The good thing about Massachusetts is that you’re only an hour or two from many different experiences. I, too, am a rural PA transplant. Want to hike, head north to the White Mountains. Want the beach, head east. Go a little further north and grab some fresh lobster right off a boat for dinner. Want some trees, head west or northwest to northern Mass or Vermont. Want to kayak, Central Mass has lots of quiet lakes and rivers. You can literally go snow skiing in the morning and surfing in the evening if you want. Just wear a wetsuit because the ocean water is friggin cold no matter the time of year.

As far as driving goes, the Amish horse and wagons drive about as fast as drivers in Arlington so no change there.

Glad to hear this!

There are lots of walking trails and conservation lands around Lexington, Lincoln, Carlisle, and Concord….some of which probably date back to the time of Thoreau or earlier. Check out Drumlin farms, which is run by the Audubon society, and all of the sites owned by the trustees of the reservation. There are hundreds of them around MA. Anyway, for the average person here the hardest thing about MA is the cost of living and the time it takes to commute but if your family lives in the Hamptons you’re probably not in the cohort who will be struggling to afford a house so I’m sure you’ll love it. Enjoy the e adventure.

If you are "outdoorsy", you will want to check out hte Minuteman Commuter Bikeway, which runs from Alewife Station (in Cambridge, but near the border of Arlington), through Arlington and Lexington to Depot Park, in Bedford.

From there, the Narrow Gauge Trail - mostly unpaved - runs another couple miles north, almost into Billerica.

The Minuteman, meanwhile, is going to be extended into West Concord over the next few years, by incorporating what is now the (as yet largely unpaved, I think) Reformatory Branch Trail. It's a short distance from there to pick up the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, which runs south into Sudbury ()and in a few years, Framingham), and north through Acton, Carlisle, Westford, and Chelmsford, ending within steps of the Lowell city border.

Along the BFRT you can find Nara Park in Acton, and Heart Pond in Chelmsford; both have beaches ... Nara costs money, Heart Pond is free (but also muuuuch smaller). No lifeguards at either, AFAIK.

In Lexington, the Minuteman passes literally adjacent to Lexington Green (birthplace of the American Revolution!), and that's maybe two miles from the Minuteman National Historic Park, and the Battle Road trail.

There's also the Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Trail, along both banks of the Charles River.

...

Less outdoorsy stuff, but: your 5yo will love the Boston Children's Museum, and probably also the Museum of Science (that was a perennial favorite when I was 3 and 4 years old, and my parents still lived in Boston). Franklin Park Zoo was also a favorite of mine at that age. Harvard University also has a bunch of museums that may interest your kiddo when s/he gets a few years older. Or you and your spouse, right away. :) The Museum of Fine Arts is a must-see for adults, but less so for younger children IMO.

Yeah, that's something a lot of people forget about Boston and eastern MA. It's not just the work opportunities in the GBA but so much different nature being close by too.

I definitely take it for granted at times too.

There’s also the discovery museum in Acton that’s great for kids

Former NEPA person here.

No overnight parking in the streets in Arlington.

All pizza sucks in Arlington (yeah I said it)

Don't join any local Facebook groups. It's nothing but people complaining over silly things and think that every developer on the planet is personally coming to take there houses and build apartments.

Traffic is and will be absolutely miserable

Easthampton is not the same as "The Hamptons".

Thanks

Most libraries have museum passes for all of these museums that are mentioned. You can get discounted or free access as long as you book it ahead of time.

You will also be near a few historical national parks and only a 4-6 hour (depending on traffic) ride to Acadia, our only National Park park. The National Seashore runs along the Cape and the seal tours are really fun, just keep an eye out for great whites. One went under a tour boat the week before we went out.

Ticks are an issue, so don't forget to prepare for that!

Check these out - https://www.visitarlingtonma.org/learn-about/menotomy-rocks-park/

https://oldschwambmill.org

https://minutemanbikeway.org

https://friendsofspypondpark.org

https://arlingtonhistorical.org

https://www.arlingtonma.gov/i-want-to/learn-about/arlington-history-facts

I grew up in Arlington (A-Town) back in the 70's & 80's. Great community, close to Boston, decent public transportation & lots of bikeways.

Do you already have a place to live? Our son and his fiancé lived near Spy Pond, and it was a lovely place to live near. They moved to find a larger place (their place was literally about a 2575 sf apartment.). If you haven’t looked for an apartment/home yet, be prepared for sticker shock. There are some decent photos of Spy Pond here: https://leokrut.com/e-vault/album/spy_pond/park.html Schools are generally great. Eating out in Greater Boston is pricey, but there are lots of options. Highly recommend The Science Museum (reduced tickets at the library, or become members) - I really loved going there when our kids were little - there is a lot of Hands on, and it was easy to push a stroller while our older child explored. They have a room especially for young children. The best food stores : Market Basket in Somerville or Wegmans in Medford. I like the choices and prices at Costco, and there are a few around, but perhaps too far out for you?

Add to that options for linking up to bike paths into Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston (the terminus was actually Davis Square when it opened in the 90's)

I’m an outdoorsy midwestern person who has grown to love it here. I’m married to a city person. I really enjoy that if I want lots of nature, NH, Maine, Vermont, and Western MA are driveable. I have seen some really amazing geological sites and beautiful forests. I really like Stow, VT and Acadia National Park. Our local forests are small but I love them too. When you go out to Easthampton, there are waterfall hikes and the Quabbin reservoir is fun for kayaking. In Arlington, you are close to the Middlesex Fells, one of my favorite parks around here. It’s so easy to get to. Mount Misery is another hidden gem close to your new home.

Make sure to go get outdoors on a regular basis. Don’t wait for city cabin fever to set in. One summer, we put a different hike on our calendar for every Saturday and either made ourselves go out or consciously choose something else. Our default plan was “go outside.” For vacation, we occasionally rent a cabin in the woods.

That said, make sure you go on city adventures too, so you get a sense of the upsides. For a while I was a little sad because I only felt the city struggle vs the benefits. You will be close to so many fun things, and you & your kids will have amazing opportunities.

Last thing, I love that there are people here from all over the US and the world! It’s amazing! Don’t get discouraged if you find it difficult to form friendships with lifelong New Englanders (especially the old money crowd, in my experience). Have trust that you will find your circle of friends. Most of my friends are fellow transplants, plus a couple New Englanders, and I love them all. I’ve learned so much from them that I would have never learned if I had not moved to the city, and I can count on them.

Welcome! We live in Arlington with our five-year-old daughter. My single piece of advice is to plan adventures for your daughter because she only gets to explore the city once.

1. Get a library card both in Boston and Arlington. Best if she can sign her own name.
2. A trip to Concord Battleground.
3. The Museum of Fine Arts.
4. The Science Museum.
5. The Aquarium.
6. Go north to Plum Island. Purchase a year's membership if she likes it.
7. The Boston Common and Public Garden.
8. Places to eat that are kid-friendly such Paramount on Charles St in Boston.
9. Mystic Lakes.

Lol. Whoops. Half asleep commenting. I’m tempted to edit but I’m going to own up to it and leave it there. I’m guessing the OP is a pharma exec so the point probably still stands.

Also paddling the Mystic River and lakes or hiking, biking, or trail running in the Fells. There's plenty of nature adjacent spaces, if not entirely pristine and out of earshot from a highway, and putting the slightest effort into getting away from the parts accessible by vehicles, you'll find some real solitude.

You will have access to a ton of great restaurants in Arlington. Also, Wilson Farm is just over the border in Lexington, and is pricy, but the best fresh produce grocery store/working farm around. The public schools are some of the best in the country, so you have done your kids a solid.

Maria's used to be halfway decent but new owners have cranked the prices and shrunk the pies 😭

Welcome.

If you’re from a rural place, and like to visit farms with Animals with kids, the Wright-Locke farm is just over the town line in Winchester, a 5 minute drive. Further out on route-2 (15-20 mins) is Drumlin farm, with Mass Audubon. Both have animals and children’s programming.

Walden Pond, a 15 minute drive is a great place for summer swimming. It fills up early on weekends. Weekdays are not that bad.

The Arlington reservoir is great for little kids swimming during the summer. Brand new playground just put in.

Wilson Farm is expensive, but good place to get vegetables and fruit. They also have expensive meat and prepared foods. The local supermarkets leave much to be desired for produce quality.

If you’re from Pennsylvania you’ll be familiar with Wegman’s supermarkets, there’s one in Burlington.

Arlington has lots of playgrounds and soccer fields. Each has their own thing. There’s a spray park at the Thompson elementary school from June-August.

There’s a movie theatre (Capitol Theatre) that has mother’s matinees on Monday. Nursing moms, screaming kids, changing diapers, all cool and normal. Great for mothers with newborns.

If you’re commuting to Kendall from Arlington there are two ways. 1 - Taking bus to Alewife Station and then the Red-Line subway to Kendall. 2 - Taking the bus all the way to Harvard, then transferring to red line train to Kendall. Depending on where you live, one or the other might be better.

If you’re going to go to Target, go to the ones in Burlington or Woburn. City traffic actually makes it about same time. Better parking and bigger stores.

There are 6 elementary schools in Arlington. You can enroll with the public schools online.

Internet is Comcast / RCN (Astound) / Verizon FIOS. You have three choices. FIOS is fastest, and if you work from home, the most reliable. RCN is pretty good and they have a service building in Arlington. It was the “cheaper” option for a long while. Comcast has comparable speeds to RCN, but their customer service is breathtakingly bad.

Robbins Farm park, near the Brackett school has a great overlook of the city. Great sledding on the upper hill (above soccer field) when it snows.

Hiking in the Middlesex Fells is nearby. Good if you have dogs.

Monotomy Rocks park is smaller and a location with off leash available for dogs. Great for a small hike with kids.

For young kids, Fox library has children’s books and programming. Robbins library is larger, and also has kids stuff, but entirety of Fox is young kids. Free good WiFi at Robbins library when you need to work and kids are checking out books.

Been living in the area with young kids for 10 years. If you have any questions, let me know.

https://www.wlfarm.org

https://www.massaudubon.org/get-outdoors/wildlife-sanctuaries/drumlin-farm

https://www.wilsonfarm.com

I used to live in a Philly suburb, too, and have been in MA for a long time now. I used to think about moving back to PA, but I love it here now. I am more of a city person, and live in a city now.

Closest Rita's water ice: Looks like one may have opened in Walpole...they come and go in MA. I usually hit one in Vernon, CT (off 84) on my way back from PA. In a pinch, Richardson's (found in convenience stores, freshly scooped!) is not bad.

The thing I love most about the Boston suburbs is not HAVING to drive. I do drive around town for errands and to go see friends, etc. But for basic necessities, I don't HAVE to. This is great for getting purposeful walks in and being snowed in in the winter. Arlington has some cute squares and some buses to get you to a T stop and is pretty walkable. You'll love it! When I visit rural-ish PA, the driving IS easier with less traffic...but you HAVE to drive to even get milk.

Don't get your hopes up on pizza, but the area has a lot of good food you may not find in PA. This person made a google doc from a thread about restaurants that has good suggestions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/woc0dd/i_made_a_spreadsheet_based_on_ubitpushrs_post/

If you're a Philly sports fans, feel free to disclose it - no rivalries really with them.

As others have said, the great outdoors is not far away. Beach? Mountains? Hiking? Skiing? Biking? Boating? You can do it all with even a day trip. If you like kayaking, there are a few places along the Charles to rent (one in Kendall Sq too!). The annoying thing about MA is beach access, though I don't have too many comparisons. I used to vacation on the Cape just to easily get to a beach. The parking lots often fill up early or have restrictions. Revere Beach isn't too far from Arlington, and I go there a lot. It doesn't have a lot of amenities, but it's easy to park at, has T access (although from Arlington the T would be a haul), and is realllly big and doesn't often feel crowded.

Fall in PA is pretty good, but it's the best here. :)

Arlington is a great town, low crime rate, good school system, good food spots. Overall, a great town!

Sabatinos was decent enough, but that closed in 2016

> If you're a Philly sports fan...

But, if you are a Pirates fan, forget it. Still a lot of heated feelings from the World Series in '03. Fortunately, Boston had Bill Dinneen and Wagner was injured.

Very true. They're all good walking paths, too.

I focused more on the parts that would take them back out of the urbanized areas, though, given they're coming from a rural area. :) Less car noise, more actual nature. :)

Pretty much the only difference is that there's less manure on the road

Join the Arlington email list: https://www.arlingtonlist.org/ Many neighborhoods also have similar more local email lists.

They're working in Kendall Sq tho, so it's worth noting the Somerville Community Path connection the Minute Man makes it totally possible that they could do a bike commute to Kendall during the warmer months and even year round if they're hardy enough.

Ebike/escoter could make for a solid alternative to driving to Alewife and parking and chancing the Red Line is a POS today, and probably similar time to driving. Don't usually have to pay to park a bike either.

Alewife also has bike cages, so they can even do a shorter bike + transit commute.

Extremely important note due to their job being in Kendall.

Kendall Sq is immediately next to Lechmere, where the Green Line Extension begins and where the Somerville Community Path extension begins too.

The Somerville Community Path directly connects to the Cambridge Linear Park/Path which connects to the Minute Man. And it connects to the Cambridge Crossing paths. A few painted bike lanes make it possible to get into Kendall fairly comfortably, and Cambridge is likely to add protected bike lanes around there in the future.

Good points, all around.

And with a front-loading cargo bike, like the Yuba Supercargo CL ... they could even forgo a car entirely for most of their trips. :)

Just note that as asked in r/Somerville multiple times/week, the path doesn’t go all the way to Lechmere yet but should hopefully open in the spring

The surf is terrible here to be fair though.

You can get lucky. Maine has some good spots. Mass is pretty trash.

You can overnight park on the streets in Arlington for a few nights if you fill out a form on Arlingtons Town Website, so you can still have visitors for a few days. Brickstone Cafe in the center has decent pizza, I wouldn’t say it’s the best, but it doesn’t suck. All the other places are pretty meh tho.

All I’ll say is you’re gonna love it. Arlington is a great town. Definitely not rural but not far away from it either. Lots of places nearby to hike and get away from people, but also very convenient for city activities.

Boston area weather gonna be a few degrees colder on average and you’ll get a little bit more snow, but no real difference.

dont call it mass.

Sorry, MA

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There are also Facebook groups - The Arlington List, Arlington Parents. If your daughter will start kindergarten in the fall at one of the public schools, make sure to get info about kindergarten meetups for your school. Parents organize gatherings during the summer so kids can make new friends.

Exactly what I mean. The access to bike paths that go everywhere is pretty killer for the Arlington area. And it's only going to expand as we see more bike lanes and paths like the Mass Central open in a few years.

>Mass Central

Eventually, the BFRT will come within a couple blocks of that one, at the very least. Likely it will be connected, by bike lanes if not directly. :)

its fine, you can say whatever you want

Arlington is a great location. As you can tell by the comments, people from this area are passionate about our home state. Welcome to the neighborhood!

you'll love arlington and kendall square area....absurd amount of things to do/explore. def take ur bunny to the harvard museum of natural history.

As long as you don’t mind driving for 4 hours in one day to get some good nature. I feel like people overstate this but whatever

Is a 2575 sq ft apartment supposed to small?

Lol right? We’re living in a 1000 sq ft apartment in Arlington and it’s just becoming too small for us. 2500 sq ft would be a dream. So would buying in Arlington but with all the properties sitting solidly over 700k that’s impossible for us 🤷‍♀️

There is a severe lack of good pizza in Boston and all the surrounding towns... it's my main rag on Boston, but I love it here otherwise.

We live in Arlington with our 3 year old and love it. It’s great to be close to Boston but not in Boston. There’s tons to do with your kid too and there’s a lot of young families. My hubby and I are originally from the south and lived in Cambridge before moving to Arlington. Message me if you have any questions.

We live in a 560 sq ft apt… can we have yours?

Unless you go to the south shore of Nantucket & Martha's Vineyard, but that's expensive and time conusming.

I moved from Baltimore to Arlington a year ago. It is impossible to write a better response than this. Tip of the hat!

It’ll be like hermit crabs trading up shells

Thanks! Your comment made my day. :-)

Arlington is great, I lived there with my wife for 6 years.

Everyone is giving good advice I will give snarky advice. Every person in Arlington will tell you to go to Jimmy's Steer House, they'll say it's great.

I don't know when they went to Jimmy's I presume it was in the 1980s or 1990s. There's lots of great restaurants in Arlington

Don't go to Jimmy's

Beware of coyotes.

For families with young kids, this is a good group: https://www.arlingtonfamilyconnection.org/ Surrounding towns also have active family groups that you can look for (LexFUN, etc.) The libraries in the area are great for activities for little ones (https://www.robbinslibrary.org/) The main rec center in town is the Boys and Girls Club with gym classes and swim lessons.

>The Minuteman, meanwhile, is going to be extended into West Concord over the next few years, by incorporating what is now the (as yet largely unpaved, I think)
>
>Reformatory Branch Trail

Except the Bedford Town Meeting vote failed, so the "as yet [...] unpaved" RBT will remain so, and the accompanying safety improvements that were part of the project along Railroad St and the Rt 62 crossing will not come to be. Yeah, I'm still salty...

Damn, that really sucks.

Za’s is excellent if you feel like pizza that doesn’t taste like regular pizza. I love their bacon and potato pizza!

Don’t listen to them, there is no issue at all with calling it “Mass”.