greater portland maine

[mommy amber]

dh is finishing up grad school and we're thinking about areas we'd like to focus our job search in.

I'm pulling hard for the greater portland area.

what we're interested in:

a rural to semi-rural house (yard w/ woods/beach nearby- walking distance would be amazing!)

BUT

we want to be within 1 hour of portland (1/2 hour would be even better)

we have tried both metro living (Philadelphia for 12 years w/ and w/o kids) and small town living (so VT) and we're looking for a happy medium. 

we really appreciate having nature in our immediate vicinity (the ocean would be a HUGE plus...and woods are just awesome) but we also need to have a city of some size within reach.

how affordable (rental and buying) are places like this in the area?

what is the homeschooling community like? 

does portland offer a fairly good cultural scene...particularly in the fine/visual arts?

thanks for any advice/info/suggestions!

[shayinme]

I am 20 mins south of Portland in Saco, I live in town so my immediate area is walkable and I am 10 mins from the ocean. We bought 7 years ago during the height of things so at that time a house in Portland was out of our range so this was a reasonable compromise, heck we are one of the few towns that has public transit both locally and to Portland! I like our location as we are also a little under 2 hours to Boston and have a train station locally.

We don't homeschool but have many friends that do so I would say that in Southern Maine there is a good HS community, as far as the arts scene its good. Portland is home to the Maine College of Arts, a fair number of small galleries, a great monthly Art Walk.

I moved here from Chicago which was culture shock I would suggest you just come and check it out.

[Commanda13]

I love, love, love the Portland area!! We live about 45 minutes north of there in Bath, ME.  I love it!!  It's a great mix of everything.  We have great hiking, close to the beach, things to do with kids, cultural stuff, community events, lots and lots of things to do.  I moved here from VT two and a half years ago and I haven't run out of things to do yet!!  I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.   Portland has an awesome music and art scene although to be honest, we hardly ever make the drive down there because there is so much around here in the Bath/Brunswick area.  Rentals are 800 - 1000 and houses to buy are probably $150,000 and up.  Not sure because I haven't looked in a while.  We're renting.  There are a lot of homeschoolers around and Maine seems to be a homeschool friendly state, since we have the portfolio option.

We love the Bath area because the downtown is compact and we can easily walk downtown or to the library with the kids.  So much better than the boonies of VT!

Amanda