San Marcos is a good alternative – but to each their own…we’ve known some who didn’t like it.
We have neighbors who live in SM and commute to Temecula – they can go opposite traffic for the commute and still allow their spouses to work in North County easily.
Personally, we like both San Marcos and Temecula. If we could afford a weekend house in wine country way on the east end of Rancho Calif Road, we’d have done it long ago. It would be the perfect way to entertain: take our friends to the wineries in the afternoon followed by a nice evening at our home.
One thing I really love about SM is that it is just the right distance from the coast (10 miles as the crow flies, depending on where in SM you live). We get just a bit of the coastal fog (not all day long like Cbad/Oside), but it usually burns off by noon so we have gorgeous afternoons. Any further inland is too hot for us.
And yes it is a long way to drive for a funky film from either SM or Temecula, but to me it seems like there have been too few funky films in the SD area ever since Landmark Theaters was sold a few yrs back – I can’t put my finger on it, but something changed at that pt.
