Here’s a thumbnail sketch of Santa Ana.

Nice place – expensive to live in. Lots of tech companies. Near the beach. Very pleasant.

But socio-economically – one of the most conservative / republican / reactionary counties in the state. Don’t look for liberal social movements like in San Francisco and parts of LA. This county is far to the right.

The main question is: what will you do there? Will your income let you enjoy life? Southern California is not cheap.

I don’t know that area of the country very well, but I can tell you I moved to Florida after living in a colder climate and after 15+ years the warm weather and sunshine still always feels like a vacation. It changes your life. It is almost 70F right now, 10:00am and beautiful blue skies. California gets some more cold weather than central and south Florida, but still will be warmer and sunnier than where you are now. Total lifestyle change.

It is extremely expensive in California, but possibly compared to the UK it isn’t bad. I don’t know. I also have no idea what your income will be like here.

My mom would say, “you can always go back home if it doesn’t work out.”

@JLeslie Bite me. 8 degrees F this morning. Colder days coming.

:)

Hey @MilkyWay! Long time no see! Hi!

In a nutshell..
Environment: Looking at 40C in the summer and 10C-ish in the winter. California weather is generally pretty mild and whenever it rains we all forget how to drive. Public transportation is not a big thing there and a car will be a requirement, which is why it’s traffic (Especially the 405) is legendary.

Education/Employment: There are two universities: UC Irvine and CalState Fullerton, most cities have community colleges, and there are tons of private universities. Industries are primarily business, tech, entertainment and retail/hospitality stuff. Even with California rebounding faster than other states, it’s still not a great time to be job hunting.

Living Costs: With the exception of Central California, the state in general has a pretty high cost of living and OC is certainly more expensive to live in compared to other parts of SoCal. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything below $1000/mo. So if you’re apartment hunting think inland more than closer to the beach.

People: OC is wealthy and fiercely politically conservative, or at least the people who have the time to vote or make political offices are. In the more afforadable areas it’s actually fairly diverse with lots of whites, hispanics, and asians; Heading west however into the wealthier areas and it becomes majority white and chinese.

Lots of stuff to do there, plenty of food, cafes, clubs, bars and such. There’s lots of little ethnic enclaves too so when you’re craving a legitimate bowl of Pho, Westminster will have it and even though the rent is atrocious eating well isn’t so bad.

The Ska/Punk movement started there too with bands like No Doubt hailing from there.

It’s pretty important to be educated or have some sorto f solid financial plan because SoCal in general is tough to live in on even above minimum wage much less OC. If you find that it’s too expensive, you can also consider heading east towards the Inland Empire (Riverside/San Bernardino Counties) which are more afforadble but you might have to do some driving sometimes. Which isn’t bad since it’s pretty much 1hr each way if you wanted to hit the desert, the mountains, the beach, or LA.

40C? I don’t think of Orange County, California as being that hot. Not for days and weeks in a row anyway.

That’s kinda on the expected high end for being further inland, but yeah near the beach naturally it’ll actually be pleasant.

But in general weather has been a bit brutal this past year in SoCal, especially considering the drought.