My wife and I decided to move to Port Saint Lucie, Florida just about three years ago. The main reason why we initially moved to PSL was that my wife’s family lives in this city. At first, I did not want to leave the Tri-State area since it was what I was familiar with, but after living here for three years, I am convinced that Port Saint Lucie is a great place to live. Here are five reasons why:
- Great parks, and outdoor activities for families with children
- Great variety of restaurants
- Everything you need is close
- Only a short drive to breathtaking beaches
- Affordable homes in fantastic neighborhoods
Let’s explore each reason and talk about how each of these factors has been an important part of making Port Saint Lucie our permanent home.
1. Great For Families
Port Saint Lucie is a great place to live for families. My wife and I have two small children, five and seven years old. There are two major components that we are looking for. The first is the parks. We love taking our children outside and having them socialize with other children from the neighborhood.
Port Saint Lucie has great parks all around the city. In fact, our kids have visited all of them to see which one they like the most. The parks generally have great playgrounds with updated playground equipment and clean play areas. There are plenty of parks with large green spaces for sports as well as dedicated areas for baseball, tennis, basketball, and even pickleball.
Secondly, we look for safety. While living in PSL and visiting the various parks and hiking trails, we have never felt unsafe with our children. The streets and parks are clean, and the people are friendly. We feel comfortable letting the kids play in the playground while we supervise them from the park benches. Other families are also very friendly, giving the park visits a community feel.
2. Great Variety of Restaurants
Port Saint Lucie has a large variety of restaurants and specialty shops. One of the things our family loves to do is eat out. We love visiting restaurants and eating different foods.
Just to give you an example, if you like Spanish food you don’t have to go far. You can get Columbian, Salvadoran, Mexican, Cuban, Dominican, Peruvian, and Puerto Rican food all within Port Saint Lucie. There are many restaurants to choose from and, of course, you have popular restaurants all within the city. Places like Olive Garden, Applebee’s, Longhorn, and Duffy’s Sports Grill.
If you like to eat specialty food, you can find a wide variety of eateries in PSL. Of course, one of the things that you will find the most is some great BBQ places. PSL honors its southern traditions and you will find places that serve BBQ in sit-down restaurant-style and in food trucks with giant smoker grills. From meaty and delicious ribs to spicy sausages, you can get your BBQ fill.
3. Everything You Need Close By
Port Saint Lucie provides convenient access to almost anything you will need. We lived in a rural area for a while in upstate New Jersey. Everything was a thirty-minute drive. There were no local bodegas or supermarkets nearby. Port Saint Lucie may feel like a small town at times, but everything you need is close by.
You can make a quick run to a neighborhood Walmart, which is like a big Walmart but smaller and provides Walmart gasoline. There are plenty of supermarkets, like Publix, Aldi, and even smaller bodegas where you can pick up quick things. Our favorite part is you don’t have to go far to get what you need.
Even Disney is not that far. Growing up in New York, we used to visit six flags during the summer. Six Flags was over two hours from where we lived. You can visit Disney for the weekend or even a day off. If you lived in the northern states, this would be very expensive, but not if you live in PSL. Even driving down to Miami is only about an hour and a half. PSL is conveniently located near things and there are plenty of things to do within the city.
5. Short Drive to Paradise-esk Beaches
One of the reasons we moved to Port Saint Lucie was to go to the beach. We lived most of our lives in cold northern states. We longed for warm weather year-round and beach access. We were tired of fighting with coats and sweaters and boots and scarves. We were tired of shoveling snow and the kind of cold that freezes your face when you go outside.
When we first moved to PSL, we decided we would visit the beach every Saturday and that is exactly what we did. There are over ten beaches within a thirty-minute drive from PSL. We visited a new beach every Saturday until we found the one we loved the most.
There are beautiful beaches with white sand, and beaches where kids can wade in the water for over one hundred feet. There are beaches where you can enjoy wonderfully warm, crystal-clear water. Do you like beaches that are full of people? There are beaches like that nearby. Do you like beaches that are isolated? There are also beaches like that. We have loved exploring new beaches and enjoying the water, sand, and sun.
5. Affordable Homes
This reason may not be as glamorous as the others, but it is very practical. If you are coming from a state up north, you will discover that the houses in PSL are very affordable. I should add a disclaimer here. The fact is that I come from New York and New Jersey. You cannot find a three-bedroom house in a nice community for under five hundred thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, in PSL, the medium cost for a home is around two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This will get you a comfortable home and, in some cases, can be brand shiny new. The homes are spacious and beautiful in fantastic suburban-style neighborhoods.
We were house hunting recently with my sister and we found a wide range of homes with two and sometimes even three bedrooms, spacious green spaces, and updated amenities for well under two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This is why the home buying market has increased in the past year in PSL. If you are looking for a quality, reasonably priced home in a fantastic neighborhood, we find Port Saint Lucie provides that and more.
Conclusion
After living in Port Saint Lucie for three years, we have no desire to move back up north. It is more than just the sometimes intolerable cold. It is the fact that homes are just more affordable and the pace and quality of life is one we have found to be greater while living in PSL. To recap, the five reasons why we believe PSL is a great place to live are:
- Great parks, and outdoor activities for families with children
- Great variety of restaurants
- Everything you need is close
- Only a short drive to breathtaking beaches
- Affordable homes in fantastic neighborhoods
I hope this helps you on your journey and if you find the article helpful, don’t forget to share it with others.