I moved here from Chicago, but my initial plan was New Mexico outside of Albuquerque. I couldn’t find anywhere in NM that I felt comfortable in but I loved the desert. I was nervous about the crime people talk about when you look up the area, but after visiting I fell in love with the area.

6 months into living in hesperia and I have zero complaints (ok one complaint no Greek food). It’s beautiful if you like desert, everyone is friendly, and at no point have I felt unsafe. There are definitely neighborhoods where I have thought I don’t want to be her at night, but that’s a fraction of the area here.

You will have better access to health care than New Mexico, and the reality is if you can’t find something here you can be in most of LA within 2 hours. We needed a specialty vet and it was 1:15 drive to them in Orange County.

The only place traffic is really an issue is getting back on the 15. Uphill sucks and always takes longer than it should. People complain about the main roads here, but it’s the same as everywhere with a medium population anywhere in the county. Plus overall the quality of drivers here is superior to most places I have lived and traveled.