Life in Monterey

June 5, 2008 9:58 AM

My friend has an awesome job offer in Monterey, but she's only been up there for vacation.

She is socially liberal, and wants to live in an area with lots of sustainable farming, the ability to bike to work without getting run over, and hopefully a strong sense of community. She and her boyfriend are in their mid-30s, and they're a little worried from what they've read that the social life may slant toward retirees. Has anyone lived around there, and can anyone give insight into what it's like to live there?

posted by Fenriss to society & culture (6 comments total)

Monterey is fabulous for all of the things you listed - but the one thing wrong is exactly what you hit on. I lived briefly in Monterey (temp job) and loved it! There are more than enough 'cool' 30-somethings that live in Monterey, you just have to find them and then you are good to go.

The social scene - as in bars and clubs--not so good. But if you are looking for a great place to live, and you like to do things outside and enjoy the fabulous local food - then you are good to go. AND San Fran is not too far away for a fun weekend in the city.

Oh yeah - also expect lots of visitors as everyone will want to come to Monterey to visit! Get a family membership (with guest passes) to the aquarium and they will love you!
posted by rvrlvr at 10:21 AM on June 5, 2008

I lived in Salinas . . . in the late 70s . . . as a kid . . . but S. Salinas hasn't changed much since then.

>live in an area with lots of sustainable farming,

>the ability to bike to work without getting run over

are mutually exclusive . . . there's a lot of scrub land up by Seaside, but most of the farmland is a 1-hr bikeride in the Salinas Valley.

Checking out the Carmel Valley might be an option. I've biked that road several times into Monterey.

Monterey is an odd bird, one of the more beautiful places on the planet but not exactly livable. In the past when I was looking for a place there I decided Pacific Grove was the place to be.
posted by tachikaze at 10:24 AM on June 5, 2008

Monterey and everywhere around it (except Salinas, sorry) are beautiful, relatively bikeable places to live, but biking between towns would be quite an endeavor. I lived in Santa Cruz for 9 years ending this past March, and I think if I were to get a job in Monterey, I just might elect to live in the sunny, diverse, working class Sand City. You'll have lots of hip activities available an hour north in Santa Cruz, where there's tea houses, jazz, guerilla drive-in, altogether too much hipness for a small town. The further south from Monterey you go, the more rural, though of course beautiful, will your environs be, and the more dependent on Salinas will you be for consumer needs. Sand City's a bit more central, and with Big Sur to your south, Big Basin and Elkhorn Slough and SJ and SF and SC all to the north, I would prefer access to all those places over walkabolity in Monterey proper or Pacific Grove or Carmel, which are quaint, trafficky, but would get old, fast, IMHO.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:20 AM on June 5, 2008

Let me clarify: the whole area is pretty darn bike-friendly, at least in terms of driver awareness and attitudes and relative availability of bike lanes. As for sustainable farming?? Fuggeddaboudit, you'd think we invented it!!! In Santa Cruz and I absolutely assume anyplace in Monterey County, farmers markets and organic produce box delivery will be readily accessible, and hippie food stores will be around. This is the place to live if you want to pull off a local, sustainable diet.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:34 AM on June 5, 2008

OMG tell her to take the job offer RIGHT NOW.

I grew up 20 minutes from Monterey, and would just love to live there again. It's got everything you need. I'm not sure what you mean by "sustainable farming" - I don't know how "sustainable" the big lettuce fields around Salinas are - but there's certainly a strong local/organic food culture in Monterey.

Retirees? Nah. Lots of rich oldies in Carmel and Pebble Beach, but Monterey is hip and young enough. Lots of farmer's markets, festivals, great restaurants. And when you want to get away to someplace more off-beat, Santa Cruz is just 45 minutes away.

Monterey itself is absolutely bikeable. You don't have to own a car there at all. And it's basically contiguous with Pacific Grove so your friend could live there (maybe cheaper rent?) and still bike to work. Don't try biking in from Salinas, Carmel, Marina, or Seaside, though. Not only are they too far away, they're connected by 2-lane "highways" on which bikes are expressly verboten.

AND the job offer is great? She'd be crazy to turn it down.
posted by GardenGal at 11:53 AM on June 5, 2008

I grew up there, and later, in my twenties, moved back for a little while.

I found it insufferable for anyone not rich/old.

Ymmv
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:13 PM on June 6, 2008