<p>Okay, so a gal can dream, right?</p>
<p>I want to walk to work in my office, to the dry cleaner’s, the coffee shop, several restaurants, a market, a couple boutiques, and my sailboat. Where do you suggest?</p>
<p>Vancouver, Canada</p>
<p>Only one spot - Newport Beach California…</p>
<p>What kind of office? Big or small city?</p>
<p>If big, Ballard and Fremont areas of Seattle satisfy your criteria.</p>
<p>BB - Don’t know what kind of office–the more choices the better. So, I’m thinking big, but flexible within the criteria.</p>
<p>All great suggestions so far…going to look at real estate…</p>
<p>No longer God’s waiting room - St. Petersburg, Fl. Really nice downtown, beautiful marina.</p>
<p>Depending on the amount of $$$ you’ve got, you might be able to scoop up a boat house on Lake Union in Seattle! I wonder if the house where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed finally sold.
But: you will have to be able to put up with all the rain :)</p>
<p>How about Bellingham, WA, about an hour south of Vancouver and an hour & a half north of Seattle, so two big city options for cultural exposure, but a cheaper small town for your purchase. DD lived there for a couple of years and there is a lot of walking around city atmosphere; it is also very BoHo & green, so has that vibe. A small city, so lower budget, but near enough to the big cities if you want them ;)</p>
<p>^^somemom, yes!!! It is a very charming town, and in addition to restaurants and shops, it has everything for the adventurous soul: sailing, kayaking, mountains, skiing… Located about half-way between Seattle and Vancouver BC.</p>
<p>Santa Cruz or Capitola in the Santa Cruz, CA area. San Francisco, Marina district. Honolulu near the Ala Moana shopping district. Newport Beach, as someone above mentioned. San Diego.</p>
<p>What kind of weather do you want to sail in? Is the boat going to actually leave the marina? Do you want places that you can easily sail for overnight or do are you planning on just day sailing? Do you want to be able to go in the water?</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, a boathouse on Union Lake is awesome. Love it–definitely on the short list…Newport Beach too.</p>
<p>Will check out Bellingham; wonder if it’s “city” enough.</p>
<p>UCD…next stop Santa Cruz…hmm Capitola…SFO…I’ve always loved the Bay Area. Hawaii…nice to visit.</p>
<p>Mom - The boat will leave the marina. We like to race, no real interest in overnights, but that could change. Prefer to stay out of the water.</p>
<p>Marina Del Rey
Dana Point
Sausalito
2nd or 3rd Vancouver
How about a dream research vacation- charter a boat in the Chesapeake Bay and sail down to Florida. Check out marinas and communities along the way.
I married into a family of sailors. My husband would like to own his own boat. I prefer to charter in warm weather places. Whenever we travel anywhere with a marina it is always a stop to walk the area and discuss the boats and area.</p>
<p>Monaco
Santa Barbara</p>
<p>Norfolk, Virginia</p>
<p>If Newport Beach is on your ‘radar’ then by all means check into Corona del Mar. It’s part of Newport but with a more down home village vibe. Which would then lead me to suggest Redondo Beach (specifically Hollywood Riviera) and the 2nd Street area of Long Beach (CA) - Belmont Shores. All three have the down home village vibe with all the amenities you have listed.</p>
<p>If you want an area with decent weather - Southern California is hard to beat. To me the marina/sailboat life would lose a bit of its appeal if it was frequently overcast and cold and rainy much of the time.</p>
<p>Of course, I like the San Diego area. One place to consider, depending on what you like, could be downtown San Diego. They’ve really built up a lot of condos downtown and they’re all in walking distance to lots of restaurants, shopping, office buildings, marinas, etc. Now might be a good time to buy some of these condos. There are also other areas to live in the area that aren’t ‘downtown’ but otherwise seem to have some of what you’re looking for. Coronado is real nice but homes are not inexpensive.</p>
<p>I live in Santa Barbara. While it is a beautiful place I don’t think of it as a place where you can walk to all of the criteria. It would be doable but to walk to the marina you would limit your housing search to a small area. There is no grocery store that is an easy walk from the marina area.The only area that might work would be the Mesa. You could walk to the marina and you would have all the amenities of grocery, dining, coffee shops and dry cleaners. The big drawback is you would have an uphill walk the whole way home from your boat. Benefits you could race or go overnight to the Channel Islands or for a few days over to Catalina Island. What I don’t like is that the water is too cold.</p>
<p>One thing about SoCal, I really don’t remember any place being a ‘walk to it’ city place, not like other areas, nor is there much public transport, not like living in San Francisco and having BART.</p>
<p>Do you have an unlimited budget, if so there are tond of sailboaters in Vancouver & Seattle areas, on the various Lakes Washington & Union with those big cities right there and there are tons of smaller marinas up & down the coast in between.</p>
<p>Many nice areas in central & NorCal, too.</p>
<p>So, do you want a CITY or a TOWN?</p>
<p>somemom:</p>
<p>Downtown San Diego is a ‘walk to it’ area and has public transport including the ‘trolley’ light rail system. But it’s a city downtown environment (although pretty nice as downtown areas go) so one would have to be interested in living in that type of environment. Judging from the number of high rise condos they’re building there, apparently some people are. I don’t like any ‘downtown city’ areas myself but there are other places to choose from nearby if the cost of housing isn’t a big factor but it would be for most of us.</p>
<p>Just a couple of examples (but there are less expensive places):
<a href=“http://www.pinnacletower.org/[/url]”>http://www.pinnacletower.org/</a>
<a href=“Premium Condos for Sale Near Me in Park Place, San Diego”>Premium Condos for Sale Near Me in Park Place, San Diego;
<p>The first one is about a quarter of a mile from the marina, from a major shopping mall (Horton Plaza), from many ‘trendy’ restaurants (gaslamp district), the San Diego Trolley (light rail system), and more.</p>