A couple girl friends and I are thinking of planning a trip to Bellingham near the end of October. (25-27th)
Any ideas of things to do. We have never been before and are trying to plan a trip that's only 3-4 hours from here and that's as far south as we can make it.
I live in Bellingham, so it depends on what you like doing.
There are several places that have some nice hikes if you like hiking. There are whale watching tours out of the harbor, as previously mentioned.
There are about 6 breweries open in town, if ou like microbrews. Some are quite good.
Mount Baker theater has events going on the 24-26th, I believe it is Dracula (we have tickets).
Saturday, there is a large market downtown, where not only do the have farm offerings, but restaurants cook and there are some artisan things.
*butts in thread* can you tell me more about life in bellingham? i passed through on a trip and thought it was 1) beautiful and 2) a great middle point between seattle and vancouver. what are the pros and cons of living there, if you don't mind sharing? TIA!
I live in Bellingham, so it depends on what you like doing.
There are several places that have some nice hikes if you like hiking. There are whale watching tours out of the harbor, as previously mentioned.
There are about 6 breweries open in town, if ou like microbrews. Some are quite good.
Mount Baker theater has events going on the 24-26th, I believe it is Dracula (we have tickets).
Saturday, there is a large market downtown, where not only do the have farm offerings, but restaurants cook and there are some artisan things.
*butts in thread* can you tell me more about life in bellingham? i passed through on a trip and thought it was 1) beautiful and 2) a great middle point between seattle and vancouver. what are the pros and cons of living there, if you don't mind sharing? TIA!
I don't mind at all. I officially moved here last summer, but have been here since I got sick in 2011. I moved out here when I became disabled and had to leave my job.
Weatherwise, I like it way more than Lexington, KY (where I came from). Summers are less hot, winters less cold. What I'm not used to is roads don't get plowed here the few times it snows. We had about a foot of very wet snow last year, and were lucky to be able to get off this road. Both of us drive AWD cars, so that helps a lot. We also lost power for a few days.
Costwise, I think it is fairly expensive. Bellingham regularly has the highest gas prices in the state. Food is quite a bit higher than I am used to too. Since I have gotten more mobile and started shopping and cooking, I've noticed it a lot more. While housing is cheaper than both Seattle and Vancouver, it is still pretty high here.
We have season tickets to the symphony, Mount Baker Theater and Pacific Northwest Ballet, in Seattle so this is pretty much what we do for entertainment since I'm not horribly mobile. We probably go up to Vancouver more than Seattle. My doctors are in Seattle, so that (the ballet and the airport) are probably the only reasons we head south.
One thing I discovered here is that getting into and decent primary health doc or dentist as a new patient is difficult.
I'm looking at getting back into the workforce in the next couple of years. I was a scientist in my past life and had job offerings in both Seattle and Vancouver. However, I'm really not mobile enough to be able to handle city living, nor could I physically handle that commute, so I'm cross training into the engineering field. There is not a huge call for basic scientists in town. Locally, there are at least 4 engineering consulting firms and a load of refineries, so am looking in this direction as they are the higher paying jobs in the area. For a city that is not inexpensive, it seems that a lot of the jobs are pretty low paying.
Shopping pickings are pretty slim around here, unfortunately. I do a lot of ordering online. There are a lot of very good restaurants around here, not as good as Seattle though.
Post by peppermint on Sept 11, 2014 8:12:52 GMT -5
mich1 thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! i'm sorry to hear you were sick but am glad to hear that you are on the up and up now.
very interesting also to learn that you moved from lexington. i'm only about an hour north of there, so what you said about the weather is one of the main draws for me to move out of the midwest!
the info you gave is really helpful. i visited seattle and vancouver for the first time this past march and just fell in love with the PNW, as i knew i would. i'm starting to think (aka daydream) about moving out there, and bellingham stuck out to me as the perfect middle point between seattle and vancouver. i was hoping it was more affordable, but it sounds like the cost of living (compared to the midwest, anyway) is still pretty high.
thank you so much again for your reply! i hope your crosstraining goes well and you continue to get more and more mobile and feeling better!
As my metric is Midwest, small city living for prices, I was just a little surprised at how high costs were for a smaller city than Lexington. If you go south, to Marysville (about 40 miles south) ..or even Burlington or Mount Vernon (20-25 miles) the prices do drop quite a bit.
I think that since we are the closest city to the Canadian border (20 miles) that that drives prices considerably. Gas, and just about everything else is considerably more in BC so very large part of Bellingham's sales taxes are paid by Canadians. I suspect that this keeps the prices high in town.
I do really like living here though.....I've done the big city bit when I lived in Boston and San Antonio and appreciate the slower pace here.