How to Try a City Before You Move There: A Road Trip Method

You're standing in a grocery store in a city where you don't live yet. It's Tuesday, a little after five. The cart has a wobbly wheel, the man ahead of you in line is complaining about the left turn at the corner, and you realize you know exactly which corner he means.

That small moment is what a vacation can't give you, and it's the whole reason to learn how to try a city before you move there. Most of us choose a place the way we choose a weekend: the best restaurant, the view from the one good hill. Then we sign a lease on the other three hundred and sixty days.

This post is a method for those days. Pick three candidate cities, spend an ordinary week in each, and judge them on a scorecard you wrote before you left. The route between them is the research tool. Below are five sample tests built from our premade moving routes, a scorecard you can use on the page, and plain talk about what a week can't tell you.

25premade routes built for moves
115different cities on those routes
366city guides rated 7 or higher for walkability
30city guides rated 7 or higher for remote work

How to try a city before you move there: the three-city test #

The rules are short. Choose three cities, not one, because one city gives you a feeling and three give you a comparison. Visit them in one trip, in one season, so the differences belong to the cities. Spend an ordinary week in each: work your hours, buy your own groceries, do the laundry, sit through one quiet evening. Stay in a residential neighborhood with a kitchen, not beside the main attraction. Write your weights down before you leave home, and score each city the day you drive out of it.

Other guides to this idea agree on the basics. Livability suggests about a week rather than a weekend, HireAHelper calls two to four weeks ideal, and Move.org stresses keeping your normal routine and testing the real commute. What we add is the chain. Our premade moving routes string cities together along real highways with honest driving days, so you can borrow the order, swap each one-night stop for a week, and let the road do the planning. The facts come from the route library and city guides on Route By Design, and the scores are our guides' own ratings. Nobody paid to appear here. One honest limit: these routes were built to move a household in a few days, so we borrow their order, not their pace, and nothing here recommends moving to any of these places.

Five moving routes, five test chains


I-25, Albuquerque to Denver	Albuquerque	Denver	8	5	May, June, September and October
Moving haul: Los Angeles to Dallas	Los Angeles	Dallas	6	5	March to May, October to November
Cleveland to Boston across upstate New York	Cleveland	Boston	11	8	May to October
I-5 college towns, Bellingham to Ashland	Bellingham	Ashland	9	6	April to October
Calgary to Vancouver across the Rockies	Calgary	Vancouver	10	6	June to September

How long should each test last?

A weekend

Good for ruling cities out, thin for choosing one, since a weekend mostly shows the fun side of a place (Livability's guide makes the same point). Treat it as a scouting trip before a move: if the first neighborhood leaves you cold, save yourself the week.

A week

The working minimum, and the length we use in every sample test below. Seven days gives you workdays, a laundry day, a grocery run and an evening with nothing planned. Three cities at a week each is a three-week trip, which is long, but shorter than a year in the wrong place.

A month

Keep this for the finalist. HireAHelper's trial-run guide calls two to four weeks ideal and a month the closest you can get to living somewhere without a lease.

Prairie to Pacific: Calgary, Kamloops, Vancouver #

Canada

Mountains

10 days or more

Vancouver. Photo by Luke Lawreszuk on Unsplash.

The Trans-Canada from Calgary to Vancouver takes ten days and six stops, and it shows how much a country can change in a few hundred miles. Calgary is a sunny prairie city with a cowboy streak, a river pathway network and the Rockies on its western horizon. Kamloops is a dry interior city where the two Thompson rivers meet, with grassland trails and riverside parks. Vancouver is the end of the line, a mountain and ocean city with the Stanley Park seawall, Granville Island and the Sea to Sky highway on its doorstep.

The sizes differ a lot: about 1.3 million people in Calgary, 662,000 in Vancouver and 98,000 in Kamloops. Our guides rate food at 4.8 in Kamloops against 8.5 in Vancouver, so eat out on a Tuesday and see how it feels. They call Vancouver rainy in winter and bright in summer, and the best months for the whole chain sit in the warm season, so this is the test most likely to flatter its cities.

Prairie-to-Pacific test

Good

Nature scores of 9.5, 9.5 and 9 in our guides
Three city sizes, from about 98,000 to about 1.3 million
Vancouver rates 8.7 for walkability and 8.5 for food in our guides

Not so good

Best months run June to September for the chain, so the winter picture is missing
Moving between countries adds paperwork a test week can't settle

Calgary. Photo by Mahesh Gupta on Unsplash.

Kamloops. Photo by Peter Robbins on Unsplash.

Our guides' scores for all fifteen cities


Albuquerque	Front Range	5.8	6.7	7	6.3	7
Colorado Springs	Front Range	4.5	6.7	8.5	5.8	3
Denver	Front Range	5.7	8.3	9.5	6.6	8
Phoenix	Desert to Texas	5.1	7.1	8	6.3	5
El Paso	Desert to Texas	5.3	6.5	6.5	5.9	7
Dallas	Desert to Texas	5.6	8.2	2.5	6.3	7
Buffalo	Upstate to New England	5.2	7	6	5.8	7
Albany	Upstate to New England	8.3	5.9	5	5.8	8.5
Northampton	Upstate to New England	8.5	7.5	6	6.5	6.5
Seattle	I-5 college towns	8.7	8.4	9.5	6.6	9.5
Eugene	I-5 college towns	8.7	6.5	5	6.5	9.5
Ashland	I-5 college towns	8.2	6.2	7.8	5.6	5.4
Calgary	Prairie to Pacific	5.7	7.4	9.5	6.6	6
Kamloops	Prairie to Pacific	4.8	4.8	9.5	5.8	7
Vancouver	Prairie to Pacific	8.7	8.5	9	6.6	9.5

Questions people ask #

How do you try a city before you move there?

Pick two or three candidate cities and spend an ordinary week in each, living as if you'd already moved. Stay in a residential neighborhood with a kitchen, work your usual hours, shop for your own groceries and score each city on the same card. To chain the cities along a real road, build a route from your own start.

How long should you stay in a city before moving?

A week is the working minimum, a weekend only rules a city out, and a month is the best test for a finalist. Livability recommends about a week, and HireAHelper calls two to four weeks ideal. The longer you stay, the more the novelty fades.

Can you test drive a city before moving?

Yes, and that's what a trial run before relocating is. Rent a place with a kitchen for a week or more, run your normal routine, and test the commute at the hours you'd actually travel.

Is it worth renting a place for a month before moving?

Often, if the city is your finalist. A month shows how your work, budget and social life really fit, and a month of rent is usually small next to a lease you regret. Check first, though, because some cities restrict short-term rentals with minimum stays or host rules.

How do you know if a city is right for you?

You know when your scorecard and your gut agree. Use weights you set before the trip, then ask which city you looked forward to on a Monday and where you felt like a resident instead of a visitor. If the scores land within a point, give the leaders a second week.

What should I check before moving to a new city?

Housing costs on current listings, the real commute, grocery prices, climate in all four seasons, healthcare near the neighborhood, schools if you have kids, and whether you can meet people. The checklist above turns most of that into things you can do on a test Tuesday.

Should I test a city in winter or summer?

Test in the season you're most worried about. To try a warm place in the cold months, our warm winter road trips are a ready-made way to do it. Check our guides' best months before you book.

Can I work while I test a city?

Yes, and you should, since working from a neighborhood cafe or library is part of the test. Pick a rental with good internet, run your usual hours and note where you'd settle in. The two guides linked above cover cafes, coworking and a working week on the road.

How to Try a City Before You Move There: A Road Trip Method

How to Try a City Before You Move There: A Road Trip Method

How to try a city before you move there: the three-city test #

A weekend

A week

A month

A visit-a-city-before-moving checklist for each test day #

Morning

Midday

Evening

Last day

Rocky Mountain Front Range: Albuquerque, Colorado Springs, Denver #

Desert to Texas: Phoenix, El Paso, Dallas #

Upstate New York to New England: Buffalo, Albany, Northampton #

I-5 college towns: Seattle, Eugene, Ashland #

Prairie to Pacific: Calgary, Kamloops, Vancouver #

What a test week can't show you #

How to decide where to move: score your three cities #

Questions people ask #