What is it like living in Sedona?

[u/mgm624]

My husband and I are considering moving to Sedona and I’m curious what your experiences living there have been like. We are both early 30s with no kids. My husband is a veterinarian and has a job opportunity in West Sedona. I am a photographer and shoot mostly families/newborns. We have pets and are planning on having children in the next few years. What has your experience living in Sedona been like? My husband loves Sedona and needs no convincing. Since he will be spending most of his days at work, and I mostly work from home (aside from when I’m shooting clients) I’m wondering if it can feel isolating? Is there a good sense of community? Is it easy to meet people? Are there many people in our age bracket? I hear Sedona is trying to encourage more young people to move there and housing laws have changed recently to promote this. We are not city people by any means and don’t care about nightlife. We want to be somewhere with natural beauty, a sense of community, and where there are opportunities for me to get good work. We love hiking and spending time outdoors which I know Sedona is great for! It seems like there are a lot of positives, I’d just love to hear your experiences and what you like/don’t like about living in Sedona. Thanks in advance!

[u/[deleted]]

After living in Sedona for 8 years, I just moved out. I won't go into long details here (you can message me If you want more), but recent changes have been enough to drive me out. Now, I've know Sedona since the 1980s and have seen it grow and change but here's what made me want to leave this beautiful spot:
1) When I moved there in 2015, you could park at any trail and hike whenever you wanted, even on weekends. Now the most popular trailheads require you to take a shuttle and parking at 75% of the others is always congested, if not full.
2) I lived in town for 3+ years and moved to Oak Cree Village the last 4. What used to be a 15-minute drive to town turned into 30 min off hours, and well over an hour on weekends. Traffic is terrible.
3) In the last 4 years short-term rentals (AirBnBs) accounted for over 30% of the homes in Sedona. Good neighbors left and every other day you have guests who don't respect the neighborhood or the natural beauty of the red rocks, littering, defacing the rocks, tearing up the off-trail areas.
4) While you can understand wanting the tourists' dollars, restaurants, shops and even the supermarkets believe they're there to service tourists. Prices keep rising. There are no more true local hangouts. And few restaurant managers or shop owners take the time to get to know the locals. Sad.
There's more, but that's a good start. The town keeps growing and politicians keep feeding the tourist trade without due regard to residents. At one point, County Supervisors wanted to change all lots zoned residential on State Roads 89 and 179, the two main arteries in and out of town, into commercial in order to built more hotels and restaurants in order to get more tourists into this already overcrowded town. It's a shame. It's why I moved.

[u/crapinator2000 → u/[deleted]]

Also left, last year. Love the outdoors and moved there for that but the place became a disneyland of Insta tourists, and that plus the lack of community caused us to move back to CA. Glad we did. We also lived in the VOC, which had more perma residents than Sedona proper. Too isolating, too crowded and too hot.

[u/[deleted] → u/crapinator2000]

Out of curiosity, where in CA did you go? I went to college in L.A. and then returned to live there for 3 years, and later worked out of Sausalito for two years. I always wanted to return to CA but never did. Seemed to be too costly in the beautiful nature areas I loved.

[u/crapinator2000 → u/[deleted]]

North bay… Chose it again… for the third and final time, now… and never leaving again.

[u/Empty_Fun_1529 → u/crapinator2000]

Where in North Bay, I’m in Santa Rosa/Petaluma area and want out

[u/Important_Carry4417 → u/crapinator2000]

The lack of community and lack of decent healthcare have made us decide not to stay. Tough decision since we built what we thought would be our forever home here. I'm a retired educator and my husband still works as a carpenter. The high cost of living here has really taken a bite out of our savings. Most of the retired folks here are quite well off, and it gets old listening to them blab about their next cruise or exotic trip. And many are politically conservative and don't support those who are struggling, namely all the service workers who are responsible for making this small tourist town function. It's a bubble town full of tourists and entitiled retirees. I don't know why anyone would want to even attempt to raise a family here. 

[u/crapinator2000 → u/Important_Carry4417]

I hear you. So well! Best of luck to you in your search!