I grew up in cherokee county, went to UGA for undergrad and GT for grad school. Lived in midtown for a year and East Point for a year (it was cheap!). I came ou

I grew up in cherokee county, went to UGA for undergrad and GT for grad school. Lived in midtown for a year and East Point for a year (it was cheap!). I came out to CA for a summer in undergrad and fell in love with the parks. Came out again for an internship in grad school and fell in love with a girl. Moved out here in 2007. Compared to Georgia/Atlanta, the biggest changes I've noticed are: 1) everything is much much more expensive. a house that would be ~$200k-$250k inside the perimeter will cost ~$700k-$800k on the peninsula. houses in the $300-$400k range would probably go for $1-2mm out here. Average restaurant bills are ~$50 for my wife & I for what I would consider pretty "normal" places (we'd probably average $25-30 in comparable Atlanta restaurants). I'm lucky that my wife's job has on-site daycare for only $1500/month. The one exception is veggies--I routinely go to the local farmer's market and walk away with a week's worth of veggies for under $20. 2) at the same time, salaries are a lot higher. even if your housing/expenses take up the same percentage of your paycheck, your disposable income will generally go a lot further (an iPad costs what it costs anywhere in the U.S.) I've bought things since moving West that I probably never would've spent money on living in GA, just because I had that extra disposable income (i.e. flying to the UGA-Arizona State game a few years back). This can be a double-edged sword, though--if you want to do your own thing or start your own company, it will be MUCH harder to do that here than in Atlanta (making $50k in the app store is a hell of a lot cooler in Atlanta than it is in silicon valley) 3) people are generally pretty nice, but not interested at all in getting to know you or chatting randomly. we've been in the same house for 4 years now and barely know the neighbors 4) the amount of stuff within driving distance is really, really incredible--including the excellent state and county parks. people here are MUCH more interested in going outdoors on the weekends (whereas I found in GA people mostly just hang out on the weekends, maybe having a bbq or going to a lake). 5) if you're an engineer and decent at what you do, you'll never want for a job. 6) the work is a lot more high-energy -- i know engineers in ATL who work from 9-5 (or less) and more or less coast through the day... but are smart enough to get all their work done. that sort of attitude does not fly at all in silicon valley. if you feel like you're smarter than everyone around you in Atlanta, move out here and you'll be pleasantly surprised 7) if you're interested in things like hackathons, there's always something going on and it's pretty easy to meet like-minded people 8) the weather's awesome