Why We Chose Tucson Over Phoenix!

welcome to travels with Travis life in Tucson Arizona is not for everyone we're surviving harsh desert temperatures Furious Tucson thunderstorms and confronting local and deadly predators who inhabit our land please join me and my family on our adventures I am Travis and I am alive in Tucson hello Travelers welcome to travels with Travis I'm your host Travis and I'm alive in Tucson here on this absolutely gorgeous Sunny 65° day in Tucson the sun's setting over to the West it is amazing right now to look at Santa Catalina's right in front of me behind you of course and of course we got the southern mountain range down here which looks amazing here to talk about a subject that might be informative to a lot of people of why we chose to live in Tucson over Phoenix when moving to Arizona a lot of people are still pouring in Arizona it's a very popular state and maybe some of these reasons might Aid you in your decision I will say beforehand that what I think and what other people think are going to be different maybe people have had a bad experience in Tucson maybe people have had a great experience in Phoenix and they disagree this is just my opinion get it got it good okay so the first thing I'm going to talk about is the heat it is hot in Phoenix and Tucson whether you like it or not however I can definitely tell a difference in Phoenix I spent an entire summer in Phoenix a few years ago doing some training and trust me definitely it's just miserable the heat really the the sun bakes into that concrete all day and even at night it just radiates that heat right back into your face uh it's a big city so there's just concrete and highways and all of that and it's just it's so miserably hot even the pool of the hotel we were staying at was bathat like it wasn't even comfortable to get in the pool I can't even believe it now here in Tucson it does get hot but generally Tucson is a few degrees cooler at any given time than Phoenix we are higher elevation so that probably has something to do with it uh but it is it's just definitely not as bad um went to a corporate meeting this summer and got in the car here definitely warm got to Phoenix and it was like oh my gosh opening the door into an oven so that's one of the reasons but we're going to get to number two which was one of the biggest reasons which is also affordability so here in two on we're in the Catalina Foothills um our apartment is $800 now for reference the Catalina Foothills is a very wealthy area you have million dooll to multi-million doll homes I mean I'm looking out on the landscape right here you got mansions that Overlook all of the mountains here Overlook everything it's nuts and if you look on realtor I mean like I said multi-million so to find an apartment in this really nice area for $800 I'm not complaining now we did transfer to an adjacent one-bedroom that's much bigger and the rent only went up to 900 so not complaining and our apartment complex is great it has an inner Courtyard that's all green pine trees we got owls on property and it's just a beautiful view of the Santa catalinas and the southern mountain range out here so great location but it's not hurting my wallet I can say that now when I was looking into Phoenix $1,200 $1,300 $1,500 just for a one-bedroom now some of these apartments are a little bit nicer cuz ours is kind of an aging complex however a lot of those apartments you have to make about three times the rent and that could be hard nowadays I'm sure everyone can relate how it can be difficult uh you know we are a one income household but here at my apartment complex it was only about 2 and 1 half times the rent and of course when the rent's only 800 it's much more manageable also another cost I noticed that was definitely a little lower year was gas prices every time we go to Phoenix it's definitely a little higher especially last summer when we went to a corporate meeting I saw one of the station signs and I went oh like I was complaining about the gas prices down here but yeah it's definitely a little higher in Phoenix course that depends on where you go I go to Sam's Club and right now Sam's Club has gas for like 50 cents cheaper than everywhere else all right guys we're going to talk about another reason why we chose to come to Tucson and it's also because Phoenix is just too big of a city I moved here from Dallas and the Dallas area is just growing and growing and growing it feels like it never stops there's so many highways and byways and freeways and construction and it's so crowded all the 5:00 traffic it's absolutely miserable and I didn't want to have that similar experience in Phoenix the Phoenix Metro area is around 5 million and it keeps growing now Tucson however in the city limits is about 500,000 now the greater Tucson area is a little over a million but that's still a much much different number than 5 million so big city I'm just kind of over it I'd rather be somewhere smaller but also has the resources I want Tucson has everything I want and I'm going to get into the next reason is I really don't care about bars or clubbing or nightlife or what concerts coming into town most people prefer Phoenix because when the bigger acts come to town they choose Phoenix that's fine I don't really care if Lady Gaga is coming to Phoenix I don't really need that I will say that one of my absolute favorite bands um from Europe is coming to Phoenix in uh April and honestly I'm just going to drive up to Phoenix spend the day in Mesa go to the concert drive home you know it is an hour and a half to 40 you know more close to 2 hours to get to Phoenix but not that big of a deal if it's something I really want to see I'll just travel up to Phoenix I don't need to live there to make sure I'm hitting all the the most recent artists and all that stuff so I don't need to be at the best bars and clubs that Arizona has to offer I'm more of a chill and watch the sunset at night guy and trust me if you could see it right now it is stunning but that means I'm losing light so the other thing is nature Now Phoenix and Arizona as a whole have a lot of nature so if someone's going to be in the comments like oh Phoenix has plenty outdoor stuff to do yes it does I agree but Tucson just has so much and it feels more it feels more enveloped with nature I mean our apartment like everything just feels like it flows with the land and you got the mountains here and 8 minutes down the road we have Sabino Canyon you have Soro National Park there's a bike trail all around this City but it just feels like everything meshes with nature now obviously if you go downtown Tucson it's all buildings and construction and all that it's not like there's parks and Fields and all that stuff but it just feels like in a lot of areas here there's just much so much beautiful nature and we went camping in this area literally just 45 minutes north of here that is just open land pitch a tent and it's just like we didn't have to go very far now I will say Phoenix does have some good stuff I love Lost Dutchman State Park and uh that was really great to go visit it is a little bit out of the city depending on where you're coming from but it just feels so connected to Nature here I mean there right now at our apartment complex I can hear the owls that live in our unit our buyer unit hooting I just saw some coyotes over here I've seen Havalina over here I've seen just everything uh beautiful sunsets which of course Phoenix has too I'm just I just can't believe what I'm seeing right here it's so beautiful but it just feels like I'm more connected to Nature here and I just have stuff that's really close by like Sabino Canyon if you ever heard of it look it up so gorgeous it's almost like why go to SAR National Park when you have something like that right here and it's 8 minutes away I could just hop in the car in 2 seconds and be in this gorgeous Cactus forest with the beautiful mountain range right in front of me so it's just you know one of those reasons we decided to come here um the other reason is it is a dark skies City and a lot of the outer limits here there is a limit on street lights um you'll be driving down the street in going be like man it's dark what's going on well they turn a lot of the lights off a lot of the street lights in order to reduce the light pollution so you can see the beautiful nighttime sky in fact when I'm standing here at my apartment on this hill at night I can see everything I can see Orion's Belt a lot of the constellations the North Star it's just stunning I love it and I love to do astrophotography so I've come out on New moons and done some really great photo shoots I'll scroll through some of those pictures but it's really great if you're a space lover in fact if you head West you have Kit Peak Observatory that you can go to which is great for observing astronomy and it's just really awesome so Phoenix I'm not saying you can't see the stars anywhere when we were at Apache Junction I could definitely see some but when you're facing um West cuz Apache Junction is east and you're looking out towards Phoenix you can't see Jack squat because there's so much light pollution the other thing is obviously Arizona is known for its Soro Cactus here um Tucson has the highest concentration of Soro cactus C anywhere the reason I bring that up is because anyone who knows me knows I love sorro Cactus they're just so freaking cool the symbolist symbol of the Southwest you just look at one and you're like man it's is so tall and there's just so many of them everywhere where you're driving no matter where you're driving they're everywhere and there was some areas in Phoenix I was in where I didn't see any and I'm like this is like literally the most iconic Thing Arizona has where where are they here they're everywhere and um I just love seeing them every day every time I see one I just feel like I need to turn and look at it because they're just all in these interesting unique shapes so anyways rambling on about that but you know these are just a few of the reasons that we decided to move to Tucson instead of to Phoenix um I've been to both places I prefer it here I just really wouldn't want to live in Phoenix unless I absolutely had to Phoenix does have a few more things to offer the jobs do pay a little more but that's because the apartments cost them more the cost of living is a little higher and so many people are moving to Phoenix it's just so packed and I just heard recently they're building some more Tech plants for like microchips and there's just going to be so much going on and there's a lot of water issues going on now of course and I know they're trying to fix that but here in Tucson I was listening to a gentleman who lives here and he's like if the city stopped storing water today they would have over 100 years available still so there's still plenty of water in Tucson and it was actually kind of a rainy winter I think the strong elino or something but it did read that it was one of the wetest so we are getting plenty of rain here at least in Tucson but tu Sun's gorgeous you're surrounded by four mountain ranges like I said the Santa catales in front of me the Western mountain range over here the ringcon which is snow capped right now and the southern mountains which are absolutely gorgeous I really wish y'all could see the sunset I might take a shot and pan it right now but anyways guys I didn't want to make this over 10 minutes but I'm a few seconds over I appreciate you joining me you know are you trying to decide between Phoenix and Tucson or do you already live in Tucson and don't really care for it or would you prefer to live in Phoenix I don't know let me know in the comments I'm happy to answer any questions if you're deciding on moving to Arizona and you need some pointers Tucson's great if you can find something that works for you definitely do it if you prefer Phoenix because of work or other reasons that's just what you got to do but I appreciate you joining me I'm Travis and I'm alive in Tucson we'll catch you next [Music] time m

Channel: Travels With Travis

Views: 1,176

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Id: 6n8c5TBwQ7A

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2024