It's a familiar story: An older couple, ready to retire, buys a new home near Phoenix, settles into a new lifestyle of air-conditioned summers spent inside and warm winter mornings out on the golf links After a year or two, they move back to Orange County.
Or there's the young family, children just starting school, who long for the "simpler" life, and so move lock, stock, and barrel to the wilds of Montana or the rustic beauty of Idaho. Before long, they too are moving back to Orange County.
If you asked these folks why they came back, they'd mention the weather or job opportunities or say they just didn't feel comfortable in their surroundings, but it's more than that. It's the sparkling beauty of the beaches, the abundance of playhouses, museums, and a world-class performing arts center, as well as the incredible shopping and easy access to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm. It's little things too. Like being able to host a backyard barbecue for friends and neighbors in January or buying handmade tortillas, still hot, at a local taqueria or exotic fruits and vegetables in the market of Little Saigon. It's knowing that no matter where you live in Orange County, you can snowboard at a ski resort in the morning or go for a hike in the Santa Ana Mountains, and spend the afternoon sailing off Newport Beach or Dana Point.
It is, in short, the lifestyle.
In Orange County, it's not so much that everyone enjoys the same lifestyle, but that there are so many to choose from. For instance, if you are an outdoor lover, you can pedal a mountain bike through a shady canyon in Crystal Cove State Park, fish year round at Irvine Lake, skin-dive in kelp beds off Doheny, or play a round of Frisbee golf in Huntington Beach's Central Park. Where else can you build a bonfire and roast marshmallows at Huntington Beach, chase grunion during certain spring and summer months near Laguna, or catch a little air in Vans Skate Park, the largest such skateboard facility in the world, at the Block at Orange? What other County can you go from museums rich in history, play a round of golf, be pampered at a day spa, go botique shopping, take a plunge in the Pacific Ocean and eat a gourmet meal. Orange County has something for everyone.
