs that don't require a certificate or degree are soul killing
I moved to Boston in Oct 2012. I was back in time for the Super Bowl (Sponsored by Entergy). I moved again in Aug 2022 so the clock is running again I guess.
Moved 3 months ago and doubt I'll ever move back. I'll visit, but life is easier where I'm at. Better pay, better job, don't have to watch my six at all times...
Took my parents (both born and raised here/BR) about a year of living in San Francisco in the late 70’s to come back. Took me 5/6 years to get back after Katrina.
I left in 2016 because my husband got his "dream job," and I was not happy about leaving. Been trying to get back ever since, and it looks like it's happening in the next couple of months. (I visit constantly.)
[удалено]
The hike in the mountains. Just a cherry on top. I hate that we have...like... no outdoor recreation.
I find it frustrating too but there’s more than people give it credit for. The lack of public interest/sharing of stuff like the Little Grand Canyon of Mississippi/Red Bluff (2 hours), Tunica Hills/Clark Creek waterfalls (2 hours), Bonnet Carré spillway trail (30 mins), Bogue Chitto (1.5 hours) makes it harder. There’s also a good amount of truly worthwhile mountains in the 4-5 hour range, which isn’t that bad for weekend getaways. Around Birmingham (Oak Mountain, Coldwater Mountain, 5 hours), around Natchitoches (Longleaf Vista, 4 hours), around Ruston (Driskill Mountain, 5 hours). And pretty decent hiking in Kisatchie in the 2.5-3 hour range around Alexandria.
You need to have a boat to have outdoor recreation around here.
Colorado?
[удалено]
Nice. I've always been intrigued by PNW, but idk if I could handle the weather
I think if you can handle the weather in NOLA, you can handle the weather anywhere. :)
Have you felt -50 wind chill tho
Yup, it inspired me to buy my 1st down coat. Now I don't feel any wind chill 🤣🤣🤣
I have a down alternative, it definitely works in WI winters
Good point, but I'd rather not make a lateral move
Portland (specifically) weather honestly isn’t bad. I went from Louisiana to living in Southern California near the beach to Portland. You get used to the winter and it doesn’t get as cold/snow like it does in a lot of other states. The spring/summer is insanely beautiful, too.
Nice. That's our plan one day. I love that state.
I work for UW and my wife and I keep tossing around the idea of moving to Seattle. It's tough because it's so far from our family but it's such a beautiful area and city.
I would imagine Washington is more expensive than living here is.
[удалено]
Understand. I contrast moving back to Colorado vs here and I can't even begin to believe I could afford a basic house that is going for $700k. My family still lives there and it's insane compared to New Orleans metro.
[удалено]
holy crap.
Hey, same here! I moved back up there in 2018. My wife and I dated long distance with me being down here, and I made the move Sept 11 2018. Could not make any moves until her oldest son was out of high school, December 2021 we packed up our cars and U-Haul and we bought a house in New Orleans
[удалено]
I totally understand. the car insurance def is a pain, but my wife does well working remote for a WA corporation and I am remote as well… so we are making it work
[удалено]
Props! I think when we looked in WA, we couldn’t find anything under 700k. Def was able to get something in LA for 325k but we only pay 2% apr
I was gone for fifteen years. Moved back when our twins were ten weeks old. They are eleven now. You see things more clearly having been away, but I am glad to be home and raising our girls as New Orleanians.
sorry bud, according to this sub and new orleans rules, your kids are transplants
I have a podcast about a New Orleans and a published book. I’m a 7th generation New Orleanian, and I think the people who say you need my lineage are full of shit 🤣 I’ve met plenty of new New Orleanians far more appreciative of the culture, but I’m aware of the bias. 🤷🏼♂️
Took me four years. Four very long years. I moved to the Nashville area with an open mind and a sense of facing a new adventure. Mistake #1: moved to the suburbs. After having everything I could want within a 10 minute walk, the 10 minute drive to get anywhere was more oppressive than I anticipated. Mistake #2: assuming that I'd "find my people" in a deep red state. I had nice neighbors with whom I could chat while watering my flowers in the yard, but that's as deep a conversation I had in 4 years. This was exacerbated by COVID, with anti-vax sentiment the rule there, as well as all the associated craziness and nastiness. Mistake #3: thinking I could find a place to feel at home in a place where everyone is 1 color, 1 religion, and 1 mindset. Mistake #4: thinking listening to OZ, importing crawfish, and making a couple trips home per year could sustain me. It cant. It might've just helped me realize you can't replicate what we got at home. I liked having 4 beautiful seasons there, and a big yard and big house, and great public schools, and safe and smooth streets, but it was not living. Relaxing on my front stoop drinking a beer, talking to my neighbor on his porch across the street, sweating through my shirt, listening to the faint sound of music from the Maple Leaf on the next block last June was like waking up from a coma.
There's no place like home ❣️❣️❣️
I moved to arkansas 1 week before Katrina, and not a single minute there was spent not wanting to move back, and I finally had the money to do it after 6 months.
I moved in November of last year. I'm just now starting to think I might have made a mistake. I'm trying to do the pros and cons; crime there, noise there, rent there going up, no jobs there, never felt like I really fit in there. Constant stress and worry and irritation with so much of the city. But...Bayou St John, Napoleon House, the houses and streets and trees and smells and characters. My best friend is still there, I miss him more than I ever dreamed I would. I miss being able to go into a bar at any hour, no judgement, and the strong possibility I may have a great conversation. The Cleopatra parade was always one of my favorites, it reminded me every year of the happiness I experienced on the parade routes. So I've been very depressed since last Friday. I've referred to New Orleans as "home" to my friends and family here recently and they give me alarmed looks. This will sound like whining but...it's so fucking cold here! Cold in my house, cold in my car, cold in everyone's house I know. I feel like the only time I'm warm is in my bed. Yes, the heat and humidity and hurricanes suck in New Orleans, but I'd rather that than being cold all the time. I don't know. I almost got shot in Baskin Robbins there last year and it freaked me out and I left. But I think it's home. Maybe I should try again.
I moved away to a very cold place and it was miserable. Wanted to come back the second I got there. Finally came back after 2 years and now am probably getting priced out
I grew up here (not born but moved here when 9yo) and moved away in 1988 because it was a hard time to be young, broke, and wearing out your parents’ kindness. My friends and I were all competing for the same shitty $4/hour jobs. So I took my dad up on a deal to move to Birmingham where I was born. I ended up staying there almost 23 years: college, grad school, boyfriend, good job. But all that time I missed being here, so I came back in 2011. It’s mostly good, but I feel like it’s changed a lot here. All I know is that every time I away more than a week, I get antsy to be home. Ida almost broke me. Climate change and increased hurricanes and the whole flood/homeowners insurance situation is getting to be too much, but I’m not quite ready to dip out just yet.
Two years. I moved to get away from a relationship and start a new job. NYC was awesome but I missed NO so much I was back every few months. My second Mardi Gras as a visitor, I brought my then-boyfriend down and he was like, Yes. So we moved and now we have a yard and dogs and a Mardi Gras krewe.
Since the late 90's, not including Katrina, twice...both less than 3 months. It couldn't work if you are too much of an older New Orleanian. Once pre-K was to NYC where the girl I followed had a bartending job that most anyone would be jealous of, I didn't have to pay for drinks or drugs, and I still came back after 4 months. It was funny, the reason I say older New Orleanian is there were no such things as leases anywhere I rented, I had no phone numbers of anyone I rented from and was fully unable to prove I was a real person when I went to a real city. I realized my New Orleanian-ness had me swamped down and unable to leave. Now, rentals here suck like everywhere else, so others would not have that problem today.
Living here is the only way I can see other places. If I moved away, then all my vacation time would be spent coming back.
Lol
Well put
It was not my decision to leave in June 2019, and while I have been successful in the new town, anytime someone asks where I'm from, the answer is New Orleans. Some ask if I'll go back, and I say **As Soon As Possible**, which is informed by my co-parenting situation. I will live near my son until he decides to move away from his mom. The day I know where he's moving, I return to New Orleans.
It took me three years -- the covid was a hard nudge I'd moved for work and was already desperately homesick living away, like to the point I'd involuntarily cry throughout my visits, knowing I was about to leave again in a few days. When the pandemic came, it made me realize no job is worth spending the rest of my life away from the people I care about and this city, which is so much a part of who I am It was a great career. I loved it and was good at it. I still feel sad that it couldn't go on. But there really is no place like home
8 years, but was ready earlier.
8 Mardi Gras
I had to leave after Katrina to find work. I am planning to move back next year. My family actually immigrated through to port of New Orleans in the 1700s. I just feel like i need to be there.
I, too, became exiled in the Katrina Diaspora because I lived in Lakeview. And I would love to come back if the city was like it was before Katrina. Hell even Lakeview ain’t Lakeview anymore. I feel sorry for y’all who weren’t here to experience it then. This city never got back the heart it had before we were spread like the wind across the US.
I agree with you. Katrina changed everything. I cant explain it, i just feel like i need to be there back home.
19. At year 18, I actually said “I love this city but could never live here again.” Six months later realized it was time to come home. Life takes some turns.
Two years. We had moved to Florida and were driving home most weekends.
2 weeks before I realized we had to move back. 2 years before we did. Never leaving again. Nowhere like it
One year. After two decades I don’t seem to function outside of this crazy place. It’s not ideal but at some point it will either cost too much, the political situation may get too bad, or I’ll just not be able to deal with hurricanes anymore and I will have no choice about leaving.
Year and a half
So far, 47 years. But seriously, not like I don’t miss it often. From a small town in east Texas, moving to New Orleans as a young kid was like my first breath of real life. But then being so often drunk from age 13 to 16, I’ve needed a few decades to dry out.
Well I had to leave the year after Katrina bc my job transferred me to Houston. Just moved back in January and I’ll be here until I go in the family tomb haha Edit: last January I mean.
I was gone 5 years in Denver. I missed the food, I missed Mardi Gras, I missed the intangibles. I just wish we could get our shit together.
7 months. Was in the Navy for 9 years. Came back for grad school and left again. I came back 7 months later. Buying in 6 months.
Left in 2017, coming back in two months ❤️
2 years
I spent the first twenty five years of my life here. Left for California, burnt out on the animation industry, eventually moved here three days before Katrina. Lost 90% of my stuff and ended up with friends in Boston, then in Seattle; all told it was about fourteen years before I decided I could not take any more northern winters. I came pretty close to going back to Los Angeles again for another go at animation but decided I’m just not enough of a workaholic for that. I came back here in early 2019. Even with the pandemic making a mess of everything the next year it was still better than more miserable Seattle winters.
Today marks 10 years that I left New Orleans for the West Coast. I miss it dearly, of course, but I don’t think I’d ever move back. My entire family is still there, so I visit often, but I just don’t see it as a place I could move back to.
This is probably where your emotional side of wanting to be in New Orleans is conflicting with your rational side of not wanting to deal with crime, hurricanes, high insurance bills, etc.
That’s exactly it, sadly. The heat+humidity is also a big thing for me. I know it’s not up there with the things you listed, but I feel like I couldn’t live in a humid place again. I definitely will never find a place like New Orleans as far as the people, culture, food, music, etc. goes but I gotta do what I gotta do for my family and I.
Moved to Austin and came back two years later almost to the day. You can take the girl to a well run city, but you can't take the New Orleans out of her! I came home once a month while I was there and it was missing my first mardi gras and hurricane that made me want to come back!
This is a subject I am struggling with myself. Truthfully, some terrible things happened to me there, but I can't seem to shake it no matter how hard I try. I miss my friends, food, hangouts, and haunts. I don't miss the abject piece-of-shit drinking I indulged in, but that's on me. The problem is I have an awesome person I'm with, but I won't say I like the area we are currently in, and I'm confident it'll be the end of the relationship if I make a big deal about it. I was forced out to take care of a family member, and I really miss it. A lot, a lot, a lot. I would really like to go back but jobs and all of that are a bit of an issue at the moment.
I'm still in the region and want to move back all the time.
One month. Signed a lease and everything.
when I realized what winter was … there is this stuff called snow … not pleasant
I left once with the intention of never coming back. Lasted five months.
Moving out of N.O was the best decision ever for me and I'm never going back.....I really grew to hate New Orleans .
I have a plan to move away for half the year after 30 years here, and i feel anxious about it.
Immediately, but I came back after a few years and thought about how much I missed everything about home everyday while I was away.
It’s been almost 10 years but I don’t think I’ll ever make it back at least not as a full time resident. I loved living in Colorado but got priced out of there and just got priced out of Tampa, Fl so not really sure what my plans are now.
2 years each time.
15 months for a job in DC. Came back here 6 times during the 15 months so I quit my job and moved back.
Siblings have been gone for over a decade and they all said they are never coming back. I’m still here and haven’t left. It’s finally getting bad enough I’m considering leaving but for all the bad, there’s some good reasons to stay. It’s tough. If we can get crime under control and maybe a voucher program for private schools, leaving wouldn’t even be considered for me.
My father was in the Navy and we got sent to Annapolis Maryland in 1983 when I was five years old. I moved back here to New Orleans about five years ago or so. It took me 30+ years to get back here but I finally did it and I’m so glad.
15 years, 6 years ago. Not sure if I want to stay though. The place is just such a mess.
Moved to Austin, Texas after Katrina thinking that it would be able to match the “weirdness” of home. I lasted just over two years there before finally moving back. I always knew I was going to move back eventually, but I thought I’d be able to last a bit longer than 26 months.
I was away for 5-6 years. 2 of those years were in Florida, so all of that. There was always a desire to return.
It's been 23 years. I miss it, I go back once a year. Still got people back there. Not sure I'll ever move back though.
Moved last August to go to school in Ohio and shack up with my folks, couldn't afford to live there anymore and the jobs that don't require a certificate or degree are soul killing
Been gone many years. Now too old and entrenched to move back. Still miss it though. Def gets in your blood and never lets go.
I moved to Boston in Oct 2012. I was back in time for the Super Bowl (Sponsored by Entergy). I moved again in Aug 2022 so the clock is running again I guess.
Moved 3 months ago and doubt I'll ever move back. I'll visit, but life is easier where I'm at. Better pay, better job, don't have to watch my six at all times...
Took my parents (both born and raised here/BR) about a year of living in San Francisco in the late 70’s to come back. Took me 5/6 years to get back after Katrina.
I left in 2016 because my husband got his "dream job," and I was not happy about leaving. Been trying to get back ever since, and it looks like it's happening in the next couple of months. (I visit constantly.)