Loving Where You Live: Kingston, NY Edition

So I’m getting restless. I’m ready for change. I have lived in the Ulster County, NY town of Kingston for nearly three years. This is the longest I’ve continuously lived anywhere other than my childhood home.

For someone who thrives on new experiences and changes of scenery, this has been an interesting test. I’ve been completely bored at times (mostly in winter, though I did conquer that well enough), and other times, I’ve been so excited and and inspired by all the beauty and things to do and see here.

I feel fortunate the I can think of lots of things I love about where I live. I love that outside of this sprawling-yet-tiny city, we have several other towns close by: Saugerties, Rosendale, and New Paltz each have distinctive personalities and attractions worth seeing.

I love that Kingston borders both the Hudson River and Rondout Creek: two waterfronts!

Being near the water is cool- but we love to hike, so Andy and I also appreciate the fact that we’re near tons of parks and nature preserves, plus the Catskills Mountains and the Shawangunk Ridge.

Kingston has a funny mix of beautiful old architecture and run-down storefronts. Broadway the main uptown-downtown connector, is particularly ripe for the picking, if you’re photographers like us who like capturing old, faded, and abandoned things.

That’s not to say that Kingston doesn’t have its pretty sites, too:

Architecture, abandonment, natural beauty, historic charm, and waterfronts aren’t unique to Kingston. Luckily, plenty of towns in the Hudson Valley have these features. I suppose what I really like about where I live is where I am right at this moment: on a couch in the living room of our apartment-within-a-house, set high on a hill outside of town and surrounded by trees. It’s nice and quiet here and only a five minute walk to the middle of town. We have a large garden, plus a lot of untamed land. It’s fun having wild animals for neighbors (we spotted our first fox a few weeks ago!).

Other pluses about our living situation: Andy has the space to work on his art outdoors, we love the charm and character of our super old house and all of its quirks, and the three rooms we have are a nice size. Ever since Liz and Ian’s visit in April, I haven’t been thinking as negatively as Kingston as I had been, which was fun to realize. That’s another perk to having out-of-town guests: you get to see your home and your town through visitors’ eyes and focus more on the positive. Yay!

Kingston has lots of things that I love– I didn’t even talk about the town parks (outdoor movies in the summer!) or the farmer’s market!- and I have enjoyed getting to know Ulster County since we moved here in the summer of 2011. I love knowing an area: the back roads, the best coffee shops and bakeries, where to get the best views. Those are perks you only get after a prolonged period of time in one spot.

But do I love that more than the prospect of something new and different? Nah. I look at flight deals and travel offers all the time online, and lately I’ve been adding apartments for rent in other parts of the Hudson Valley to that search. Who knows what might come up?

We’ll see!