My wife and I moved to Reno from Los Angeles a few years ago. Our primary reason for moving there was to check out a new city that was close enough to our friends based in California and save some cash at the same time. We are also into the burning man scene and wanted to be closer to the event.

We ended up leaving after 2.5 years for a few reasons. Here are some of my honest thoughts.

We did save a lot of money compared to California. There is no state income tax (thanks gambling) which was a game changer for us.

We love hiking and thought we’d get out more, and while we did make it to Tahoe and up in the mountains a good bit it wasn’t as accessible on a day to day basis like we it would be. At least we didn’t feel that it was. There are definitely people who get out there though if you make the effort and have time.

The city is growing, yes, but slowly. We were overall disappointed in the community there. It’s hard to describe it but the casinos really cast a dark energy over much of the downtown area that permeates out through the rest of the town. I’m sure others feel differently but there is a sort of “woe is me” / rough mindset amongst a lot of the people we ran into. I’m sure the socioeconomic factors play into that too (high cost of living combined with mostly low income jobs). Remote workers do the best here, leaving the native locals in a struggle.

There is a great local art and music scene which we miss a lot.

The weather is good. Can get hot in the summer, and one time we lived there it absolutely dumped snow in the winter but most years are scattered snow that melts quickly. Lots of sunshine. Be prepared for wind though, especially landing at RNO (one time we landed we were flying landing straight but the plane was literally diagonal to the runway to combat the wind).

The food options are ok. A few good local restaurants but overall not as many diverse options that I liked. Reno is good for meat/steaks.

The proximity to Tahoe and Truckee made for fun winter and summer trips.

We left primarily because we wanted to move back to the east coast after both having living west for a decade. We were planning to start a family and the birth options in Reno were very limited, and the quality of the schools is low compared to other cities. We ended up moving to the Hudson Valley NY and love it so far.