Recommendations for Fernandina, Amelia Island

Amelia Golf Club is right there at the Ritz. The public course has 27 holes and is very nice. Visit Fort Clinch one day. If you like to find sharks teeth I can tell you the best spot.

Downtown Fernandina Beach is a nice place to wander around with your wife/kids. Some cool shops/stores there.

Lots of the restaurants there will have live music during the evenings over weekends.

The PO boxes at their post office are from 1860's IIRC... kinda cool.

Restaurants I've eaten at and enjoyed:

29 South - Upscale southern - lots of locally sourced ingredients

Gilbert's Underground Kitchen - higher end BBQ joint with Top Chef contestant exec chef. Not ridiculous prices, but also not cheap roadside bbq stand either. Great food though.

Cafe Karibo - This place has been a staple for a while. New American fare, brewpub next door/really close.

Moon River Pizza (was cash only when I went last... been a while)

T-Ray's Burger Station - in an old Exxon gas station. Great sandwiches/burgers


Great part about Fernandina area is there is plenty of good food that's not outrageously priced.




Golf reco's - Not a big surprise, but most of the places have demand based pricing these days. Earlier in the day, more expensive round.

As mentioned, there is a golf club there close to the Ritz that is definitely worth checking out. If you're looking for other options though, the area has plenty of quality golf.

Oak Marsh at Amelia Plantation was a nice course when I played it. Cheaper starting at 3pm even if you're not a resort guest... otherwise would probably not overpay to play there personally.

Arte Pizza is pretty good.

Salty Pelican - Yes
Brett's - Always seem a bit overpriced to me
Tastee's for Burgers
Also, if your kids like miniature golf, three is a fun one there.
We always enjoyed lunch at the Surf too.

I kid, dude!

Know the feeling. I live in Hiltons, a la George Clooney in Up In The Air.

Thanks for all the recommendations
Wrote many of them down and gave them to our social chairman aka wife...

my company pays my hotel bills I travel a lot for work..

:-)

And it sucks last week I was in Orange County New York, Baltimore and Toronto...

Makes me love Georgia every day...

But I did get to visit OCC and Paul Jr designs if there are any American Chopper watchers

It not terrible. But its worth it to live in Athens Area. I Usually travel Monday night through Thursday so my car sit at the airport most days.

I leave 3 hours early. Its typically 1.5 - 2 hours to get there. I go through Monroe and Conyers to 20, 285, etc.
The risk is I20 you never know when you will hit an accident so I always add time for that, find parking, etc.

Having flown out of DFW for 20 years. I miss DFW. I really dont like Hartsfield at all. I think its a horribly designed airport, no parking, etc...

Well I travel to Alpharetta 2-3 days a week when I am not on the road. Where my office is.
Again I knew what I was signing up for but living in Atlanta Metro was not something I wanted to do and we love Oconee County/Athens area.

But yeh my work commute is pretty brutal with traffic. Hence I leave at 5am the days I go in. There is NO easy way from Athens to Alpharetta. At all. Its crap traffic as soon as you hit Bethlehem area

But again I knew that when we moved here. I get to work from home a lot if I am not traveling. So its not bad...

Again worth it for living where we do.

Oof. I had mapped it out from Watkinsville area and I thought it could be done in about an hour and 20. I'm assuming you have pre-check and/or Clear to ensure shorter time through TSA. Even still, I guess 3 hours is still probably about right between parking, drive time, security...

I saw a really nice house on the river down in Oconee that I was eyeballing. But I'm still thinking my preference would be getting back to the coast...

Trying to work out the financial differential for various places as well... If my wife leaves her current work soon which is highly likely (see my OT thread from a little while back), we may just try to see about going to single income for a while, but that puts a little more pressure on trying to minimize required monthly expenses just to make the math a little more palatable.


Not to thread Hijack TOO much (but I'm gonna do it anyways ), but if anyone has any insights, here's where our heads have been lately.

Leading candidates:

FL:
Amelia/Fernandina Area (see... it's sort of still on topic )
Destin/Miramar Beach
Pensacola/Gulf Breeze

GA:
Savannah
Glynn County
Oconee County/Athens area

SC:
Charleston area

FL has the advantage of no state income tax, but I've used some online "financial calculators" to try and estimate differences, and they seem to indicate the overall take home would still be similar? I'm thinking that maybe they aren't accounting for the changes to SALT deductions relative to income and property taxes... but perhaps it's something else (sales tax, other fees/taxes I'm not accounting for).

Wife has friends and went to college in Pensacola area, so that's on the list, but uncertain on the area, and super small airport... guaranteed 1 connecting flight each way on just about every trip. Gulf Breeze winning here due to school districts being stronger (wtf happened to Pensacola proper schools? all rated really low now it seems)

Destin/Miramar interesting because if we selected the right place we could try it for a few years, and then turn it into a rental property if we decided on another area... High rental rates there can yield around 15-20% IOI it seems. Strong school system here is a plus as well, as my little one is about to hit Pre-K this year.

Fernandina/Amelia - Closer to where I grew up and family but still in FL to take advantage of possible tax advantage. Jax airport much larger than either Pensacola or Destin. Still unlikely to have direct flights to the west coast, but a lot more destinations at least. School zoning in the area there seems less than stellar, but decent at least.

Savannah - At least has decent airport, friends in the area, tricky to find the right spots though for house/school/etc... friend who is a police officer there warns about crime (even relative to Atlanta)? Uncertain if that's overstated though. Probably near the bottom of this list.

Glynn - Grew up here. Family/Friends/know it well... Not much going for it business wise and super small airport - but an hour and change either way to Savannah or Jax. Can find quality homes with deepwater access in Brunswick south of the Lanier bridge... Schools better on St. Simons but probably have to overpay for house (and corresponding property taxes).

Oconee/Athens area - Moving to Athens area seems like it could be an interesting shift, as it still keeps me in "proximity" to ATL airport, good schools in Oconee make it a little more attractive, while still easy to get to Athens/UGA for entertainment. The house I found on the river, while it doesn't satisfy the desire to get back to the coast, it could still give me the opportunity to get some kayaks, get out and fish regularly, and scratch the same kind of itch. Also, wife has been thinking that some kind of role in education/university setting could be interesting... so that's a bonus.

Charleston area - Downtown Charleston probably out, just due to how cramped/crowded it is... would like to have a yard, and those are difficult to come by there. I thought Mt. Pleasant was nice but wife was kinda neutral on it. Property taxes there are really reasonable, I wouldn't have to commute for work other than to the airport, and I liked the high volume of families with kids there... seems like a great place for families with young kids. Johns/James Island - Beautiful there but schools seem to be more problematic out this way. Seems silly to go out of your way to pick a new place to go and then force yourself to have to go the private school route as well...



All in all, still don't know what the heck to do, so going to try and spend the spring/summer probably visiting a lot of places and see if something makes me wanna move.

How does anyone decide where to live when work or something else doesn't make the decision for you...