5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Moving to Ottawa

Loved the size of Ottawa. Had great friends and the children enjoyed the activities. I was back there last month for a family wedding, at a beautiful restaurant e18hteen, ByWard Market. My nephew is the Executive Chef there and he was the groom. I don’t find the traffic bad but I now live in the Bay Area and before that NYC

This is helpful, I’ll be moving to Ottawa in March next year. Nervous but excited!

Ottawa for sure is the most beautiful city in Canada👍! Rivers, Rideau Canal, river locks, Parliament, fire works, Winterlude festival, tulip festival…… Weather wise; global warming made Ottawa one of the best cities to live in Canada these days. Winter is getting shorter and shorter each year and the coldest is now below 20 degrees compared with below 40 thirty years ago! Summer will be very hot though but only for four to six weeks. It's true that most of the restaurants in Ottawa are not worth what you paid for! It's no harm to dine out once a while 🤣! Ottawa is my hometown for 50 years😊 I did live in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver before, every city for two to ten years. Ottawa is my final destination…☀️

Been living in O-town since I arrived as a Permanent Resident. This was back in Oct 2nd, 2010. I have no friends, no relatives nor any form of contact when I arrivef here. Now it's Feb 6, 2023 as I'm writing this. I LOVE this city! I dunno what is it. I just fell in love and really can't see myself leaving.

2:55 I visited my family there and went Rideau mall, the people were so kind. I miss this. I’m in Toronto and it the total opposite 😢

Visited Ottawa last month. Loved the city . Definitely lots of activities and fun city.

What I love the most of Ottawa is the food including Farmboy grocery store. I live in Orleans and this part of the city is very boring, but great for families.

Im thinking of moving near Ottawa, we have 2 young adults that will probably go to college there. But we also have a 10 year old daughter. We were thinking about getting a house in Dunrobin which is not too far from Ottawa. We do not want to live anywhere close to downtown but we like the proximity of its services. We want a house with an intimate and big yard but not in a farm area or a place where its not nice. We want nice, welcoming, kind of private property in a safe and nice neighborhood. What are your thoughts about this if I may ask you? About schools for my little one and so on. Thanks for any pointers. We will need a realtor to help us out I presume :)

I really want to move to Ottawa with my family but nervous and scared 😅

I’m from Toronto and I recently took a trip to Ottawa last week and I fell in love with the city! The second I got back, I realized that Toronto isn’t the same anymore. There’s too many wild things going on every day, everything is extremely expensive and I’m struggling to afford rent. Thinking of moving to Ottawa at the end of this month to enjoy more nature, lesser people, lesser traffic and less rent. What do you guys think?

I love living in Ottawa! Very easy access to Hull is another advantage. The Ottawa river dividing the two provinces is so beautiful. Unfortunately I’m moving away to BC soon. I don’t want to leave Ottawa 😭😭🥺

#1 Ottawa is Cold... Proceeds to show video of Quebec.

Very well said, we love Ottawa, the BEST !!!

I am considering moving to Ottawa soon for school and change because BC is getting to be far to expensive and unstable to live in now I know Ottawa is also considerably expensive too and I have my concerns about it especially with employment I will be living in shared accommodation to save on rent so please let me know what you think?

It would have been useful for me to know that Ottawa's transit system has a transitway, i.e. a set of roads reserved for buses. I wasted so much time taking the most direct but slowest buses to and from the downtown because I didn't know there was a high speed route three blocks away. Now much of the transitway is being replaced by light rail, which should have happened decades ago.

Ottawa is a really beautiful city, but unfortunately, it is horribly expensive too. Even if you want to rent a simple room at a non-luxurious place in DT Ottawa they will ask you to pay in the range of CAD1,000 to CAD1,500 per month. Owners will also ask for the first and last month. You are 40 or older? You are male? You are not a student? well, landlords would not want you, then be prepared. There are many suburbs that are marketed as Ottawa but are actually far (Kanata, Orleans, Gloucester, etc.) I have never been to a place where people are so expert in abusing their position as government-fed employees. Bureaucracy behavior also contaminates employees of private companies (say banks) who turn into kind but lazy bureaucrats. The latter makes customer service in Ottawa one of the worst I ever found all over the Americas, there are exceptions of course. The Small Claims Court is by far one of the worst and most inefficient in Canada, at a point that you cannot believe you are in a developed Country. Needless to say that the months I lived in Ottawa were a very bittersweet experience that I do not want to repeat.

Ottawa is a beautiful City. I lived there in the 80s for 5 years. Those were the party times (I was in my 20s) Hull was our go to and cabs were our friends. I missed the club scene in Ottawa because i was in Hull. I also workd for Sam The Record Man in Ottawa so new all the new music and sold to DJ's ...I was there when CDs came out and that was awesome too

Winter isn’t long it’s just 6 months of snow

Expensive houses?

I practically grew up there an I'm from NY so I'll say this people from Ottawa are super funny but they can be rude in a hilarious way, u probably wouldn't even know their being funny