Yes, it's true. My girlfriend Mandy and I will be moving to San Francisco this upcoming summer. School will be finished by the time May rolls around and it's time to grow up. It's time to be an adult, so hopefully we're both ready.

This decision was a tough one. San Francisco is over 2,200 miles away from home and the distance will be hard to overcome for a while, but I spent whole summer in California, so it's doable. Having Mandy's support and presence will make it so much easier. I decided to document our moving process both to get tips and to also help anyone else who may be in the same situation in the future.

Step 1: Get a job!

Don't move in the blind. Job security certainly helps to forecast the future, to create a workable budget, to see if we can actually afford to move, etc. I was able to come out with a full-time offer after my internship with Yahoo! last summer, so I've taken the plunge and accepted my first full-time job offer. Whoa, I'm an adult? Time flies.

While everything seems to be peachy for me, Mandy has taken steps to become an officially certified veterinary technician. She took the boards exam few weeks ago, so cross your fingers! The certificate will definitely help her get a job in San Francisco and she has been researching vet hospitals in the area, updating her resume and will soon start forwarding it to those places.

Step 2: Find a good location

This hasn't been an easy step since Yahoo! is located 40 miles south from San Francisco. So why did we chose to live so far away? Having spent the summer in the South Bay, I wasn't too impressed with the social life. I'm from a suburb of Pittsburgh and to me, that's exactly what South Bay looks like: a big suburb with 1,500 tech firms and lots of neighborhoods and apartment complexes. Every little town (Sunnyvale, Mountain View, etc.) has a small 1-2 street downtown with a few pubs, restaurants and basically no night life. We're not big partiers (sp?), but we're also fairly young and at 21 years old, I just want more excitement in my life!

Every time we've visited San Francisco we loved it. The city is great and beautiful with all its hills and neighborhoods. From Castro to Noe Valley to SoMa, there's SO much to see. I'm looking forward to it! As we're quickly realising, with that comes a big price: San Francisco living isn't cheap. In fact, it's second more expensive city in the United States (right after NYC). Yuck! This brings me to my next point, budgeting.

I'll cover that and more in the upcoming parts.

• Part 1
  
  Get a job!, Find a good location


• Part 2
  
  Budget yourself, Apartment hunt