Perspective on Moving to Seattle
• Cost Of Living in Seattle
• City of Seattle
• Getting Oriented in Seattle
• Washington State Government
• Importing a vehicle from Canada
• Vehicle Title & Inspection
• USA Visa and Immigration
• US Health Care
• Seattle Education: Elementary, Middle and High School
• University of Washington
1. Seattle summers are sunny, warm, with low humidity. A great time to do moving.
2. You can manage Seattle's higher costs and dense living conditions by downsizing possessions. Leave items behind, or in storage to see if you can live without them.
3. Seattle is a progressive place. Both good and bad, depending on it impacting you. Environmental costs tend to get paid more directly and up front, for example.
4. Packing for humidity is a consideration, for storage items. Quality storage facilities may be a little more costly, however they often also reduce and eliminate other less obvious costs.
5. The hills, inland water ways and roadway construction contribute to some potential extra "difficult access" costs. Extra steps to climb may indicate other surprise issues, ones adding extra time to a move, beyond just the delays getting to the destination.
Seattle's 3/4 million people are in one of America's most booming centres. Those Seattleite's are part of three and a half million people who make up that metropolitan community. Its SeaTac port, is a major arrival port for sea and air shipments. Seattle is also home to Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing, Costco, T-Mobile and Starbucks.
The realities of living in Seattle include:
• Seattle is an expensive place to live. Over the last decade growth reached 20%. Getting to and from anywhere is slow. Costs pressures on many things from schooling to warehousing are ongoing concerns.
• Nick names of Emerald City and SeaTown reflect its amazing year round beauty.
• Often accused of being a rainy city, it actually gets less rain than New York, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, and others. Seattle is the most cloudy region of the United States, with many days seeing less that 1/4 mm of rain.
• Seattle is hilly. Seattleites think of themselves as bike-friendly even though traffic, combined with inadequate bike lanes, and rain leave lots to be desired. Seattle consistently ranks in the top 10 worst drivabilty cities in the US.
• The "Seattle Freeze" is best avoided by sharing the wonders of the outdoors and coffee with others.