If you’ve ever seen even just one episode of Gilmore Girls, you’ve probably felt the yearn towards small town living. While the town I’ve lived in for the last decade or so is not nearly as small as Stars Hollow, it’s still fairly tiny. Living in a small town, like anything else, is filled with pitfalls and its benefits. So, before you abandon the hustle and bustle of a big city for the quaint life a Lorelai Gilmore, here are some things to consider:
The Pros
1) Chances are, your friends aren’t too far away. No matter where I am in my town, I’m never more than five or ten minutes away from a friend or family member. I used to live in a small, white house in a neighborhood mostly inhabited by elderly. Even still, one of my closest friends at the time was often only a short walk away as her grandmother lived a very short distance from my home. Now, another friend of mine (and his adorable pets) lives only a handful of houses up from mine. My best friend is a small drive away, along with most of my other friends. This is a major plus as it makes it abundantly easy to hang out with your friends.
2) If your car breaks down, it sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. Aside from the public transportation system, your generally only a few minutes away on foot from a grocery store, a pharmacy, etc. At least, that’s the case for my town. Yes, having to walk places, particularly in extreme heat or cold, really sucks. But, at least in a small town the walk to wherever you need to go probably isn’t going to kill you.
3) Small town businesses are the best. Even though capitalism has certainly taken hold of just about every nook and cranny of the U.S., there are still some of those small town businesses that everyone loves. The kind of businesses that if you stop in more than once or twice, they’re likely to remember you and know just what it is your there for. It’s amazing. I love being able to walk into my local pharmacy and not even tell them my name because they already know and have my prescriptions ready for me.
The Cons
1) It’s pretty hard to hide. If you’ve ever had one of those days where you just want to slip into the crowd and go unnoticed, yeah, that might not happen for you in a small town. You generally can’t go very long before you see someone you know or they see you and want to speak to you, whether you like it or not.
2) Gossip spreads fast. Go through a bad breakup? Everyone knows about it by the next day. Do something embarrassing in public? People know about it within minutes sometimes. This can be a pretty big downfall to small town living. If you have any vindictive enemies, the rumor mill is always churning.
3) Sometimes, it’s inconvenient. For example, if you go out to a local bar one night and get a little tipsy, chances are you’ll end up waiting for quite a while for a cab from a larger town nearby to come and get you at an outrageous price. And Uber? Yeah, not here. One very big issue for me, which I do realize that some may see as a small issue, is that there isn’t a single store in my entire town that sells chocolate covered espresso beans so I always end up having to order them online and pay the ridiculous shipping costs, or pay a ton whenever I go out of town to visit family.
These are certainly not the only pros and cons of small town living but these are definitely some of the highlights. If after reading this you’re ready to jump into a recreation of the lifestyle of Lorelai Gilmore, the only advice I have to you is this: invest in a good coffee pot.
