Top 10 things you should know as a relocation buyer, moving to PEI
If you are considering a move to PEI, then there are a few important things that you should know before making the move.
You are never more than 15 minutes from the ocean! ‘Nuf said
Sometimes, having to cross the Hillsborough Bridge is just too far to ask someone to go, especially if it coincides with ‘rush hour’.
When we say it will take 45 minutes to get somewhere, that means that you will be driving for those 45 minutes and the only traffic that you may run in to is farming traffic (unless you are crossing the Hillsborough Bridge at peak traffic times).
Some people will be totally okay with driving an hour to go somewhere - me, that is probably a day trip if I have the kids. Some will think it is absolutely too long to even drive half an hour…unless you are going to Halifax - then 3 hours is nothing!
Everyone knows someone who knows someone. Ask about a house, a contractor, or a person and there's a solid chance the person you're asking is related to them, dated them, or went to high school with their cousin. Word travels fast here — be nice to everybody. I have literally had someone try to tell me we were related because he used to be best friends with my dad’s cousin’s ex-husband.
The red dirt gets on everything. Your shoes, your car, your dog, your kids' pants right after you put clean ones on them. Then mud season hits — that stretch in spring when the frost comes out of the ground and everything turns to soup — and it gets so much worse. Just accept it now and save yourself the fight.
Ferry or bridge, winter can shut either one down. If a storm's coming, don't plan anything that depends on leaving the Island that day — just do what every Islander does and grab your storm chips. [If you don't know what storm chips are yet, you will soon].
"Just up the road" is a real unit of measurement and it has nothing to do with actual distance. It could be 5 minutes, it could be 20. You'll just have to go with it.
Grocery and big box shopping is more limited than what you're used to — no Costco on-Island, so that's a trip across the bridge (see #4, hello Halifax). Islanders plan their big shops around it. I plan a trip to Hali early December to get a Costco stock up in and do a bunch of holiday shopping.
The pace of life is genuinely slower — and that's the whole point. If you're moving here expecting the conveniences of a city, you're going to be disappointed. If you're moving here for the quiet and the beach 15 minutes away, you picked right.