5 Things you need to know before moving to Danville California

5 Things you need to know before moving to Danville California

Danville California is a great place to live and you already know that you know that you can get to Napa within an hour.  You already know that the weather here is outstanding!!  You know that the proximity to nature trails as well as great hiking is just a few minutes away.   When I moved to Danville California, I knew the weather was great and I knew that the sun shines most of the time, but I didn't actually know that it was so sunny in the morning before I dropped off my kids to school, I'd have to pull off the road!!  And that's what we're talking about today I'm going to give you my 5 things that I wish I knew before moving to Danville California.

My goal is to give you as much information as possible so that you can make the best decision for yourself and your family so whether you're looking to move in 10 days or 10 weeks it doesn't really matter just drop me a line feel free to call me text me email me

Here are the top five things you need to know before moving to Danville California.

1. Transportation - we have mountains we have ocean we have a bay as well and so it's hard to get anywhere and everything's very spread out so if you were to go into the city of San Francisco for instance it's 31 miles to get there but if you go as the crow flies it's only 23 miles. Often times it depends on what's happening on the bridge.  Rush hour obviously backs up these bridges.  If there's an accident, well that could cost you half an hour or 1 full hour.  Danville does not have its own Bart station.  Bart is the Bay Area Rapid Transit and it has trains going from the suburbs to the city all day long.  There is no Bart station in Danville; however, there is a “park and ride” in Danville where you can go and park your car and then hop on a bus.  The bus takes you right to Walnut Creek so that you can take the train into the city or wherever it is that you're trying to get to.  If you're coming from an urban environment, you might be used to walking to get to your destination, or maybe even riding a bike to get to your destination.  Here in Danville, we walk and ride because we enjoy to walk and ride, it's not necessarily a method of transportation because things are so far apart.  Thankfully the schools are usually close enough that your kids can walk to the elementary schools.
2. Moving to a new city can be really difficult to make new friends, but don't worry in Danville, it's so family oriented that new friends are easy to meet.  Danville has 6 public elementary schools, 3 public middle schools and 2 public high schools.  Coupled with all of the sports that are in the area, school activities allow new families a great opportunity to always meet other families with similar interests.  Also, Danville has 6 major parks and these parks have a lot of opportunity to meet family between the baseball fields, the water park (@Sycamore Valley Park) and the strolling paths or even the Memorial Rose garden (@Osage Station Park) it's a great opportunity to get out and meet your neighbors, as well as meet other people who have similar interests.  There are two major events that I need to tell you about that happen in Danville every year where you'll get to see a lot of the community come out and just hang out that is the Fourth of July and the Lighting of the Old Oak Tree during Christmas.  Now the Fourth of July parade is very well populated from folks in Danville as well as neighboring areas as well, so if you're planning on going to the 4th of July Parade just bring your chair early, so you can get a great seat, because it does fill up quickly!  Now the Lighting of the Old Oak Tree happens right after thanksgiving every year and it's a big event here in Danville.  It happens right on Diablo Road, at the very old oak tree that is just West of the highway.  
3. One of the pleasant surprises - Downtown Danville area is incredibly charming!  The rustic charm is everywhere, but you won't see a whole lot of big box stores here in downtown Danville.  You will see local independently owned well-run businesses from folks who are probably your neighbors or who live nearby and truly care about the service that they provide to our community.  There's a total of 787 total businesses that are registered to the town of Danville as of right now April of 2022.  A large number of older homes have been preserved near the downtown Danville area where there are strong restrictions regarding large developments.  The Danville area was part originally of the notable Mexican Land Grant named Rancho San Ramon.  Daniel Inman and his brother Andrew purchased a large acreage in 1854 with money that they made during the Gold Rush.  The town began as a farming community primarily growing wheat and changed over to producing fruits and nuts in 1891 after the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  The raising of cattle and sheep were significant factors for the economy and Danville was developed as a residential community beginning in 1947.
4. Everybody says Danville is so expensive and while yes things are expensive, Danvillians find a way!!  Utilities are expensive here, but in Danville we have enough sun that if you choose to use solar you certainly can combat that expense. Gas is expensive in Danville gas is really expensive in Danville, which is why you will see a whole lot of electric powered vehicles on the road right here in Danville.  I'd say over half the vehicles I see on a day-to-day basis in Danville, are running on electric.  Certainly, homes are pricey in Danville.  I just looked this morning the median sale price for single-family home is about $2.4 million.  With that being said, you have got to think about what you get for that, because it's all about value right?  Danville has been named for the fifth year in a row the Number One Safest City in all of California!  The other thing that you get when you have a home in Danville is the weather.  Best Places rated Danville 8.5 out of 10 in terms of comfortability and that's for all year round.   In fact,  in the Summer Best Places rated Danville 9.4 out of 10.  
5. Outdoor living in beautiful weather, is basically guaranteed!  So many of the homes that you see will have sliding glass doors to the outside they'll have tons of space outside that they actually use on a regular basis!  When I first moved to Danville, I noticed that that “Frontgate” Magazine that you get in your mail -  it's for real out here.  Summers are long, warm, arid and mostly clear.  The winters are short, cold, wet and partly cloudy.  Over the course of a year, the temperature typically varies anywhere from 40 - 81 F.  It's rarely below 32 degrees freezing and it's rarely above 91 F and humidity is rarely an issue.  Summers run from June 8th - October 10th and the average summer temperature is 75 F.  Winter runs from November 28th until February 14th and the temperature ranges in Winter anywhere from 41 - 55 F.  Just to give you an idea if a wet day is considered anything more than .04 inches of rain.  And that defines a wet day, in the wet season in Danville, we only see 15 of days are wet days.   You can see why there's a drought here in California.   The biggest surprise to me was that the mornings and the evenings get very cool everyone says dress in layers and that's truly the case here in Danville mornings and evenings can run anywhere from the mid 30s - mid 40s and sometimes early 50s in the summer.  Make sure to bring your layers!

I hope this gives you a great idea of things that you can expect when you move to Danville California.  Absolutely no city is perfect and, in my opinion, Danville California is one of the best cities to live in, because the pros far outweigh the cons.