Submitted by Tforthee t3_11lcerf in newhampshire
Hello all!
I was just made aware that I will be admitted to a residency program at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. I have been trying to find out where I should live to work at the medical center. Lebanon? West Lebanon? Hanover, White River Junction? Norwich?
Please please please give this midwesterner some local experience for what to expect and where to live!
Any thoughts? Thanks so much.
Thanks for the advice, any favorite places to go? Food to eat? activities to do?
It's a rural area, overall, with Lebanon, Hanover, Harford (aka White River Junction), and Norwich making up a connected patchwork of big towns/small "city".
Housing will be expensive and take more planning than you would think to lock a place down.
There are a bunch of restaurants to check out in a 5-30 minute radius of DHMC.
Lebanon, Hanover, and Hartford have small walkable areas that are nice.
You'll be in luck if you're an outdoorsy person; there's lots of skiing relatively close, tons of hiking trails, plenty of places to drop in your kayak/canoe, and a couple rail trail sections to ride your bike in to avoid cars.
It's a pretty area, but your challenges will be finding a place to live, and meeting folks outside of work.
Latham House has pretty good food in Lyme, also Stella's Pizza in Lyme Molly's in Hanoverz good all around eats-
Perfect, thank you!
I bought a house in Eastman and commuted, which financially worked out very well for me, but was very socially isolating. The upper valley was shockingly pricy for renting when I was starting out (circa 2017), but that’s because they know there are few options for the nurses, residents, and students at Dartmouth College.
The whole area is very safe, and I know a lot of my colleagues rented at Timberwood before transitioning to Emerson Place in Lebanon. Both were very nice, clean apartments, but were, and likely still are, pricy. Everyone had a roommate and split the rent, so you may want to reach out to others in your residency class and make friends early. I know of others who were married or in serious relationships that rented homes in the Lebanon and Enfield areas, but its all going to be dependent on availability. Only a couple people lived in WRJ. The downside to living in Vermont is you have to pay state income tax on your resident salary, whereas you don’t in New Hampshire (as we don’t have a state income tax).
My commute from Eastman in Grantham was about 25 mins door to door. Enfield was about 15 mins. Essentially any of the apartment complexes are five minutes or less away.
Feel free to DM me if you’d like more information or recommendations. I really loved the upper valley and miss it quite a bit. I enjoyed my time as a DHMC resident and felt that I got very good training (in the Internal Medicine program). I hope you have a similar experience with Dartmouth and welcome to NH!
Thanks so much for the thought out reply! We're so excited to get up there and get going. But you're completely right, the housing is just pants on head crazy expensive. Trying to figure that out is going to take some time.
Yeah I was coming directly from Brooklyn when I moved to the upper Valley and almost fell over when the apartment prices were nearly identical. Everyone makes it work though. You’ll do great!
Nearly identical to Brooklyn? OOOF. Big time. But good to know haha.
Yeah I was in a 1000 sq ft 1 bedroom 3 story walk up in Brooklyn for 2200 per month, and when I looked, a lot of the apartments were about 1700-1800 per month for around the same size.
I can’t honestly say I know what the prices are now, but I’m guessing they are similar. I do know they are building a couple new complexes near the hospital, but they probably won’t be done for a year or so. Maybe competition will drive the price down!
With any luck!
Housing prices have MUCH more to do with availability than anything. There is a housing shortage in most of NH right now.
Housing is in short supply. You don’t have to live right next to DH but I would find out your expected time to come in if your on call would be. Meaning if you’re expected to be there within 25 minutes then make sure you’re close enough. Also, with that do not just go by miles actually put it into a map app and get directions. A buddy of mine lives 9.5 miles away and it takes me a half hour to get to his house
I had been sorting by travel distance from DHMC when searching so that makes perfect sense. Distances are much more curvy here than in the midwest ha.
Yeah, a common New England saying is “you can’t get there from here.” Those pesky mountains tend to get in the way.
For example to get to my family in northern Maine I have to drive an hour south first to get to a more direct route.
In general, you'll find less east/west routes in the mountainous areas of NH and VT because, well that's just the way it is 😁
If I worked at DHMC, I’d be happy living in any of the places you mentioned. As others have mentioned, housing supply is tight so I would suggest keeping all of them in consideration vs. choosing a specific town now.
Hanover is on the pricier side due to proximity to the college. Driving around there on game weekends, graduation, etc. can be a pain, but the downtown area is nice.
WRJ would be my pick for restaurants and bars. Wolf tree is a fantastic cocktail bar and both Trail Break (tacos) and Big Fatty’s BBQ have solid food and beer lists. That being said, you obviously don’t have to live in WRJ to enjoy those places. Leb, Hanover, and Norwich are all pretty quick drives
Years ago I lived in Lebanon. I rented from Chiplin(sp). It wasn't fancy, a small one bedroom. But it worked for me. You could also check out Enfield it's not super far from DH.
Shopping for grocery you have so many options, from major stores Walmart Price Chopper etc to co-ops and if you travel to Claremont there's a Market Basket.
Vermont will charge you income tax if you live there……….
I agree! But the housing is trending a bit cheaper so the question being, does the cost of housing in Vermont being cheaper offset the income tax disparity.
Rents in Hanover, Etna are typically pretty crazy. I bet you could rent in Lebanon or maybe W. Lebanon cheaper? A lot of people at DH I work with live around White River in VT.
Yeah the rents are killer. It's hard to tell whether renting or buying might level out being better in the end with these prices.
Buying in NH is pretty rough and has been for a couple years. The intense furvor has died down but the pricing hasn't exactly relaxed.
I always recommend buying if you can unless you think you'll need to leave in less than 5 years.
All the people responding here have been really great. I would just add that in case you are on facebook, the Upper Valley (VT/NH) group could be a good source of information too
I am not on FB but my SO is, maybe I'll have them check it out. More great advice, thanks!
Hi there, I also just got an offer in one of their nursing residency programs! Feel free to send me a dm if you wanna bounce around info.
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I'll be visiting the hospital soon
Bobtom42 t1_jbbowvx wrote
They are all pretty much the same in terms of safety, cost of living, and services. Honestly, if you're renting, you are probably just going to be happy to find a place anywhere.