My son goes to Tulane and we wanted to secure good, safe housing for him when he moved off campus. Some houses looked a lot nicer online than they were in person and some neighborhoods with decent pricing were to be avoided at all costs! We compromised and got a condo near campus with a parking spot and a gate. Maybe for short term thats the way to go for you, too. It is also really nice to have a condo association take care of things like the water bill, etc which can be a real nightmare in NOLA. It can be a dangerous city, yes. But also an interesting place to visit as long as you keep your guard up.
My son, DIL and 16 month old GD live in New Orleans and love it. I can not imagine they will every leave and my son has been there since undergrad at Tulane, so 17 years. Sure there are areas that aren’t as safe as others, but you will be able to find a place to call home.
This makes me sad that you have to move somewhere that makes you so unhappy. It sounds like you are already assuming you will hate it and not fit in, I hope you get to visit with an open mind and see how great NO can be.
D19 is at Tulane and yes we knew we were seeing D to a city that has crime but I would not say I sent her somewhere so dangerous. Just like any city you do have to be mindful of where you are wandering around especially late at night. The biggest problem area for tourists is of course the French Quarter late at night but that is not a place you see many locals hanging out unless it is just for dinner. Just like if you lived in NYC you would most likely not be hanging out in Times Square at 1am, or at any time for that matter. Also, our family is very liberal as well and haven’t felt out of place at all when we visit. D was really concerned about looking at some of the big southern schools because of that but she really feels like New Orleans is a little pocket of diverse people stuck in the more conservative state of LA.
D19 definitely does not stay cloistered on campus but she does try to make good decisions such as staying in groups and taking Ubers at night. She has been to the French Quarter for dinner, Cafe du Monde for late night beignets, she has gone to festivals in City Park and rented paddle boats, she went to a music festival in some other park by the lake, visited a Cheese Festival with her French class, she and her friends love to walk around the fancy houses in the Garden District, they go to restaurants all over the city, she is finally going to her first parade this weekend, Audubon Park is right across the street and they go there just to lay in the sun and do homework, she went to a Saints game and I think she is going to a Pelicans game this week - and she is only a freshman!
As far as music and food goes, what do you like? You say you don’t like Jazz but is that everything from dixieland to modern jazz or just some of it? I promise there is every type of music you can imagine in NO - from zydeco to pop to blues to his hop. Big name artists are there all the time playing at Smoothie King Center. And food is the same - you can find just about anything you can imagine - BBQ, cajun, steak houses, vegetarian, sandwich shops, southern, french. My daughter and her friends love a restaurant called Shaya which is I think is Israeli/ Mediterranean - not a place I would ever have guessed for her but they say it is amazing. And of course they have the local supermarket named Rouses as well as Fresh Market and Whole Foods.
I’m not saying NO is for everybody but it is much more diverse than you might have heard. Definitely PM the posters on here who live there, they will be the best source of advice as far as safest neighborhoods. It is like any city - there may be a great neighborhood a few blocks from a less safe one so you want to check addresses carefully. What I have learned is that people may say their place is somewhere like the Garden District but really it is somewhere less safe that is waking distance to that neighborhood.
I have not been there enough to be of any help compared to people like @greenwitch and @pishicaca but I hope you have a great visit and are able to make the three years enjoyable!
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@momtogkc we don’t get to visit before we move, apparently. The timeline is just too condensed for his work. We probably couldn’t have afforded to visit anyway. When I say I don’t like jazz I mean any form of jazz. I am sure that there are many types of music that come through the city annually, but as an outsider the city is basically associated with jazz and Mardi Gras in my mind. I also don’t eat seafood and cannot eat gluten. I’ve done research and though I’m sure there are some options, it’s just not a gluten-free friendly city. We will deal with that part, of course- I will just continue to cook great gf food at home. It’s just more that nothing that the city is known for is calling to us. Let’s not even discuss my D’s fear of bugs and the new and exciting ones we will have to deal with… or my other D’s fear of natural disasters. We do what we have to do as a military family, and we will attempt to make the best of it… but I’ve never bought into having to like it just because we have to do it.
Can your DH just move to base and you not move at all? I have no idea what his job or hours are, can he just come home for weekends? Is it just you and DH?
Research Algiers Point / Katrina for a disturbing bit of history during & after Katrina.
Please stop being so closed minded about the city, or you will be victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Look for the things you DO like, not the things you don’t. It’s a fascinating city, and be sure to visit the WWII museum. Oh, and for a start… https://nola.eater.com/maps/best-gluten-free-restaurants-new-orleans-nola
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I’m sorry you won’t get to visit before you move, that must be so hard. I can’t imagine if someone told me I had to move to Columbus or Indianapolis or some other city I had no interest in (nothing against those places of course!)
I totally get it, I had no desire to even visit before we took D to see Tulane. In my mind I thought the whole place was basically like Bourbon Street and while I love going out I don’t love the bachelor party type scene - I’m more of an Irish pub with good music type person. It turns out Bourbon Street is the only place like Bourbon Street - constant partying, drunken bachelor and bachelorette parties, strip bars - everything you would expect. However I will say it was good people watching for a little while!
Once we left that area we saw there was so much more to the city than I thought. Even just a block or two over from Bourbon you see some nice buildings and pretty architecture. Then once you venture out of the French Quarter there are some very beautiful areas.
I get you on the bugs - I was not happy about that when we moved to FL either! I’ve been here almost 20 years and I still sometimes jump when a lizard runs in front of me by my front door! And I’ve become a pretty good shot with a can of Raid for when I see cockroaches - they are the worst. Hurricanes are scary but you usually get lots of notice at least. You will want to get a tall pair of rain boots, New Orleans is so low that when it rains the streets can flood in about 10 minutes flat! Good news is once it stops the water is usually gone just as quickly.
You definitely don’t have to like it but I hope it grows on you once you are there! When do you move? Oh - Trip Advisor forums have a lot of information - people on there are good at helping with explaining the safety of neighborhoods and exact street addresses.
PS - If you would like I could go on the Tulane parent FB page and ask about gluten free dining - I know lots of parents talked about that in the past but I did not pay attention since D did not need it.
I just saw Bearcat Cafe is on the list above - that is D’s favorite breakfast place in town - they say it is delicious and there are 3 or 4 locations
@jym626 You can’t think of me as closed-minded if you like, but this will be our ninth big move in 19 years, and the first one I can’t find something to look forward to. Some of those have been to places that I never thought I would want to live, but I found things to get excited about and like. Every person isn’t going to like every place. It doesn’t say anything about the person or the place, it’s just reality. Plenty of people we know from Texas have been miserable being stationed in Los Angeles or Philadelphia or New York. People from SoCal have hated DC. People from NY can’t wait to leave Texas. I don’t think less of them for that. I appreciate the list. I’ve seen a number of those places listed elsewhere- mostly the seafood heavy places, but yes there will always been (overpriced) gf pizza available. Gluten free doesn’t mean celiac safe, though, and I’ve been told by local celiacs to mostly eat at home.
@Sybylla , technically he can move alone. We would have to find somewhere completely separate to live (can’t stay on our current base 1,000 miles away). Unless we were much closer he couldn’t come home on weekends, which would defeat the purpose- I think his weekend liberty range is something like 200 miles from work.
When I was young my aunt and uncle went through much the same dilemma you are in. It was their 10th move with the Navy and my aunt had had enough and did not want to go to the next city. She (and the kids) found a cheap rental close to her family and lived their during the time my uncle was stationed half a country away. They treated it just like a deployment, dad was gone but had the advantage he could get back to them if necessary as opposed to if he had been out to sea.
It was not ideal but I think it was one of my cousins favorite moves. They had family close (it was really the only time in our lives that my same age cousin and I were together), two daughters were able to graduate from the same high school, and one daughter met her husband/got married. I know in talking to them years later there are really two places they remember fondly from their time as “military brats”; the time they chose to live by family instead of follow dad and the base my uncle retired at, the rest are all a blur.
We never did either. We’ve lived from NC to MN, NY to CA and we always found at least one thing we liked about where we lived… until we moved to LA. New Orleans just wasn’t for us, and that’s ok. We did our 4 years, and got out as quickly as we could. We’re much happier now.
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I remember asking DH if we could GeoBach the LA move. He said we could discuss it if I really wanted to but first he gave me a pretty graphic peek into what my life would be like as a single parent with 2 busy kids. OP doesn’t have young children at home, but it’s really not easy. It would be like a 3-4 year deployment, only maybe slightly better. It’s an option definitely, but it’s not a great one.
@milgymfam - I didn’t say you are closed minded, I said you were being closed minded about NOLA. Everything you’ve posted is negative. There are things not to like about NOLA for sure, but there are things to like.
My DH was a military brat and he was active duty when we met. He stayed in the reserves for another 7 years. It is a different lifestyle for sure. Hopefully the base has some good community/family programs to connect with. Best of luck.
One of the bigger reasons to not geobach is that they no longer allow the service member to live in barracks automatically, and never for free any more. We would have to support two households instead of one. Our family is all in philly (and D19 goes to school there) and it can be cheap to live there, but not that cheap! Ha!
BTW, don’t go to the Touristy part of the Quarter in NOLA. Go to Frenchman Street.
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That’s another reason we didn’t GeoBach. Our finances would’ve been really tough!
@milgymfam I understand how you feel and I hope once you get there that you will make a great friend or something positive will turn up that is hard to anticipate right now.
I travel a lot for business and have for my whole career. New Orleans is my least favorite city in the whole country and I have been to all parts of it and have taken excursions to the desirable sights. I just don’t like it. I was there last fall and there was a guy with no shirt on passed out on the sidewalk at noon right in front of our very upscale business hotel. I am not even crazy about the food, although there are certain things I love like the beignets. My daughter and her fiance are getting married there in the fall, and I am keeping my mouth shut and will enjoy it and be gracious.
Wow I’ve never seen someone so determined to hate a place they’ve never been. You say you are worried about people being closed-minded there. I think you are the one that’s being closed-minded! And you better believe… people will sense that from a mile away and likely choose to avoid you rather than deal with a negative attitude.
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If there’s any one thing military families are experts at, it’s coping w/ “the suck”. Could be that OP is pleasantly surprised once she gets to her new destination. Could be it’s everything she fears. Either way, everyone deserves to be happy in their lives. Being forced to live somewhere you don’t want to be can be terrifying. So maybe a little compassion here?
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I see your point. However, I get tired of people painting one particular city/state/area with a broad brush, coming in with pre-conceived notions and stereotypes. Isn’t that essentially what racism and homophobia is? And that’s what the OP is fearful of coming into contact with and here she is exhibiting the same behaviors herself.