My First Year in Maine! Moving Advice, Winter Tips & What I've Learned!

hey y'all it's megan and welcome back to my channel today i am going to be doing a little sit down chat with you and talk all about my first year living in maine [Music] september 1st was actually the one year anniversary of me moving to maine all the way from texas all by myself kind of on a whim i always knew that i wanted to move out of texas and when covet hit and i got divorced and my work went remote i was like screw it i'm moving to maine because i road tripped up here in 2019 and i just completely fell in love with it since then a lot of my youtube content has been focused on living in new england and living in maine and i've gotten a lot of people finding me because they also want to move to maine or the area and i get questions fairly frequently about what it's like if i have tips all that kind of stuff about moving from a different completely different part of the country all the way up into new england so today i hope that i can give you a little bit of insight a couple of tips and tricks of what i've learned especially if you're coming from not a winter climate like i came from texas so adjusting the winters has been a real big deal um but i hope that i can provide like a little bit of help and get you inspired and motivated if moving to new england is something that you really want to do so one question i get a lot is about housing and finding a place to live um so i want to tell you a little bit about how i ended up finding my first apartment in maine basically when i road tripped up here i stayed in an airbnb i stayed in a couple actually like as i was traveling and when i decided i wanted to move i reached out to those people first and i asked if by any chance i could rent their room for a month or two while i got up here got settled and all that kind of stuff just to see if they were open to it and one person in specific uh luckily was like yeah you can absolutely rent this room that you were in or i also have a full apartment on the first floor of my house that i rent out um in the summer for airbnb but you could have it for the whole winter so i ended up finding that apartment that i lived in for the first eight months um through airbnb luckily it just happened to work out housing up here i found can be very tricky especially as i was looking for my first real apartment not a seasonal rental which i live in now and i was constantly on craigslist facebook um any kind of like private listings because especially if you're looking for places on the coast or near the cities it's very very expensive so if you're on a budget i mean i was checking craigslist two three four times a day and as soon as i saw something go live i would email them and i would also email with more information about myself just to kind of like sell myself um instead of just is this apartment still available i would email you know a little bit about my situation how how i earned my money what i do for work my resume with a picture of me and kind of just give some details about how i am as a a tenant to kind of sell myself and make me stand out from a crowd of emails that are just like is this still interested because they they get a million of those a day so you really want to kind of do something to make you stand out when i found my current apartment i ended up having to move a little bit away from the coast so i'm more um in like the rural part of maine i live near lake sebago if you're familiar with the lakes region it's about um 40 minutes to get to portland which is not completely prohibitive i still work in my original town of saco sako in biddeford is where i was living before and i got a job there and then i moved out and i've just been commuting back and forth okay now let's talk about winter um my first winter in maine was according to the locals extremely mild um we had like a couple of good snowstorms but it was nothing crazy again according to them to me it was more snow than i've ever seen in my whole life so here's some things that i tips and tricks that i picked up from mainers and from new englanders that told me how to survive my first real winter even though it wasn't a real winter whatever it was still a real winter to me so um first of all i've got two snow brushes one for in my house one to live in my car so i didn't have to go back and forth or get stuck without one two apparently in the winter when you're expecting a snowstorm you put your um windshield wiper blades up in the upright position so they don't get locked underneath a layer of snow um i didn't end up changing my tires out because i was living kind of in a city where they would plow regularly but now that i live out in the country i'm going to get better tires that was a really good tip that i was told i also am going to be making a kind of emergency kit in case i'm snowed into my house for a couple of days so that'll include water candles soup food that's non-perishable things that i can just have kind of stowed away as a two to three day emergency kit in case i get stuck in my home and in case the power goes out luckily my current apartment is like one big house that's divided up into three units and the owners have already told me that they bring out generators if for some reason the power goes out for an extended amount of time but those are good questions to ask as far as when you're picking a place to move is heat included what is the plan if the heat goes out for a long time and is snow plowing included is shoveling included because if you're not used to snow those are things that you're going to have to be aware of because not everyone is going to plow and snow everything for you so you might have to make a contingency plan in general though there is so much that i love about new england i'm so glad that i moved here i don't foresee myself leaving new england anytime soon i love how you can just hop around to different states um it takes me an hour and a half to get to boston it takes me a couple hours to get to vermont it takes me 45 minutes to get to new hampshire there's so much in maine that i haven't seen yet and i love that i can just kind of skip around to all these cool little places and keep exploring because especially coming from a huge giant state like texas that is basically inescapable it's a really big difference to just be able to hop over into new hampshire to basically run an errand and then come back home that completely blows my mind and i it just tickles me every time i get to do that okay now let's get into some like short little tips and tricks things that i've learned that i would definitely share with people that are moving from another area completely out of new england number one if you're moving from a larger city um be prepared for a mindset shift because you are moving to small town new england and it's different things close very early even earlier in the winter the town that i lived in the saco biddeford area things lock up eight nine pm all the time so be aware of that check the times before you leave the house check times if you're planning something for your day because you never know when things are going to close some of this i think was due to covid but a lot of it is just that the the town the mentality is different up here especially in the winter um this is my so i've made it the full year cycle now i've been here for a summer i saw it completely come alive all the tourists all the out-of-state plates and things opening up like there are business types that are only open during the summer my hotel that i work out is an example of something that's only open during the summer ice cream shops hamburger stands seafood restaurants all these little places will pop up and come alive during the summer when the tourists are here and then they close down for the winter so just being aware that you might not have access to all things at all times of the year or all times of the day and night if you're moving from an area with regional cuisine be prepared to learn how to make it yourself or go without i moved from texas i miss tex-mex real tex-mex and barbecue all the time oh my gosh i miss southern food so much i am starting to learn how to cook a little bit more and to have those things in my home but man what i wouldn't give for a really really good like enchilada plate in a bowl of queso and chips because the mexican food restaurants up here number one are rare and number two finding a good one is uh a challenge so if you're coming from an area where you really love the food maybe start prepping some recipes so that you can make them in your home and have that taste of you know nostalgia another thing in the same vein of that like personally i love sweet tea um and it's not really available up here so i always 99 of time have sweet tea available in my own fridge because i just i need it if you're moving from the south or somewhere that's really hot you're gonna love the summer up here i wore a sweater three times this july three times it was cold enough to wear a sweater in july and i loved it now there were still a couple days that got hot and the thing about up here is not all places have ceiling fans and air conditioning sometimes with especially like historical houses and older buildings and stuff um they don't have that because it is cool enough typically to get away without it um so if you're used to ceiling fans if you can't sleep without a fan um or if it's a concern about you know where you're moving into make sure that they're air conditioned make sure that they have fans available or that you're picking them up and bringing them yourself because even if you're used to 120 150 120 degree summers um 90 degrees up here when there's no ac it it still feels hot so just know that it can be hot in maine even though typically it's very lovely one thing that i love to do and have tried to train myself to do is to carry cash on me because especially in the warmer months you will just be driving and there will be yard sales antique sales farm stands all these little pop-up things along the side of the road that you can stop and shop and find cool things find yummy food find vegetables produce you know milk from the farm baked goods all this stuff they have markets all the time up here and it's so cool and a lot of them do take cards but it's just nice to like have a little bit of cash on you in case you want to like grab something really quick and they don't take cards for some reason um it's very small town energy but i love just driving by and like stopping to pick something up there's a farm stand that i drive by every day on my way to and from work and i try to stop there on sundays to get just a little treat and some flowers or something for my home to like start my week off right and it's really really nice so if you love that kind of like charming roadside stuff you're gonna be in heaven up here and of course there's like a million tiny little things that you'll only learn from living up here you know about having layers a good pair of snow boots a really good snow shovel because you're probably gonna have to do some snow shoveling at some point in time um maine uh you know remembering to carry in your reusable bags because maine has a five cent bag fee at grocery stores and stuff like that if they even have bags to sell you um so getting into the habit of having every usable grocery bags getting into the habit of recycling your cans and stuff because they charge you a bottle deposit for all cans and bottles i mean it's very like eco-minded a lot of times one of my favorite things about living up here is that they have laws against billboards which coming from a big city was a total change because up here there are no billboards to obstruct your view of the trees and i'm just like the natural beauty which is so amazing uh one of the things i love most about here for sure and my last tip before i wrap it up um my best advice is to make friends with locals make friends with people that have lived here forever um you know really try and find community the first oh golly the first like sixish months that i lived here were so isolating it was still like hardcore and coveted i didn't have a car i was working from home and it was very tough um being by myself and moving to an area where i had no friends and family so if that is your situation where you're single you're moving alone whatever or even if you're maybe with a partner and you're moving up here but you have no like friends or family or ties up here really make an effort to get involved and get out and meet people even if you're at a restaurant ask your waiter like what are their recommendations what are their like you know do they have any tips because most people really want to talk to you and they really want to share they have a ton of experience that they can share with you and then of course once i like pulled myself out of that sad girl i'm all by myself funk and i i got my car and i got my job out of the house and i started dating and stuff it felt so much better to just have people that could show me things and give me recommendations and show me how to like really live my best life in maine off of the tourist path because i want to be a new englander i want to feel like i live here and like this is my home and it really took me like nine ten months for that to happen um and i'm very thankful for the people that helped me kind of bridge that gap so um you've seen him in a couple of videos but i have started dating someone who is a tried and true born and bred mainer and he has been showing me all these amazing things we've gotten fruit picking um we have so many plans of like fall and like winter activities he's gonna show me the ropes and ensure my survival that's not the only reason i'm dating him i promise but um we went camping even which i've never been camping in my life it was like a canoe canoe trip to camping which is not something i thought i would do but i did it and i had a great time and i've just been really enjoying and loving living in maine so if you have questions about life in maine or life in new england from an outsider's perspective leave them in the comments below i will try and answer any that you might have i really do get requests for advice on moving to maine all the time so if you find this video it's something you're thinking about doing drop a comment i will try and answer it the best i can or get advice from someone else and and repeat it to you so that um you know you're getting the best information possible but it is 1 000 a move that i do not regret i'm so glad i did it and i love living up here and i'm excited to share more main content i'm hoping to do more especially this fall with like apple picking and the fryeburg fair and just a bunch of fun stuff to show you more life in maine and life in new england so if that's something you're interested in make sure you hit subscribe make sure you hit the like if you want more day in the life behind the scenes fun stuff you can follow me on instagram colorful making and i will see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Meg is Pretty Cool

Views: 74,092

Keywords: moving to maine, maine, life in maine, life in new england, winter in new england, moving alone, colorful living, winter in maine, maine tips

Id: i8XSeYBLGak

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021