Olympia, Washington

Winter_Essay3971
10mo ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

Lived near Olympia in Lakewood for most of a year once. Very familiar with the city, know a couple people there. Some uncollected thoughts:

COL is about the same as COS, it looks like. Median 1BR rents in a few cities you've looked at:

• Colorado Springs: $1432
• Olympia: $1470
• Eugene: $1391
• Vancouver WA: $1442
• Bellingham WA: $1395 So no huge differences between any of them.

Olympia seems like a good fit for you culturally. It is liberal for a town of 50,000 people but not really overwhelmingly so. That progressive/democratic socialist vibe is strongest in the downtown, but Lacey and Tumwater ("suburbs" of Olympia) feel more casually light-blue. Plenty of cafes and bookstores. The more outskirt-y parts of the Olympia area are a mix of standard suburban developments and more "country" looking houses with rusty pickups.

I would say it's easier to make friends there than in Seattle because people are less career-oriented. Olympia is too far out from Seattle for most people to commute, so the white-collar professionals in Olympia are mostly not Type A folks at Amazon or Microsoft, but folks who work for the state of Washington or are a pediatrician or financial planner or some kind of lawyer serving the Thurston County area. Thurston County is also just not a geographically big area, so people will be more likely to have time after work to hang out, and not be exhausted from their commute.

It's a fantastic place to be if you want nature access. Capitol State Park is practically right in town, and you're also close to Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens, as well as the Olympic Peninsula. I would mention that the Washington coast itself may not be as scenic as you're expecting, but that changes as you get closer to Long Beach and Astoria.

skibumbw
2y ago
🦉🦉🦉

Without knowing what a quality life means to you, I’ll try to answer some of your questions objectively and then with my context.

Crime is never as bad as it seems. We have a larger than average population of people visibly living without permanent shelter and many see this as “crime”. There IS a higher incidence of petty crimes nearby some of the encampments. One thing a lot of people miss is the white collar and non-criminal antisocial behavior that goes down in and around the Capitol campus.

We have some of the best access to nature compared to anywhere in the world. Now that nature is frequently wet, grey, second growth evergreen forests but it’s close! We also have one of the most interesting marine environments, again with a caveat that it is murky and cold. (I am crazy enough to gear up and explore both because it’s worth the challenge).

We have a very high cost of living, but that is balanced with a decent social support system (for the USA), good transportation (free transit!), and interesting if a bit sleepy downtown. We’re close to “big” cities of Seattle and Portland and SeaTac is a pretty awesome airport to connect to other places when you get bored.

We also don’t pay a state income tax but the cost of rent or real estate really soaks a lot of that savings.

We have the second best beer in the country (unapologetic former Vermonter here trying to start fights) because our water is famously pretty tasty.

Our winters are dark and rainy but damn, our summers are awesome (til the smoke arrives). I miss snowy winters from New England but don’t miss shoveling snow.

Bring a happy lamp, ensure you make enough money, and don’t fear the rain and you’ll be fine.

Anonymous
2y ago
🦉🦉🦉🦉

Agreed 100%. Olympia is a super great place to live and raise kids. Born and raised here and I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be. DT is not nearly as bad as people may say. A lot of the time it’s people from out of town who are conservatives and bitch about how the liberal cities are hell holes for drugs and homelessness (which btw red cities/states have plenty of those problems as well if not worse than Oly). So anyways, “crime” is a pretty board term. But I’m safe walking around DT. Sure there’s some petty crimes going on but I never seen anyone get murdered on the streets here. As long as you don’t actively go out of your way to provoke any kind of trouble you’re fine.

Living in Olympia WA - What You Should Know