Moving to a new state

Accessibility: Antonia and David are walking in the center of a 

desolate road amidst the desert mountains.

Accessibility: picture of red rock

mountains. Red Rock Canyon.

Three months ago my husband David and I packed up all our worldly possessions into our mid-sized sedan and made the seven hour drive from Las Vegas, Nevada to the Central California Coast. We changed the desert winds for the sea breeze. We traded desert dust for luscious sand. We swapped impressive red mountains for endless green rolling hills. It was a bitter-sweet day. We had to say goodbye to so many things. Las Vegas was where we came straight out of college and got our first jobs. In Las Vegas we grew, both personally and professionally. It was in this city that we moved into our first apartment together. Sin City witnessed our proposal and our I do’s. We met wonderful people and made life-long connections. However, it was time. We had been thinking about leaving Southern Nevada for quite some time. In no particular order,

Accessibility: picture of a California 

beach. Pismo Beach.

here are some of the things we considered when choosing our new city -some of which were specific to my sight impairment, some of which were not:

• Weather: we both agreed that we wanted a temperate climate. Desert weather was so very harsh in the summer and, let’s face it, not very friendly to persons with albinism. We didn’t want really cold temperatures like the Midwest either as we both lived in Iowa for a while and are not too keen on snow.
• Cost of living: pretty self-explanatory. Can we afford to live there?
• Public transit and walkability: as a legally blind individual I cannot drive (you probably don’t want me behind the wheel anyways!). So, a place that had a good public transit system was a must for me. I also wanted my new city to be walkable. The goal was to gain as much independence as possible.
• Career prospects: again, pretty self-explanatory, but David and I have very different careers and we both want to advance in them. Can we do that in the city we choose?

We knew we wouldn’t be able to hit all of our must haves, but we wanted to get as close as possible. While we did not have a specific city in mind, we tackled two types of places: big cities with really good walkability and public transit (i.e. New York City, Washington, D.C., Seattle, etc.) and college towns, where we knew there would be some sort of public transit structure but, since they were smaller, it would be easier to walk or to take Uber/Lyft. We decided that we would both start looking for jobs in these types of places and, whoever got a job first, that’s where we would move. This is how we ended up in the Central California Coast in San Luis Obispo, a college town of 45,000 people.

Because we knew we would be downsizing from our two-bedroom house to a small one-bedroom apartment or even a studio apartment, we decided it would be best to get rid of all our over-sized furniture and only bring whatever would fit in our car (namely clothes and some wedding gifts we could not leave behind). As we drove past the Las Vegas Strip one last time, we were filled with excitement and anticipation. Neither of us had been to San Luis Obispo before! Some called us crazy, but we were ready for the adventure.

Accessibility: nighttime photo of a white

Spanish-style church in a red brick square.

The number 1772 is at the top of the

building in metal numbers.

Mission San Luis Obispo.

As we drove, the landscape changed from dry desert, to green mountainous terrain with wind farms, to flat fields of farmland, to the beautiful hills of the Central California Coast. When we arrived it was late and dark, so we did not see what San Luis Obispo looked like until the next morning and, boy, was it beautiful! We are surrounded by green hills and mountains, the downtown area and a lot of the houses are older historical building and no two houses look the same. Downtown was buzzling with people walking in and out of shops, cafes and restaurants. We were amazed by how many bikers were on the road and quickly decided that David would bike to work every day.

We had booked a hotel for 10 days since we were arriving without a place to stay. I assumed that this would give us sufficient time to find an apartment and move in, per our previous experience finding rentals in Nevada -oh, we were so wrong! We had booked several showings of different properties during the first two days and we were in for a rude awakening. Finding a place to live in San Luis Obispo is very competitive. In each showing, there were a minimum of two more people looking at the property, at one of the listings I counted at least 20 people checking out a small dated apartment! There were some things we were not willing to compromise in our pursue of a new apartment, below is a list of those things in no particular order:

• Location: we wanted to be within walking distance to downtown so that we could have access to all that this little town has to offer. Also, the bus hub is downtown (very important for me, but more on public transit later). Unfortunately, downtown was a coveted and expensive area so we did not move there.
• Within budget: could we afford the place? Very important and we did not budge on this one.
• Dishwasher and laundry in unit: oh, that was such a short-lived dream! Most places we were looking at had neither. So, we decided we would do our dishes by hand and we bought a small portable washing machine from Black & Decker so that we wouldn’t have to use the coin operated machines on site or go to the laundromat (very important when you are visually impaired, if possible, you don’t want to walk your week’s worth of laundry!).
• Walking distance to public transit: I wanted to live somewhere that was no more than a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, preferably the bus hub downtown. We ended up not moving downtown, but I still have access to several bus lines within a half mile radius.
• Walking distance to pharmacy/supermarket: ideally I would have liked to be less than 10 minutes away from both just so that I could easily do groceries on my own and go to the pharmacy by myself in case David got sick and couldn’t drive. As things stand, we are near a Rite Aid and I use a grocery delivery app to get my groceries.
• Storage space: we knew we were downsizing, but we didn’t necessarily want to share a tiny closet between the two of us. Fortunately, our apartment has plenty of closet space.

Getting a rental in San Luis Obispo felt like a mixture between applying for a very competitive job and playing the lottery. We put in multiple applications -and did I mention we had to extend our hotel stay? This time around, we stayed at a Diamond Resorts property in Avila Beach, less than 10 miles from San Luis Obispo, At this point, David had already started his job and we chose this resort because it offered in unit kitchen and laundry. By now we were out of clean clothes and tired of eating out, so this was perfect. Before our week was up we were approved for the apartment we are living in now.

It was a difficult process and we had to make some serious compromises since we were starting out with just one income and houses are older and more expensive than in Las Vegas. All in all, however, we are very happy with the choice we made.

To this point, I am very happy with the move and still waiting for the bubble to burst. Sure, it’s had its ups and downs, I miss the convenience of a big airport and having so many options to choose from in a big city. However, we traded all of that for friendly neighbors, nice weather and, most importantly, my independence.

Accessibility: selfie of David and Antonia

in the car. The back seat is full of random

household items.

What we learned from this move is that, whether you are visually impaired or not, you need to have a clear plan of what it is that you want in your next city and figure out how to get that. Some people are set in a particular city, like New York or Miami, then that’s where you should focus all your energy. However, if like us, you just know that you want to move, but aren’t quite sure where, set your priorities and do the research. Be open-minded and you might discover some pretty cool places. Be aware that you may not get all of your must-haves and be prepared to compromise. For example, we were willing to pay higher rent if it meant I had more independence. Moving to San Luis Obispo without a place to live was scary, but it gave us a chance to get a feel for the city and its different neighborhoods and, if you can afford it, I would definitely recommend doing it that way. Moving can feel overwhelming, but if it is something you really want to do, start applying for jobs and make it happen!

If you like what you are reading, consider subscribing so you don’t miss any of my posts!