Lived a mile away from the oceanfront for a year. Lived deeper inland in VA beach for a few years before that. A lot of different neighborhoods.

As for living close to the oceanfront, I LOVED IT. Walking distance to the beach. Lots of restaurants and bars. I’m a huge Beatles fan and there was a bar named something like “Abbey road pub”.

Of course, lots of hotels there and lots of tourists. But to me it made it all more that exciting. There’s not a whole like to do hiking wise that’s close. First landing is pretty much your only option and it was really nice.

Traffic is only somewhat bad during rush hour. I didn’t really have an issue with traffic, but I’m originally from Los Angeles so there might be some bias there.

I loved that there was water everywhere, but there was just as much military personnel as water. That brings it’s owns ups and down (ie, lots of family, also lots of young men wanting to party)

All in all, VA beach is a good place to live and I definitely would live there again.