Hi,

You've been getting The Landing from me. Stories from people who chose Nova Scotia. This is the other one.

The Dispatch goes out on alternating weeks. It's a straightforward update: what's been happening in the group, and the most recent posts from the blog. That's it.

This week I asked the group what's been harder than expected. One hundred people answered. The thread is still going.

Recent articles

The Sight Unseen Survival Guide Buying without visiting is common in Nova Scotia. What goes wrong is predictable. This is the guide we wish existed when people were making those decisions. Read article

Why Serious Nova Scotia Buyers Are Searching On Viewpoint The community has opinions about ViewPoint and they shared them after this post went up. We updated it mid-thread. Worth reading if you've been using the site to shop. Read article

Can You Handle A Nova Scotia Winter? The answer depends almost entirely on where you land. The South Shore and Yarmouth are not the Annapolis Valley. The Valley is not Cape Breton. This post tries to sort that out. Read article

IN THE COMMUNITY​
The hardest things, according to 101 people who answered this week: making friends, NS Power bills, low wages and food costs in rural areas. Loneliness came up more than anything else. Not the dramatic kind, but the slow, accumulating kind that arrives about six months in when the novelty wears off and you realize you don't really know anyone yet.

A few people mentioned feeling like a permanent outsider even years in. It's an honest pattern in the group and it shows up often enough that it's worth talking about. Many of us are finding community with others who made the exact same move.

The encouraging version of the same story: almost everyone who mentioned struggling also said they weren't leaving. The thread has a lot of "it's hard, and I'm staying anyway" in it, which is its own kind of data.

FROM THE FROMAWAY ARCHIVE

The Relocation Decision Workbook Before the offer. Before the moving truck. Before you tell everyone you're going.

This is the worksheet people wish they'd had at the beginning. 40+ questions that help you figure out whether this move actually makes sense for your life, your finances and your risk tolerance.

$39 CAD · Get the workbook →​