My husband and I love to travel — day trips, cross-country, internationally — you name it, we love it. After vacationing in L.A. and other various regions of Southern California several times, we were hooked. Not only is there a ton do right here in L.A., it’s close enough to so many other amazing spots like Las Vegas, Laguna Beach, Santa Barbara, and San Francisco that constant day trips and road trips are easy, if not essential.
So, although our friends and family were not particularly pleased with us, we put our house on the market and made the decision to move from Pittsburgh, P.A. to sunny L.A.! Pittsburgh is a great place, but we were bored with it, and it really just wasn’t for us in the long-term. Luckily though, things for our move fell into place easily. Our house went under contract just days after it went up for sale, my husband’s boss graciously offered to allow him to work remotely, and we would soon find out that I actually would’ve gotten laid off from my job anyway, ironically on what was my last day of work. We even managed to find an awesome apartment in what we now know is considered one of the best areas of L.A., on a whirlwind weekend house hunting trip. Destiny perhaps?
We decided to move ourselves, as paying for cross-country movers was crazy, outrageously expensive. So as closing day approached, we packed up our 16 ft. Penske truck, complete with an attachment to pull my trusty little Mazda 3, and were soon on our way. To this day we’re still not sure why we put ourselves on such a tight timeframe, but we decided to make it to L.A. in just four days and three nights. We didn’t realize this while we were planning it, but at the rate a large Penske truck pulling a car moves, this meant we signed ourselves up for a minimum of 15 hours on the road each day, sometimes more. Along the way, we spent the night in St. Louis, Albuquerque, and Palm Springs. Everyone raves so much about the fun of driving across the country, but it’s really not much to brag about. We spent most of our days staring at fields, not awesome scenery, with the exception of New Mexico and Arizona.
Our trip was beautifully boring, as we didn’t run into a single problem along the way. Whew! To this day, I still have no idea how my husband managed to drive a 16 ft. truck pulling a car across the country. I wouldn’t have been able to get that thing out of the driveway!
When we finally arrived in L.A., it was the best feeling to finally get out of that truck! Unfortunately, due to the position of our apartment in the building, it took us a dreadful seven hours to actually move in! We learned our lesson — movers forever from now on. We’ve been here for nearly two months now and have loved every day of it! Sure, it’s really scary to move to a new city, especially one as big as L.A., but so worth it. There’s always something fun to do, awesome new food to try out and of course road trip possibilities galore! I can honestly say that at least so far, moving to LA is the best decision my husband and I have ever made. We love it here!
This is a guest post courtesy of Laura Wood, who shares the story of her move to LA. Laura decided to drive to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh with her husband. Interested in submitting a post for The LA Transplant? Drop us a line on our contact page.
photo credit: Matt Niemi via photopin cc
