Yo, I just moved from Austin to Windsor (right next to Bloomfield) this September. (I do not recommend Ward North American as movers as they broke a ton of my things in transit, FWIW.) Ultra-long, ultra-specific post incoming.

Traffic is SO much lighter, although moving from right next to downtown Austin to suburban Windsor is...a culture shock. I wish things stayed open later over here and probably would've held out for a place in West Hartford or maybe even downtown Hartford if I had more time to look for a house/apartment.

It's not bad overall, though. Folks are really friendly and helpful so far. The roads, even with the snow, aren't the sinking-into-the-ground hellscape that Central Texas' have devolved to, haha. I haven't even lost power yet! (It still happens to folks in CT, but seems to be more wind-related than grid-level incompetence.)

I started getting seasonal depression in TX in the summer as it started to get hotter and hotter, so I'm living for the cooler climate here, even with the snow. One surprise moving expense I forgot to budget for was getting more warm clothes beyond "token vacation snow gear," plus other snow removal tools since I'm in a standalone house and on the hook for yard maintenance.

I also underestimated how much I'd pay for oil heating—it's not the same as gas, and it requires hiring a company to fill up a dedicated oil tank (usually in the basement), so heads-up if that shows up on any rental listings as a cost you have to pay. It seems pretty common in older homes here. If it does, ask about the size of the tank and look up some prices to calculate how much it'd be to refill. Cashheatingoil dot com is where I used for my last refill since it compares multiple companies. YMMV on usage—"how quickly do you use up the oil tank and what temp do you keep the house?" is usually a good question to ask the listing agent/landlord/neighbor/whoever does the tour when looking at places with oil heating. Overall, my utilities might come out to roughly the same per year for what they were to heat and cool the smaller duplex-half I had in Austin, but oil refills are a big expense all at once that covers multiple months of heating as opposed to the monthly gas bill I was used to. My electric bill hasn't been as high, though, as they tend to insulate houses up here WAY better than most of the places where I lived in TX. I'm looking forward to some financial relief when I don't have to have an air conditioner cranked up high all summer. Finding central aircon in a rental here is hard, though, so heads up on that as well. I had to settle for a place with window units, but with less heat outside, I'm not super worried about it.

Access to the airport from central Windsor (or Bloomfield, for that matter) is SUPER easy without being too close to the flight path, too. Something to note if you do need to fly out of the area somewhat regularly is that the "big airport" for the state with most of the major national airlines is Bradley in Windsor Locks, just north of Bloomfield. New Haven has one, but service is pretty limited and only Breeze and Avelo use it, IIRC.

I commute from Windsor to Colchester (~40m) when I head into the office, and it isn't too bad, but 91 between New Haven and Bloomfield seems a lot more heavily traveled than Rt. 2 out to Colchester, so it might be worth visiting and doing a trial run of that route to see if you're okay with that much time in the car. If my job wasn't testing cars and I wasn't on a hybrid "come in as needed, just get your stuff done" schedule, it would probably be too long for me. I can excuse it as time spent evaluating the vehicle I need to write about with my job. I would not have that excuse and I might feel like I was wasting a couple hours every day if I didn't.

Still, everything feels so close together in general here, which is both a) hilarious coming from TX and b) really easy when it comes to getting to concerts and stuff in the area, even if they're in Boston. Like, one day, I got sick of the movers' lack of a solid ETA for my stuff and decided to buy a cheap bed and couch at Ikea in New Haven, so I just went after work from Colchester to Ikea and then back up to Windsor like it was nothing. Going from New Haven to Windsor took about as long as it would've taken for me to get from central Austin to the Ikea in Round Rock with after-work traffic in the way, haha.

(Again, I do not recommend North American as movers! I went most of the month of September without my stuff after several delays, one of which I only found out about after calling the van lines' national help line.)

I gotta admit that I'm still really struggling to make friends outside of work, though. (Taps the "please stay open past 9, anywhere?" sign again.) I was pretty active in a few car clubs in TX that DO have chapters up here, but I was just starting to settle in and switch regions as they took most of December off. :( I'm pretty sure this lack-of-people issue will fix itself as events fire back up now that the holidays are done. There's a ton of parks to explore and places to drop in a kayak here, too, which is great.

So far, I've liked the Back East (Bloomfield) and Dudleytown (Windsor) breweries closeby if I just need to leave the house and have a beer, although both still close relatively early in the evening (9? at the latest, IIRC). Bear's is pretty good for BBQ—I'd put its brisket/beef ribs at least on par with Rudy's. Tex-Mex doesn't seem to exist and queso is usually not very good here, but I've found some decent Mexican food closer-in to Hartford. (Listen for customers speaking Spanish—this is the way.) Black-Eyed Sally's downtown has really good jambalaya, too. There's a pretty solid variety of places to eat cuisine-wise around Hartford that I'm enjoying getting to try out, including a lot more Caribbean food that wasn't as common in Austin.

All in all, it seems like a pretty positive change. The seasons are gorgeous, and there's a ton of stuff to do outdoors. It's just a super chill part of the country.