How to Get out of New York City

How do you leave New York City? Once I finally decided to leave New York City the next question was how. As a long-time renter I lacked an apartment to sell for the move. But I did have a beach house. So the only solution was to sell my beloved beach house in Fair Harbor, Fire Island. But it was not so easy.

I'd been spending summer weekends in Fair Harbor since 1988. In 1999 I had the good fortune to buy the house I'd been renting for six years, a dream come true.

Fair Harbor is the most amazing community, on the barrier beach of Fire Island. Accessible only by ferry, it has no cars in the summer. Wagons and bikes are the transportation, and life is lived largely outdoors, low-key and laid back.

My Fair Harbor day started by taking my dog for a walk on the beach before breakfast, stopping to chat with a friend on the way home. Then to the garden to plant and weed before heading out to sit on the beach. The day was topped off with a bike ride, and later, a walk down to the ferry dock to watch the sun set on the bay with friends. It's just a perfect place. 

But even with idyllic weekend days there's a down side. At the ocean, everything rusts or rots fast. With endless repairs it was draining my resources, both financial and physical. There was less leisure and more work. And the off season seemed interminable. Then in 2012 Hurricane Sandy struck.

Sandy really opened my eyes to the potential loss of my home, an investment I could not afford to lose. Despite paying sky high insurance rates the coverage was limited. I was lucky because I sustained a lot less damage than many others. But the storm helped to tip the scales towards selling.

Despite knowing this house represented my ticket out of city life, I resisted selling for ages because I didn't know where else i could go to be as happy as I'd been here, and couldn't bear to leave dear friends. But the city of Wilmington NC changed that, and I put the house on the market in the fall of 2014.

Deciding to move out of New York City

I've been a New Yorker all my life. Born in the city, raised in the burbs, back in the city after college, I've been a city girl for a long time, and enjoyed all the wonders New York City offers. I loved it and never considered anywhere else to live. Luckily I've also spent summer weekends at the beach, a welcome respite from a city-based life. It was just about perfect!

But a few years ago I became unhappy with the city lifestyle. My neighborhood changed from being somewhat seedy but peacefully quiet, to become one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city. The improvements were lovely but now there are thousands more people, and lots of noise. Two major universities built high rise dorms in the neighborhood, and now there's a new city school for about 700 students. And we're quite the tourist destination, apparently. 

As time went on I wanted more beach and garden time, and less city time. Even long weekends out at the beach six months a year was not enough. Doing all those fabulous city things like theater and concerts just did not make city life good enough for me anymore. I began to realize that city life was no longer for me.

So several years ago I began to plot my escape from New York.