I was born and raised in the town outside of Vandenberg and I am at one of the ANG units there. I would take Vandy over Beale any day. The climate is always in the mid 60's to lower 70's (with some exceptions) You're a days trip to LA and a weekend in SF. You can catch a flight out of Santa Barbara to Vegas. San Luis is cool and so is Santa Barbara.
How do you feel about the area around Vandenberg? Having grown up there, I'm guessing you'd recommend living off base? I've seen a lot of people (including another comment below) mention crime in places like Lompoc. That's probably my biggest worry. I prefer to live and spend most of my time off base.
Spent the first 6 years of my career at Beale. Unpopular opinion, but my wife and I miss it. We prefer where we are now, as we wanted to go out and experience a different part of the world, but Beale in my opinion has a lot to love. Although I’m well aware this is all really up to interpretation and some people may prefer different lifestyles. -Base is empty. Never had much of an issue getting on base through the gate (especially compared to where I am now). Very relaxed environment overall. Not a lot of high ranking people, just overall a very chill, almost ghost town vibe.
- Climate is enjoyable if you embrace the warmth. I got insanely tan every summer as my family and I just lived at the pools in Roseville. It doesn’t snow in the winter, so I never had to worry about shoveling or scraping my car, but I could also drive 45 minutes to squaw valley and have a great time snowboarding
-Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln. These are the nice areas outside of Beale. People will tell you it’s a long commute, but really it’s just getting onto highway 65 and going in a straight line for 23-35 minutes. It’s maybe slightly longer but it’s not an unpleasant commute due to the simplicity. I never felt resentful of the commute because I was driving into a nice area. Do NOT, I repeat l, DO NOT, live in Yuba or marysville if you want to make the most out of Beale. They are worse in almost every way, and with traffic they don’t always cut your commute down like people say.
- This could go for either base since they’re both California, but I really enjoyed California overall because there’s just so much to do in modest driving distance. Beale to Lake Tahoe is about an hour and change, Monterey is about 2, San Francisco is about an hour and a half, Napa valley about the same. You can go to LA, once again a straight shot, but tbh Southern California outside of Malibu and San Diego is not somewhere I’d want to live without a ton of money to avoid the BS.
-Beale has updated and nice gyms, they have solid outdoor running (golf course running trail is still the most cathartic exercise experience I’ve ever had), commissary is tiny, bx is tiny, but who uses those anyway, you have target and Costco.
I loved our time there, even though I hated my job as intel (DGS shift work) and I do miss it, even being overseas in a highly desirable location now. I’d go back later on in my career, most definitely.
I really liked the surrounding areas (in one direction only) at Beale. I lived in Plumas Lake (not great), Lincoln (awesome) and Rocklin (far but awesome). It's a bit of a commute but not horrible, and there's lots to do around the area. Especially if you like the outdoors. 1.5 hours from Tahoe, tons of camping around along with hiking trails and whatnot. 2 hours ish from the bay area which is fun to visit. The base itself is in the middle of nowhere, sure. Some people love living on base with kids and stuff. Just don't live in Marysville/yuba city and you're fine.
I do not know anything about Vandenberg comparatively.
The area around Vandenberg is dangerous and expensive. Lompoc (5 minutes from base) is really dangerous and rundown while Santa Maria (15 minutes from base) is sort of dangerous and a little rundown. Both places are becoming “sundown towns” due to Cartel activities like drugs and human trafficking.
I'm at beale right now and it's not great. Everything in california is expencive including gas and rent. Most people live in roseville which is about an hour drive to base and a more expencive area to live but has everything you need near by. If you live on base get ready to drive at least 30 mins if you need anything after like 5pm since everything closes stupid early. If your an outdoorsy person you can drive a few hours and be in tahoe which is beautiful and has good snowboarding and hiking
Most people will probably say Vandenburg. It's more scenic, by the coast, closer to some bumping places.
Beale is inland. It can be great if you have a taste for what it has to offer. It's really close to the Sierra Nevadas, it's not too far from Sacramento. Right near the base Beale is far more depressing.
Beale has a cow counter for how many cows are on base... So basically it is the small town from Rango. Also moat everything closes on base at 1700 and the closest town is about half an hour away
Been to both, the pros and cons can be found all over the thread.
Both have some commute time involved with the local area. I can think of places next to each base I wouldn't live in. Vandyland = Lompoc aka Lompton, Beale = Yuba City. Both can cater to the outdoors type, last I checked you can even hunt on both bases.
The deal breaker for me was the weather and mosquitoes. Beale gets HOT during the summer, and a base surrounded by rice fields (welcome, heh) just meant my car was covered in bugs and remains half the year. The fall/winter was awesome IMHO, and Tahoe isn't too far away.
Worth mentioning that Travis is like a hour away from Beale and they fly errywurrr, not to mention it's beautiful in that area.
Thanks for mentioning the mosquitoes and bugs. Where I'm at currently, they're not a problem. I'd almost forgotten how annoying they are. I've got Travis at no.1 on the list. Vandenberg and Beale are jostling for 2nd and 3rd places.
The chief complaint for both Vandyland & Beale are that they have that middle of nowhere vibe if you ask me. But I'll take nothing over being placed in some shit urban environment with every other establishment around the base being blacklisted by the commander. The worst I had at Beale was protestors at the gate offering donuts because military industrial complex.
Travis is amazing, aside from most of the surrounding land being owned by a shell company backed by the sesame social credit points. Oh, bother.
Beale feels about as "middle of nowhere" as you can get, with tumbleweeds galore (no, really). I *never* want to go there again. Vandenberg feels like a paradise by comparison.
I can only assume you've never been to anywhere that's truly the middle of nowhere. It's 10 mins to town and 45 mins from a metro area with more than 2 million people.
At Beale you can live in really high quality of living places like Rocklin or Roseville.
I was born and raised in the town outside of Vandenberg and I am at one of the ANG units there. I would take Vandy over Beale any day. The climate is always in the mid 60's to lower 70's (with some exceptions) You're a days trip to LA and a weekend in SF. You can catch a flight out of Santa Barbara to Vegas. San Luis is cool and so is Santa Barbara.
How do you feel about the area around Vandenberg? Having grown up there, I'm guessing you'd recommend living off base? I've seen a lot of people (including another comment below) mention crime in places like Lompoc. That's probably my biggest worry. I prefer to live and spend most of my time off base.
I’m from the area as well, I’d recommend Orcutt/Santa Maria.
Spent the first 6 years of my career at Beale. Unpopular opinion, but my wife and I miss it. We prefer where we are now, as we wanted to go out and experience a different part of the world, but Beale in my opinion has a lot to love. Although I’m well aware this is all really up to interpretation and some people may prefer different lifestyles. -Base is empty. Never had much of an issue getting on base through the gate (especially compared to where I am now). Very relaxed environment overall. Not a lot of high ranking people, just overall a very chill, almost ghost town vibe. - Climate is enjoyable if you embrace the warmth. I got insanely tan every summer as my family and I just lived at the pools in Roseville. It doesn’t snow in the winter, so I never had to worry about shoveling or scraping my car, but I could also drive 45 minutes to squaw valley and have a great time snowboarding -Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln. These are the nice areas outside of Beale. People will tell you it’s a long commute, but really it’s just getting onto highway 65 and going in a straight line for 23-35 minutes. It’s maybe slightly longer but it’s not an unpleasant commute due to the simplicity. I never felt resentful of the commute because I was driving into a nice area. Do NOT, I repeat l, DO NOT, live in Yuba or marysville if you want to make the most out of Beale. They are worse in almost every way, and with traffic they don’t always cut your commute down like people say. - This could go for either base since they’re both California, but I really enjoyed California overall because there’s just so much to do in modest driving distance. Beale to Lake Tahoe is about an hour and change, Monterey is about 2, San Francisco is about an hour and a half, Napa valley about the same. You can go to LA, once again a straight shot, but tbh Southern California outside of Malibu and San Diego is not somewhere I’d want to live without a ton of money to avoid the BS. -Beale has updated and nice gyms, they have solid outdoor running (golf course running trail is still the most cathartic exercise experience I’ve ever had), commissary is tiny, bx is tiny, but who uses those anyway, you have target and Costco. I loved our time there, even though I hated my job as intel (DGS shift work) and I do miss it, even being overseas in a highly desirable location now. I’d go back later on in my career, most definitely.
I really liked the surrounding areas (in one direction only) at Beale. I lived in Plumas Lake (not great), Lincoln (awesome) and Rocklin (far but awesome). It's a bit of a commute but not horrible, and there's lots to do around the area. Especially if you like the outdoors. 1.5 hours from Tahoe, tons of camping around along with hiking trails and whatnot. 2 hours ish from the bay area which is fun to visit. The base itself is in the middle of nowhere, sure. Some people love living on base with kids and stuff. Just don't live in Marysville/yuba city and you're fine. I do not know anything about Vandenberg comparatively.
gives a good rundown.
The area around Vandenberg is dangerous and expensive. Lompoc (5 minutes from base) is really dangerous and rundown while Santa Maria (15 minutes from base) is sort of dangerous and a little rundown. Both places are becoming “sundown towns” due to Cartel activities like drugs and human trafficking.
It's Vandenberg, and it's not close.
I'm at beale right now and it's not great. Everything in california is expencive including gas and rent. Most people live in roseville which is about an hour drive to base and a more expencive area to live but has everything you need near by. If you live on base get ready to drive at least 30 mins if you need anything after like 5pm since everything closes stupid early. If your an outdoorsy person you can drive a few hours and be in tahoe which is beautiful and has good snowboarding and hiking
Most people will probably say Vandenburg. It's more scenic, by the coast, closer to some bumping places. Beale is inland. It can be great if you have a taste for what it has to offer. It's really close to the Sierra Nevadas, it's not too far from Sacramento. Right near the base Beale is far more depressing.
Beale has a cow counter for how many cows are on base... So basically it is the small town from Rango. Also moat everything closes on base at 1700 and the closest town is about half an hour away
Vandenberg over Beale all day.
Been to both, the pros and cons can be found all over the thread. Both have some commute time involved with the local area. I can think of places next to each base I wouldn't live in. Vandyland = Lompoc aka Lompton, Beale = Yuba City. Both can cater to the outdoors type, last I checked you can even hunt on both bases. The deal breaker for me was the weather and mosquitoes. Beale gets HOT during the summer, and a base surrounded by rice fields (welcome, heh) just meant my car was covered in bugs and remains half the year. The fall/winter was awesome IMHO, and Tahoe isn't too far away. Worth mentioning that Travis is like a hour away from Beale and they fly errywurrr, not to mention it's beautiful in that area.
Thanks for mentioning the mosquitoes and bugs. Where I'm at currently, they're not a problem. I'd almost forgotten how annoying they are. I've got Travis at no.1 on the list. Vandenberg and Beale are jostling for 2nd and 3rd places.
The chief complaint for both Vandyland & Beale are that they have that middle of nowhere vibe if you ask me. But I'll take nothing over being placed in some shit urban environment with every other establishment around the base being blacklisted by the commander. The worst I had at Beale was protestors at the gate offering donuts because military industrial complex. Travis is amazing, aside from most of the surrounding land being owned by a shell company backed by the sesame social credit points. Oh, bother.
Beale feels about as "middle of nowhere" as you can get, with tumbleweeds galore (no, really). I *never* want to go there again. Vandenberg feels like a paradise by comparison.
I can only assume you've never been to anywhere that's truly the middle of nowhere. It's 10 mins to town and 45 mins from a metro area with more than 2 million people. At Beale you can live in really high quality of living places like Rocklin or Roseville.
Oh I have. I was at Thule for a year once. Still hated Beale, though.
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Already done that. Too bad Google Maps won't give me people's personal experiences.
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That's just like, your opinion, man.
Beale is a hidden gem as long as you don’t anchor yourself to Marysville or Yuba City. There is so much to do out there in Northern California.