[quote=4plexowner]it’s easy to say this – are you really going to spend an hour in the car on a weeknight? – same with the beach – it is easy to say, “we’re only 30 minutes from the beach”, but are you really going to get in the car and drive there[/quote]
My first year of living in San Diego I went to the beach a LOT. But now, I rarely go. Certainly not during the week. On the weekends? If the weather is crappy, what’s the point? If it’s nice, there’s traffic, parking, and tourists. Most of the beach areas the time it takes to get off the 5 and get parked is probably more time than it takes to drive there.
Our friends just bought a place in Santee, and barring bad traffic, door-to-door from our current place it’s about 20 minutes. It’s comparable to our current commutes. We actually DO drive out to Mission Trails on a pretty regular basis. I’d actually rather live <5 minutes from Mission Trails than the beach.
There are some nice houses for cheap in Escondido, but yeah, distance and isolation would really concern me there, along with dealing with the 15 south. We haven't completely ruled it out, but the big selling point there is definitely niceness/affordability.
