>>>Other than the research required for locating a good job, have you visited the states before? Would you prefer everything being located closeby, mass transit, walking to the corner grocery store or wide open spaces, driving an hour to work and few neighbors? Hot dry weather, cold damp winters, or hot sticky summers? Tornadoes, earthquakes, snow storms, or hurricanes? No snow or 3 feet of snow? Virtually no rain or 39 inches of rain a year? All scenarios exist in the U.S. in different locations.
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>>Umm, no. Located closeby please, walk to grocery store,
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>Sorry, doesn't exist here. The shops are in their own ghettos (most of them), and the residential ghettos have no shops at all. You may be lucky to find one of the few places where there's any point of interest within walking distance, and isn't New York.

Ah I was half joking really, we have a supermarket about 1000 years from house, but we still drive lol.

>>I'm also young, it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. Apart from that the high tax, national insurance costs, petrol, quality of living, stupidly high house prices for nothing, cost of living way too high, not enough opportunities for work, and oh yes, a bit of sunshine a year isn't too much to ask :-)
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>Despite the abundance of rain on East Coast, it's better distributed. You get heavy rain now and then, but most of the time it doesn't last that long. Also, every imaginable surface you may want to step on is either under concrete or under grass, so if you like mud, you have to produce your own.
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>>No problem with driving.....
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>Driving is much simpler here than in Europe - first, the roads are so much wider, and the parking lots are everywhere. Plus, an average car slot is suited for those huge trucks, so you can be as clumsy with manouvering as you want, it will pass unnoticed.

The wife will be ok then < g >

>The trouble, however, is that you need the car for everything. Haven't really seen a place where you can live and then just walk a block to buy what you need. The distances are hard to imagine. This requires some thiking ahead - I know our shopping habits have changed a lot here - you make sure you are stocked up for about 3-4 days ahead, because if you find you're missing something, it's an average of 3 miles to get out of the residential area and into a shop area. We've bought bicycles 18 months ago, and so far it was only once that I got on the bike to go and buy something, because I knew they had it at the gas station (below one mile away). Had I not found it there, I'd have to pedal back home to take the car. So if you're thinking of the little shop at the corner, forget it. In NYC only.

Yeah I'm lazy like that anyway, the car here is used for "everything", no matter how close somewhere is, I have no problem with that, but I have even less problem over there as the petrol is so much cheaper than it is over here.

Kev