A company I work for may be moving to San Antonio. Being born and raised in Utah, I am a bit intimidated at the prospect of moving, yet it has been on my mind for about three years now.

I feel (for me) one of the ways I personally need to heal is to get out of Utah. It no longer means anything to me and I know there are issues everywhere but I need to start over and be me in a mroe clear manner.

Utah will always be a place that holds my soul and spirit and sense of humor back.

I know nothing of San Antonio. If you have personal experience or know someone who does, can you give me some pros and cons. I would very much appreciate it. I can read about it online until the cows cows come home, but I would love to know firsthand experiences.

I don't want to jump into anything lightly, but it is time to leave all that I once knew. In some ways I am heartbroken In other ways, I feel like I will finally be free from my mental cages that have kept me from flying too long.

Much Thanks.

I went there last year for work purposes. I had a couple business dinners on the Riverwalk and saw the Alamo. That was really nice.

Other than that, to be honest, I didn't see anything else that made me want to go back.

The people I visited there for work seemed diverse and very nice. I'll bet you will find success and nice areas to live.

Good luck! Hopefully the folks from TX will weigh in.

IN B4 ~ Sam Antonio

IN B4 ~ river walk

IN B4 ~ birthplace of Fajitas

IN B4 ~ Mexican capital of Texas (no racist)

IN B4 ~ "¿ who was Alamo ?"

IN B4 ~ "¿ who is U. S. military base ?"

IB B4 ~ "¿ who was HemisFair 1968 ?"




IN B4 ~ IN B4

San Antonio is a solid city. I think you would like the diversity, particularly as an exmo.

When I move to a new location, the first year always seems to be the most challenging both emotionally and just the effort it takes to get established in the area. I have found that every move has been a learning, growing experience and well worth the effort. Shaking old thought patterns and challenging opinions/beliefs have generally been a good thing with every move. Even my last move, which brought me to the Bible Belt has been good in many ways although there are days when I still want to run screaming from the building at work.

I did half my Army training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. There's a really great downtown area called the Riverwalk. You can ride a boat on the water or walk along the banks. The highlights were nightclubs, good restaurants, areas for performance art, and the boats. It's hot and humid at night, so you need air-conditioning for house and car.

The Alamo was surrounded by businesses, which looked odd. They had a spire that was something like the Space Needle in Seattle. There was a part of town that was more Latino, and the Mexican food I ate there was unbelievable. It was like that dinner inside the ZZ Top album, Tres Hombres. Big Concert hall, too, with major acts. My barracks had roaches the size of your palm. Red ones.

Overall, I liked it more than El Paso.

You will like living in San Antonio. There is only one Temple there. It is in an area called Stone Oak. I would suggest you live on the northside of San Antonio. North of Loop 1604. The Boerne (Bernie) area is really nice. It is where the hill country starts. San Antonio has been run by a select group of rich folks for years and that is not going to change. The majority is Hispanic. Mormons hold no sway or power over local politics which is really nice. The weather is super nice. The people are friendly. San Antonio is a really nice place to live. You would be about 3 1/2 hours from the Gulf of Mexico and North Padre Island which has white sandy beaches. Mustang Island is also nice if you like the ocean. It is not huge waves nor is the water cold all year like California. Sea World is there, Six Flags and if you like to ride motorcycles, the best year round roads in the US are from San Antonio north and also west of San Antonio.

The best part is the lack of Mormons. There are (I might be wrong) but only 5 Stakes for over a million people and the wards are not huge in numbers. You can go months or years and never have to deal with a Mormon.

I used to live in San Antonio but moved to be closer to family. Utah is nice but Texas is way better. If you have the opportunity to move to San Antonio from Utah, you will not regret it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2016 11:27PM by themaster.

I have moved a LOT around the country. I've never been to SA though.

I think you may have a golden opportunity to leave Utah as an exmo. The one thing I learned from moving so much was that I like myself just fine. I've made friends every place i've lived though. There's always something interesting even if you don't see it right away.

I lived in Ohio for quite awhile. I found it to be incredibly boring. The boredom drove me to go to college. That was a good thing. I have good memories of every place i've lived. You may have to search for it, but it will be there when you want to see it.

I lived in the Hill Country for 8 years before moving to the Houston area. I have been trying to get back to the San Antonio area for the same amount of time. There are not alot of Mormons there, but they are very down to earth and for the most part good people. I love Texas. Boerne, Spring Branch, Stone Oak(though very populous), New Braunfels(very nice and convenient),Canyon Lake, are good places to begin. I agree with the other poster to stick with North San Antonio.

Met my wife at a YSA dance at the Stone Oak stake center in 1997. I was stationed at Ft. Sam Houston at that time. She was an Air Force brat. The temple now stands adjacent to that stake center I believe, but it didn't exist back then.

Frankly, I loathe Texas. I just really hate it there. EXCEPT FOR SAN ANTONIO. I like to say that San Antonio is a beautiful oasis surrounded by a vast wasteland. It really is very nice there and would be a prime location to start your exmormon life.

My husband and I lived in San Antonio for a year. It's not a bad place to be. It gets very hot there, but there's lots of good Mexican food, tequila, and fun stuff to do. I wouldn't have minded staying if my husband hadn't gotten a job in Germany. Germany suits us better.

I would recommend avoiding renting a house through D'Ann Harper Coldwell Banker. I tried to avoid them myself, but they took over our lease about two weeks in. They totally earned every bad review posted about them online. Also, the northwestern part of the city up near Hill Country and Boerne is desirable. If we ever move back there, we will look for a place in that area rather than where we ended up (Converse-- blecch).

You probably won't run into many Mormons, but you will find plenty of JWs and evangelical Christians. They used to ring our doorbell every weekend.

If you like French food, I recommend eating at Saveurs 209. It's a couple of blocks from the Riverwalk. The owners and the chef are from France and the food is incredible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2016 05:44AM by knotheadusc.

I had a chance to be stationed in San Antonio in 2013, but rejected even the notion of applying for a vacancy there. I've been TDY there, and trained there in the AF, and have lived in West Texas. San Antonio's a going place, and people generally love it. Love it, I tell you. I, however, hope to never, ever set foot in Texas again. And San Antonio is, well, just another big American city to me. But if you like Texas, apparently you'll love San Antonio.

Be prepared for bad, bad weather (high summer temps, high humidity, torrential rains (except when you need them), damaging hail (that's the worst), and tornadoes galore (they all missed me), cicadas that will damage your hearing, lots (lots) of rattlesnakes, large bugs, spiders, dead skunks, and one dead armadillo for each square meter of land. (Never saw a live one except for the ones I was just about to run over with my car.) The people are conservative in a way you've never seen before, except in beautiful Austin--a great and liberal paradise that is so nice and so liberal that it is divided, gerrymandered, and chopped up in such a way as to prevent liberals from ever holding office. Seemingly few people in Texas believe that the earth is any older than 6,000 years.

On NPR last Saturday, they said Texas was the "most likely state to secede from the union." I can hardly wait.

...and he couldn't stand the heat and humidity. He said it was 106 degrees the day he moved away. From there, he lived in Miami for six years and hated that too.

I work for a company located in San Antonio and have been there for business many times. I really like it.

There's a really nice botanical garden there, once you've done the Riverwalk/Alamo thing. Many cities have some form of Riverwalk, so I didn't find that all that impressive. You should see the Riverwalk in Ft. Lauderdale. Makes San Antonio's look like a ghetto. There is an old quarry repurposed to be a swanky upscale shopping center sort of place, near the airport; it's called The Quarry. I like that area -- very cool.

I love the diversity! THe music and food and culture in general is influenced by so many nationalities -- it's great. I thought I loved Mexican food until I went to San Antonio and had actual Mexican food and then I realized I had never had real, authentic Mexican food. While there's a lot of Tex Mex there too, the authentic Mexican is TO DIE FOR. So good.

The residential neighborhoods are really nice and there seems to be a wide variety of types of neighborhoods, but all them are in close proximity to a lot of shopping and things to do/places to see/entertainment. It's a major city, so if you like concerts, just about every major band stops there for a show. They also have the Spurs, if you're into sportsball. I've been there when there's a huge rodeo going on -- haven't been to the rodeo, but it seems like it would be interesting.

Because it's the sixth fastest growing city in the country, the traffic is horrible and construction is constant. Summer in southern Texas runs from about March through October and -- I live in Florida -- it's hotter than hell down there. I love it, but the summer heat is oppressive and takes some getting used to. Flash flooding is also a frequent problem, which makes the horrible traffic even more horrible by orders of magnitude.

If I were looking to live there, I'd look to the north side of town and possibly even one of those smaller towns to the north, between Austin and SAT, depending on where the job is located. Actually, I'd start with my office location and try to find a place as close as possible. I am not aware of any form of decent public transportation, so you want your commute short and on less frequently used roads.

It's a very unique city: kind of conservative, but also very culturally diverse. In some ways, it reminds me of Miami, except people wear more clothing. Even when it's 110 out, I still see people wearing JEANS. I dunno what's up with that; in Florida, everyone's in shorts when it's that hot. Because of the high Latino population, family is a very big deal, but it's not like mormon family being crammed down your throat. More like mi casa, su casa, we are all family. Would you like an empanada? :-D Everyone I've met has been warm, friendly, and kind.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2016 11:22AM by dogzilla.

I'm still in Texas, but I want to move back to San Antonio because I loved it there. San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the US with a population of 1.4 million, so it has everything and anything you could want. Yet, because it is so spread out, it doesn't feel congested and confining. I generally hate large cities because of the traffic and crazy driving, but I feel fine driving around on the freeways in San Antonio and get where I'm going easily.

Weather is personal. A lot of people dislike the heat and humidity there, but I LOVE it. I recognize that I'm unusual, but I'm energized in that climate.

I lived in the northwest corner and felt that was a great location. Good neighborhoods and good people.