The Stress-Free Guide to Settling Down in a New City - Get to know your neighbors

Ask Real PeopleP

Of course, there's no substitute to the advice of a real live person that you can ask questions and interact with. Chances are, you're bound to have at least one or two people you know that live or lived in the town to which you've moved. Ask them for advice. Call them, go out to lunch with them, or just email back and forth and pick their brain. Ask any and all questions you have, from where are good spots to eat to where are the parts of town you might want to stay away from, or how bad the traffic is at rush hour. 

A really great (and geeky) way to compile this kind of advice is to create a Google Doc and invite the few people you know to collaborate on it. If you can get one person to get the ball rolling, you can probably get a lot of people to join in, adding their favorite places to eat and things to do in town (especially if they disagree with one another—people have a lot of pride in their favorite local hangouts and will gladly offer up their own advice). It can become self-sustaining pretty quickly. Everyone, even the new people I meet each week, are more than willing to contribute to the doc with their favorite spots/hangouts if I invite them as collaborators.P

I also highly recommend crowd-sourcing some responses on Facebook and Twitter, too. You might be surprised how many people are familiar with the area and can give you great advice about anything you need to know. Again, what's really useful about this is it isn't just some random reviews around the net—if you can follow up with people and get all your other questions answered, you'll be a lot better off.P

There's nothing wrong with asking other locals, even if they're just people you meet for a few minutes on the street, in a coffee shop, or elsewhere. Dropping the simple "I just moved here" line works wonders. It's remarkable how friendly and helpful people are to newcomers. They're bound to give you a nugget or two of information you might not have gotten elsewhere, so above all, just be friendly!P

Getting Out and Making FriendsP

The other half of the equation is getting out and finding stuff to do with other people, and forming a group (or groups) of friends. It won't just happen by sitting on your couch watching Seinfeld reruns, so here are a few things you can do to get the ball rolling.