I currently live very close to Annapolis. If you are ok not knowing if it will take you 1.5 or 3.5 hours to get to IAD (and sometimes DCA) depending on traffic, it is a good choice. BWI is a cake walk to get to. It is a gorgeous town, with outrageous property taxes. Beautiful houses, nice restaurants, plentiful shopping. It is therefore a very expensive cost of living, cliquish, and WASPy. Not saying any of those are bad things. Just a matter of your priorities.

 

You left out snooty...

 

Thought cliquish and WASPy covered it.😜

I'm relocating over to the previously mentioned NW side of Dulles in Sept. simply because of my loathing for the drivers and traffic.

 

Front Royal, VA. Went thru these last summer. It's got its issues, but very beautiful, 45 min to Dulles, and on the upswing. If I were an AA or UA guy, that's where I'd move my family.

 

Thank you...that is actually where we are starting to focus our attention. Good to know we are on to something!

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only pilot who cares about the quality of schools my kids go to. Is that even on your scan when you suggest Front Royal?

 

Just FYI, in our case we do consider schools, but given the schools aren't that great it appears anywhere in northern, VA except close to the city (which we cannot afford), we have decided to home school our children.

I am assuming there are charter schools and private school options as well.

 

*I've been on here a long time, but all the guys out of IAD love VA so I'm posting under an alias... Here's goes.

Most people think a school is good because it's new...or simply because they have a new gym. Front Royal is the armpit of Virginia. If you want to live in a rundown little town with a bunch of backward rednecks, Front Royal is the place for you.

Winchester isn't much better. Don't get me wrong, Winchester is a beautiful, historic, lovely weekend getaway type of place. I should know. I lived there for 20 years. But, besides the new children's museum, which is great (but how many times can you go before your kids are over it already?), and Jim Barnett park, there's nothing for kids to do except smoke a lot of pot (your kids aren't any different either so just don't). Sure, they have a Walmart (barf, talk about a store that is promoting the death of American jobs while supporting the Chinese import economy like no other), a Target, a Lowes, and hell, even an Olive Garden, but those aren't contributing to your child's enrichment or expanding their world view. And please, don't even think about fishing on the Shenandoah River. It's a fetid, nasty mess. Finally, don't think about Virginia without considering the car tax.

Back to schools... Here are a couple of helpful links:

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools

https://thebestschools.org/rankings/...gh-schools-us/

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...schools/search

Look up James Wood, Sherando and Handley (the three high schools in Winchester) to check out their rankings. The only way I'd ever live in Virginia is if my kid was trying to go to Thomas Jefferson, the highest ranked public school in the nation, which is very difficult to get into, but if your kid can do it, giant kudos to them. Keep in mind it's in Alexandria I think so you'd have to get them there...

Everyone always trash talks Maryland, but what is so wrong with Maryland? Is it expensive? Yes. But if you live in Montgomery County, you'll have access to 5 of the best high school clusters in the state and even the country - Walt Whitman, Winston Churchill, Walter Johnson, Thomas Wootton and Poolesville High (and Richard Montgomery IF they get into the IB program). You pay a LOT more for your house, but you get that money back when you sell it. Let me repeat that: YOU GET YOUR MONEY BACK WHEN YOU SELL IT. And it will increase in value unlike any house in Winchester (and no house in Front Royal). You can send your kid to private school and never get that money back or you can pay more for a house and live in a killer public school district and get all your money back.

Sure, your kids' friends will probably be more multi-cultural instead of just white, but some people think that's a good thing. Unless you live in Poolseville. If you want to live in a mostly white little town, move to Poolseville, MD. It's like the MD version of Front Royal but with a nationally ranked high school. Plus living in MoCo gets you easy access to all 3 airports and the metro so you can go downtown to tons of (free) museums and all over the DMV are amazing parks and you don't have to drive more than 30 minutes to get to them (google Wizard of Oz park in PG County for one example; it's AMAZING).

Just saying. Either you want to be surrounded by Confederate flags and lousy schools because that feels like Merika to you, or you don't. That's what it really boils down to.

*And before you say you can't afford it, we afford it on 4th year pay with two kids and a stay at home spouse so you can, too.

 

I'm glad you've got it all figured out...

 

He certainly did figure out that his nasty epithets and prejudiced remarks should be posted under an alias.