Great places to move to in Vermont/Maine/etc.
February 10, 2016 6:10 AM   Subscribe

I currently live in the Boston area (Cambridge specifically) and I'm thinking of moving somewhere else. I'm 30, no kids, currently rent, and have a car and a flexible job. For now, I'm looking at smaller cities in the Northeast US. I do like having lots of different things to do (and have even considered living in NYC for that reason). I'm also looking for somewhere with a friendly and open culture.

For context, the reason I'm moving is that I've been in Boston for 4.5 years now, and it feels like most of my friends are still more like acquaintances. A lot of people I know seem content to only have friends they see at particular activities or at group parties, which baffles me. Actually having deep one-on-one conversations is often reserved for romantic partners (or housemates, just because they're there). So my primary criterion for a new place to live is that I want to be around people who have more time, are less busy, less stressed out, and more open to trying new things and forming close supportive friendships.

Things that are important to me:

- community of people my age, say mid 20s to mid 30s
- foodie scene (trendy restaurants, international cuisine, and/or potlucks with friends who like to cook intricate meals)
- arts scene (coffeeshop poetry slams, performing arts, art walks, circus arts lessons, etc. but not clubbing or drinking or sports)
- outdoor culture (where it's common to, say, go on weekend hiking or kayaking trips)
- fairly liberal (accepting of queer/poly/hippie/burner ways of life)
- walkable/bikeable (ideally with interesting neighborhoods to explore)
- this is a bit harder to describe, but I like places where people are open to trying new things, whether food or hobbies or traveling or welcoming strangers, where change and experimentation is welcome (San Francisco would be a good example)

Cities I'm considering so far:

- Portland (Maine)
- Burlington
- Belfast
- Montpelier
- Brattleboro
- Northampton (MA)
- Montreal (maaaaybe? not sure how I'd go about getting a work visa in Canada, but it's so awesome in many of the above characteristics)

What are these places like? Which ones would you recommend? Am I missing any obvious others?

I haven't really spent much time in any of them, though I like what I've seen so far. It seems like Portland and Montreal clearly have the most vibrant cultural scene just based on population, but I would be happy to have a bit less to do if they were excellent activities and I had great people to do them with.

The people are really the most important thing. For instance, if I knew I was very likely to have a place to take a fun class like maybe ceramics or circus arts, a restaurant where I loved everything on the menu, somewhere to go hiking or kayaking, and 3-5 great friends who wanted to do these things with me and hang out on a regular basis, I would move there in a heartbeat even if it was a small town.

Thanks!
posted by danceswithlight to Society & Culture (26 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
OK. I am 30, was born and raised in small town VT, spent several years in Burlington and now I live in Portland.

I think you would love a lot of the places you listed but you should move to Burlington. Here's why:

Portland, Burlington, Montpelier and Brattleboro are going to tick all of your boxes. Portland has a less liberal vibe than the VT towns for sure. For me this has translated into a smaller scene of stuff I'm into, whereas in Burlington that progressive vibe dominates the city (in a good way!)

Portland does have more restaurants and shopping, and more amenities in the surrounding areas.

Montpelier and Brattleboro are tiny. Still great towns with great people, but less going on overall.

The people are really the most important thing. For instance, if I knew I was very likely to have a place to take a fun class like maybe ceramics or circus arts, a restaurant where I loved everything on the menu, somewhere to go hiking or kayaking, and 3-5 great friends who wanted to do these things with me and hang out on a regular basis, I would move there in a heartbeat even if it was a small town.

This is basically Montpelier, Burlington or Brattleboro. You'd love em.
posted by pintapicasso at 6:27 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


Portland is definitely more relaxed than Boston and more personal. It has a huge food/beer scene. There are a lot of art galleries and a First Friday art walk, but I don't know much about the art scene. The city has a number of trails (look at trails.org) and there's a lot of hiking and ocean activities in Maine (although I recommend owning a car, it's a big state). Liberal yes, walkable/bikeable yes, although rents in the peninsula have gotten really high lately.

The one thing I would say negatively is that while Portland is much more youthful than any other place in the state, Maine in general is a pretty greying state. It's also a state without a ton of money (and you will definitely get paid less here coming from Boston) so that can limit risk taking.

- this is a bit harder to describe, but I like places where people are open to trying new things, whether food or hobbies or traveling or welcoming strangers, where change and experimentation is welcome (San Francisco would be a good example)

This is a bit hard to quantify. There's definitely a lot of young people making things happen business wise, especially in the food scene.

But really, Portland is just 2 hours North by car or the same by Concord Bus. Come up and check it out!
posted by selfnoise at 6:27 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Portland's pretty cool. Concord, NH is also nice and worth checking out.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:35 AM on February 10, 2016


Having formerly lived in Vermont, I want to warn you that the food scene is good but small. There isn't a ton of international food - one or two good Vietnamese or Mexican places. I now live in Seattle and there are multiple good international places in every neighborhood. I assume Boston is the same. Whereas in Vermont, a new place opens, everyone gets obsessed with it despite it being expensive, and it becomes one of your staples. Montpelier and Brattleoboro are even smaller than Burlington in this respect.
This may be fine for you but I would want to warn you before you pick up and move.

Is it possible for you to work remotely or something and spend a few weeks in each city?
posted by k8t at 6:39 AM on February 10, 2016


You may want to add Ithaca NY to your list for consideration. It ticks all of your boxes (though being smaller, the foodie scene is also small). While it's a small city surrounded by rural area for hundreds of miles, the presence of Cornell means more access to events and people that are anything but provincial.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 7:03 AM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


I have a friend that as a young lawyer moved to Portland from upstate NY. She lived there for about 5 years but her neighbors still referred to her as the girl "from away". I think Portland is awesome. Good food, so close to so many interesting coastal towns and experiences, but if being open is the clincher, Burlington might be the place for you.

Burlington food scene might not be as big as Portland but so many surrounding Vt. towns have really great restaurants, too.
posted by ReluctantViking at 7:07 AM on February 10, 2016


Northampton is a truly amazing place. However, it's a small town. People are friendly, but I'm not sure how easy it is to meet people if you don't have kids and you don't know anyone who can loop you in. (It might not be hard, but I'm not sure.) Also, the food scene is.....mixed. Local food is huge and you can get amazing stuff at the farmer's markets, but the restaurants in Northampton are mostly not great, with some exceptional standouts. Like, I think all of the Mexican and Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) restaurants are meh to bad. Surrounding towns have good places too but I would not call this area a hotspot of either trendy restaurants or international cuisine. Sorry.

But, it's a lovely place to live and it definitely checks many of your boxes - there's a great arts scene, huge outdoor focus, parts are very walkable, biking is big, people are open to trying new stuff, and there are definitely great places to take classes and try new things. Lots of maker-type spaces and interesting businesses.
posted by john_snow at 7:26 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Keep in mind that a city has to be a certain size to have "interesting neighborhoods to explore"; in my experience, this happens around the 30-40k mark. Smaller cities (such as Belfast, Brattleboro, Montpelier, and Northampton) tend to have a downtown surrounded by neighborhoods of detached houses, and that's about it.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:28 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


You'd probably like Providence too.

Have you actually been to the places above? Belfast is cute, but it's TINY, and wouldn't have the kinds of amenities you're looking for. There's probably a robust social scene in the background, but there aren't the kinds of events
posted by barnone at 7:46 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


With your criteria, here would be my list, in order:

6. Northampton, MA
5. Providence, RI (I know, but it's great, and it's amazing to be midway to all sorts of places)
4. Portland, ME
3. Burlington, VT
2. Montreal
1. Portsmouth, NH

Too many people are sleeping on Portsmouth! It's great.

Here is my only warning to you: it sounds like you are at the age where your peer group is suddenly all going to erupt in a bad case of children. It's pretty intense in your 30s and 40s to be childless. You'll literally feel sometimes like a bomb has gone off and taken out everyone your age. The good news is, they'll be back! But the bad news is... they won't be back for a while. So now is a good time to get settled in with other childless people and also make strong connections to people you like who do have children. Parents don't ditch their closest friends, just everyone else. It's just the way it has to be, or else the babies don't get raised.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 7:50 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


Oh yeah, Portsmouth is a cool town. And it's very close to Portland and Boston. I just haven't been there quite long enough to recommend it.

My issue with Vermont locations is that they tend to be a million miles from anywhere and I find the homogenous nature of the towns (trying to be a BIT diplomatic here) suffocating. But it might be just what you're looking for!
posted by selfnoise at 7:56 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I have what you're describing in the Seacoast area (Kittery ME and Portsmouth NH, specifically - I live in Newburyport for commuting reasons, but the Seacoast is where most of my life happens). Wonderful, creative, interesting people, fantastic food, a feeling of community (check out the Portsmouth Halloween Parade, and Keep Portsmouth Loud, for insight into the maker/creative community; for outdoorsy stuff Sixothree Endurance are your people). From April to October I am cycling and kayaking with friends pretty much constantly (I'm the weenie who goes inside when it gets cold). Year round I'm going to community events and concerts and hiking and beer events and craft nights and new restaurants and whatnot with a close circle of friends. I take pottery classes and enameling classes and am considering learning how to do woodworking at the makers pace but next on my list is a glassblowing class. I do take a lot of day trips to Portland and Boston, and weekends in VT and Montreal to mix things up. I joke a lot about living in Stars Hollow. My life is legitimately pretty awesome.

But? It took me almost 3 years to develop this community, and it was hard, constant effort. You say I'm also looking for somewhere with a friendly and open culture . That's just... not New England. I joke about New Englanders being like skittish kittens - you have to stand still and not look at them directly for a long, long time while they get used to you, before they even acknowledge your existence. It took me two years to get a wave across the bar from people I had met MONTHLY. I stuck it out, and made a lovable pest out of myself with some highly socially connected people, and looked for other non-natives, and it's only been in the last year that I've really felt like part of the community, and that my friendships have deepened to the point of being able to be open and vulnerable with folks. Moving to a small town will not be an instant fix for the connection and sense of belonging you're seeking. Not in New England. Be ready to bust your ass to make it happen - I've found it incredibly worthwhile, myself.
posted by amelioration at 7:57 AM on February 10, 2016 [14 favorites]


I live about 20 min south of Montpelier in a town that is too small for you. The big difference between Montpelier and Burlington is the size and the fact that MontP is the capitol so there is just a lot of government stuff going on there all the time as in any capitol city. Burlington is 30K people with 80K in the "metro area" and one of the only places that looks/feels like a city in all of Vermont (other place might be Brattleboro which is also lovely but a little tough to get public transportation to). MontP doesn't have neighborhoods per se, I mean it has a few but once you are a mile outside of the city you're in farmland and on a highway so there are lots of biking opportunities but it's worth understanding where you'll be. Burlington is in Chittenden County so unlike most places in Vermont that are cheap relative to other larger cities, Burlington can be pricey and it's got a huge student population with the good and bad that come along with it. Agree very much with k8t if you're used to places with real intenational flavor, you're going to have a hard time finding that in Vermont. It's the whitest state in the country, possibly and even though it tries hard to make up for this, it's noticeable around the edges in a way that you don't find in, say Providence. I don't know much about Brattleboro but I was just down there this weekend and it's got a really nice hippie hangout vibe (with its sister town Putney home of the Putney school).
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, the thing of it is that for most people, they find those things in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville. I'm not sure a move is going to change things as much as you hope.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 8:29 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


Go visit Providence and Newport. They might be better than you think.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:45 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Disclaimer: I know the people who founded Super Fun Activities Club in RI, but they started up after I moved away.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:48 AM on February 10, 2016


Seconding amelioration. I spent 10 years in NE, with 5 of those in Kittery, ME (just a bridgespan across from Portsmouth, NH and I've been back a few times since moving away in 2012. Each time I'm impressed with how much the culture and scene in general has improved and wonder how much more I'd have enjoyed it if I'd stayed. Tons of great restaurants, breweries, cute little galleries and bookstores, and plenty of opportunity to find community in whatever sport/hobby you're into (yoga, spin, crossfit, knitting, etc.)

For sure it's a bit more difficult to feel totally integrated when you're "from away," but I think it also depends on how away you're from. I grew up on the west coast (and have since moved back), so for me I think it always felt unbearably slow to make friends in NE. If you've already been in Boston for almost 5 years, you've already got that understanding of how people interact and FWIW I do think they're friendlier up the Seacoast than in Boston.

Portland is also awesome but something about the way the city is spread out was never as appealing to me as Kittery/Portsmouth. If you're already set with your job I think you'd have a great time there.
posted by DuckGirl at 9:11 AM on February 10, 2016


A quick thought regarding Montreal: Setting aside how you could get here legally, you don't mention whether you speak French or how well you speak it. Yes, it is possible to live here without speaking French. But I think if one of your primary concerns is finding more friends or more friends of a certain type, your social circle and access to events would be circumscribed if you only speak English.
posted by veggieboy at 9:13 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]


I enjoyed my two years in Providence but I was in grad school at Brown which supplied the connections you are seeking. You don't have to live in the city to enjoy the arts, etc available in the area.

I agree with Yes I Said that other places won't have greener grass. Small town New England has a reputation for not accepting newcomers readily.
posted by SemiSalt at 10:10 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Born in raised in Northampton and just bought a house there. The nice thing about the area is there are actually a lot of great towns here, so if you don't love (or are priced out of) Northampton, you can try Amherst, Easthampton, Greenfield, etc. You can also live, like I do, in a neighborhood where you can walk to most major amenities and also walk into the woods. I'm not sure if it's an easy place to find a social group because I've never really had to do that, but there are new people coming in constantly for the local colleges, so you wouldn't be the only new person. You can check out the Valley Advocate for an idea of what local culture is like.
posted by chaiminda at 10:25 AM on February 10, 2016


I moved to Northampton from the Boston area and lived there for three years but had a lot of trouble making friends. I'm back in the Boston area now, and I just feel like there's so much more to do! I felt like it was really hard to even make acquaintances in NoHo because you would see someone once and then actually have to make a friend date if you ever wanted to see them again - no one seemed to hang out after activities or anything. Like, I would go to chorus rehearsal but no one would go out for drinks after. Also it just kind of bummed me out, felt like a very arrested development/still in college kind of place. And the food scene was not great.

I'm planning on moving to Portland in a couple of years (fun little town, great food, cocktails, etc.) but part of the appeal for me there is that I have family in the area, so I'm less concerned about friendliness.
posted by mskyle at 10:26 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Belfast is surprisingly open for a Maine coastal town -- a lot of hippies migrated up there in the 1970s and the culture shifted as a result. It's pretty liberal, too, although it may skew older than you're looking.

That being said, Belfast is very small, the restaurants are expensive (moreso than in Boston!), groceries are expensive, it's two hours to the nearest Trader Joe's, and the housing is questionable. (Very few apartments, and houses are few and far between to buy. I've heard the rental costs are going up. That being said, they won't be anywhere near the costs in Portland.)

I would suggest adding Brunswick, ME to your list to check out. It's partway between Belfast and Portland in terms of size and costs (and literally partway between the two on the coast). It's a college town, too, so it'd skew younger. Easy trip in to Portland for the food or events, and it even has the train.
posted by pie ninja at 1:36 PM on February 10, 2016


Stopping by to pitch Brattleboro. Come visit, I'll take you to lunch. Here's my input on your criteria:

- community of people my age, say mid 20s to mid 30s I'm a geezer but this town makes me feel young. There's definitely a young-ish crowd around who share your values. Not huge numbers, but enough. There are several colleges (Marlboro College with a grad school, SIT/World Learning graduate programs).
- foodie scene (trendy restaurants, international cuisine, and/or potlucks with friends who like to cook intricate meals) Yes. We have quite a range of restaurants, a lot of interest in developing the local food system, both summer and winter farmers markets, lots of farms that sell direct, some interesting specialty food producers, cheesemakers, etc., a great food coop downtown. It's the home of the annual Strolling of the Heifers* parade & expo which celebrates farmers and local food.
- arts scene (coffeeshop poetry slams, performing arts, art walks, circus arts lessons, etc. but not clubbing or drinking or sports) Check. This is the only place on your list where you're going to find circus arts lessons (NECCA). There are several theater companies, a jazz center, literary festival, film festival, four bookshops downtown, a great non-chain moviehouse (the Latchis), the Marlboro Music Festival (classical), Roots on the River, a serious puppet theater, lots more. The original Friday night Gallery Walk is held here, first Friday of every month.
- outdoor culture (where it's common to, say, go on weekend hiking or kayaking trips) Yup. There are lots of hiking and cycling trails of all kinds (including Mount Monadnock nearby), kayaking on the Connecticut and West River, several good ski areas not to far away.
- fairly liberal (accepting of queer/poly/hippie/burner ways of life) The bluest county in the bluest state, I believe. Bernie Sanders marches each year in the abovementioned Strolling of the Heifers parade. Lots of old hippies who came in the 60s are still around. Very accepting of LGBT.
- walkable/bikeable (ideally with interesting neighborhoods to explore) If you live and work near downtosn, you could literally go for weeks without needing to use your car. An electric assist bike is useful on the hills outside the downtown area. The town scores high on livability, walkability type of surveys, ten-best-arts-towns, that kind of thing.
- this is a bit harder to describe, but I like places where people are open to trying new things, whether food or hobbies or traveling or welcoming strangers, where change and experimentation is welcome (San Francisco would be a good example) Definitely. This town voted in 2008 to arrest George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution", if they ever showed up here. The town instituted anti-big-box zoning and has only two big box stores: a smallish Staples and a very small Peebles. There's a grant-funded "public art project" in the works that got dozens of entries.
Finally, fun fact: there is only one Brattleboro in the entire world.
*disclosure: I do marketing and grantwriting work for them
posted by beagle at 2:13 PM on February 10, 2016


Oh and one more thing: Brattleboro is in the geographic center of New England so day trips to just about anywhere except way downeast Maine are easy. It's two hours driving to Boston, downtown to downtown, three hours to New York City; NYC by Amtrak is four hours.
posted by beagle at 2:15 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Belfast, ME, will definitely skew older than your target demographic, and a little more homogeneously back to the land style hippie rather than queer/poly/burner/poetry slam/circus arts. But you could get connected up with some good community by getting involved in the local food co-op, bicycle stuff, and (needs a car) WERU community radio. And if you like the back to the land vibe, it's not too far from Unity and MOFGA headquarters.

I'd be cautious of too-small college towns if you're heading into your early 30s. If the college is the only major employer in the area, they often have a gap between student-age people and people who are in their 40s or older (with the academic labor market as it has been for the past however many years, college faculties are aging). Eg. Brunswick probably wouldn't fit your criteria.

Do consider Western MA, in the Amherst to Northampton area; it does seem to hit pretty much all of your wants. I don't know enough about Vermont to make recommendations there. The Seacoast NH area, mentioned by another commenter above, is also quite nice, has a little bit more variety than Portland, but is still a little smaller and more local-feeling than Boston; and the area around Durham is still pretty bikeable. There is a burlesque troop in the Portland area, though, I hear.

Do you host small (eg. 3-6 people) dinner parties or potlucks where you currently live? What welcoming-stranger type activities do you currently participate in? Where/how do you currently seek out new people, and how do you nurture potential friendships currently? In my experience, there are indeed cultural differences between larger cities and smaller towns (and quirky liberal little towns versus more conservative or dying small towns, as you note) in terms of how people tend to form and maintain friendships, and if you have experience with this and know that your preferred friendship-forming and -maintaining styles fit better with small-but-liberal town culture, it might help our recommendations to know a little bit more about your process. If not... move anyway because it sounds like you're looking forward to a change of pace, but be aware that you may encounter similar difficulties in your new location; making close friends in a small town sometimes requires an even more proactive approach, unless there's some natural cohort of other new people that have all moved there around the same time as you.

If you want to just try something out for a summer, you'll be wanting Bar Harbor, ME, or North Conway, NH for outdoor culture.
posted by eviemath at 5:39 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm no expert on New England, but I lived outside of Northampton/Amherst area for a short while and LOVED it there. It seemed like there was a lot going on and all the colleges certainly kept it interesting. Plus, it's just a gorgeous area with some nice rural landscapes, but never far from anything. Not to mention, lots of local farms, farm stores, etc. I feel like it really does hit all your criteria, but I am not sure about the social scene, as I was only living there for a short time for a temporary job. To this day one of my favorite towns and I hope I'll get to move there again sometime.

My only other experiences with towns in the area would be Brattleboro and I agree that it's really tiny. I visited a few times in pursuit of outdoor activities and found the downtown area to be quirky and cute, but pretty limited. I could certainly be underestimating the place, though.

Also, even though it's not New England, I would also recommend Ithaca, NY as mentioned above. Really a wonderful area.
posted by giizhik at 10:00 PM on February 10, 2016


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