That depends on what you want to do. Here are my thoughts:nightynite wrote: Ooh. Any thoughts between North Carolina and LA/OC? I hear a lot of complaints about the weather and the lack of anything to do for fun.
If you want to compare Durham to Sunset or The Village, Durham is going to come up way short. However, I couldn't afford to go out drinking on Sunset when my income didn't come from student loans. I can't imagine doing much of that kind of stuff now that it does. The nice thing about Durham is that what is here is fairly diverse for any area this size (triangle is a little smaller than Sacramento) and most of it is pretty affordable. And a lot of what is around here (outdoors, museums, etc...) is free. You also should keep in mind that this area has been growing primarily due to high tech jobs in research (especially medical research), so you shouldn't worry that you are heading into some kind of ignorant backwater.
As far as weather goes, it's very easy to deal with. We've had some snow and ice this year, but the thing is that is rare enough here that everything shuts down when frozen stuff falls from the sky. We actually had a snow day, and I got to take my con law final from home because of some light snow. So you aren't going to have to learn how to drive in snow and ice. I bike to school most every day (I've only had to drive twice so far), and don't have a problem.
With that said, there aren't many places in the world with a climate as gentle as coastal Southern California and this ain't one of them. Personally, I find the summer harder to deal with than the winter. I miss my marine layer.
