 Today is October 2nd and it's a super special day because it marks exactly five years since I moved from Chicago, Illinois to the beautiful state of Arizona and in this video I'm going to share with you five things that I love about living in Arizona and five things that I completely hate about living here so that if it's a move that you are considering in the future this is going to help you and kind of give you an idea about what to expect or if you're just curious about life in the desert of Arizona there it goes five things that I love about living here and five things that I don't like about living in Arizona. First of all we need to rewind back to 2016 when I decided to leave Chicago and move here. This move was motivated by a job that I got in Arizona and it was my first time coming to Arizona and I didn't know a single person here so when I told my friends that I was leaving Chicago and live in Arizona for an extended amount of time they thought that I'm crazy to move to the desert in the United States so for me and in my mind and especially because I didn't know much about Arizona I always thought that it's a barren desert the landscape is desert there's not much going on here but I decided to move because I needed to move for the job and also I just wanted to start a new chapter of my journey and my adventure here in the United States so I moved to Arizona and in my mind I am still thinking that it's a dry land and when you move here you kind of start to notice all of the vegetation that's kind of unique to the area the landscape is different but with time it kind of grows on you and that's the number one thing that I love about living in Arizona is the beauty of the desert and how beautiful the landscape is there are some of the best sunsets that I've ever seen in my life here in the southwest in general but in Arizona in particular the vegetation and the wildlife is great the landscape is great here in Arizona there are three national parks there's obviously the Grand Canyon National Park with great and immense opportunities to enjoy the outdoors like hiking backpacking camping whitewater rafting and then there is the Saguaro National Park which is also a great national park to learn about the vegetation in the Sonoran Desert and by the way I do have a video up here in which I talk about how you can spend your time in the Saguaro National Park in case you are here in Arizona or if you are moving to Arizona and then there's also the Petrified Forest National Park which is a little bit underrated but it's so beautiful with a lot of history so I highly recommend visiting the Petrified Forest National Park if you are in Arizona so three beautiful national parks here in Arizona that open a lot of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and there are plenty of state parks and regional parks and so many mountain ranges if you guys have been following me for quite some time from moving from Chicago to Arizona you'll probably notice that it even changed me as a person and how I picked hiking as a hobby and how I became just so obsessed with the outdoors and going out for camping and backpacking and this is probably a reason why I even started this youtube channel trekking pals which is just incredible so if you are moving to Arizona there are immense opportunities for hiking it doesn't matter what city you are living in in the state of Arizona you will have easy access to many parks regional parks you can go mountain biking you can go hiking rock climbing it's just so incredible how great the opportunity is to enjoy the outdoors which was not possible when I lived in Chicago the second thing that I love about living in Arizona is the beautiful weather during winter now it's the beginning of October and the weather is starting to get a lot nicer so throughout the winter season here in Arizona the weather is so very pleasant it helps you with the boosting your mood and also it's a motivation to go out and enjoy the desert of Arizona and we also don't have to worry much about our wardrobe because since the weather is pretty much pleasant throughout the year it's pretty much the same wardrobe and that's one thing that I love about living in Arizona because when I was back in Chicago with winter time a lot of storms a lot of snow there is this morning ritual where you have to do a lot of snow shoveling driving gets a little bit difficult in the city while it's not something that we really worry about here in Arizona the third thing that I love about living in Arizona is the fact that it's affordable compared to a lot of large states even Chicago New York LA San Francisco living here is a lot more affordable when it comes to shopping when it comes to renting when it even comes to investing in real estate I know that things are a little bit different right now with the pandemic but at least back when I moved in 2016 I could see a big difference about how much money I had to spend for my living expenses in Arizona compared to Chicago and I found it to be a lot more affordable I did live with roommates in the past I lived by myself and then moved to my own home eventually and I can see throughout every stage it was a lot more affordable compared to Chicago the fourth thing that I love about living in Arizona is its location and how it's within a reasonable distance from some of the best or the most beautiful states like Utah New Mexico Colorado so if you like road tripping Arizona has a great location kind of in the middle and you can even drive to San Diego for a lot of people who live in Arizona who kind of want to spend some time by the beach you could easily drive to San Diego you can also drive to Mexico we have this area in Mexico this Mexico the country called the Rocky Point or Puerto Peñasco it's only three to four hours drive from Metro Phoenix and boom you are by the beach you are enjoying the the beach of the Sonora State I believe in Mexico it's just a wonderful beach destination if you are living in Arizona and by the way I do have an article in my website I'm going to link it right up here if you want to visit Puerto Peñasco or Rocky Point I have some great recommendations of food and places to see and where to stay you can check it up there but it's definitely one thing that I love about Arizona is the fact that you can just pick your car you drive for a couple of hours and you are in an area that has plenty of things to offer and finally the fifth thing that I love about living in Arizona is the fact that it's rich in Native American culture and that's not something that I was immersing myself in when I lived in Chicago South by way of moving to Arizona you can see that there is a big influence and there's a big heritage of the Native American culture you get to know more about the tribes they do have a lot of sacred mountains and sacred lands you get to learn about those and that was pretty incredible and pretty eye-opening for me these are my top five things that I love about living here before I talk about the things that I hate about living Arizona I want to hear from you if you happen to live in Arizona let us know in a comment what are some of the things that you love about living here moving on to the not so positive side of living here and the first one which is the elephant in the room is the heat it gets super hot from May I would say up until the end of September with June July August being the hottest month so it gets incredibly hot when I tell people that I am originally from Morocco and just by way of being close to the Sahara desert they think that I have experienced this temperature before but to be fair this is the hottest weather or temperature that I have ever experienced in my life it gets so incredibly hot during summer especially when you just move here for the first time you will be so surprised by how hot it gets you will arrive to the airport let's say you're flying in you get to the airport you open the door and there's this wave of heat that's going to slap you on the face and it just makes it difficult especially during summer to still have fun while living in Arizona you can't really go outside and enjoy the outdoor sure there are people who go out and start hiking super early in the morning as early as 3 a.m or even earlier than that or sometimes late in the evening or at night but it just takes away from you know all of the things that you want to do during summer it becomes a little bit impossible so unless you spend your time working from home or working in the office and you definitely need AC by the end of the day your options are very limited and you kind of have to be a little bit creative to find places and activities to do when it gets really hot maybe going to museums and exhibitions but I don't know I can't think of many options and things to do when it gets really hot outside what we've been doing during summer we would try to find or pick destinations that are a little bit away from from metro phoenix so you can still drive up to sudona or flag stuff three hours up north and it gets a lot cooler or you can drive like I was saying to to Mexico or San Diego but the heat it just kills you especially year after year after year I just hate how hot it gets during summer the second thing that I hate about Arizona and I know a lot of people might disagree is food the food seen in Arizona is a big disappointment to be honest I have lived here for five years and I've been to so many restaurants but rarely do I find a restaurant with high quality fresh food sometimes you just want some good place with good gelato or good pastry or french pastry I personally like Middle Eastern Mediterranean food and I rarely find restaurants of high quality which was never a problem for me when I lived in Chicago because food was great in Chicago and there are so many options all the time while here in Arizona it's not the case and even Mexican food because a lot of people said to me that oh there's great Mexican food in Arizona I don't think that it's great Mexican food here in Arizona to be honest let me know in a comment what do you guys think I have been struggling with food in Arizona it's not the best kind of motivated me to spend more time cooking at home which I do enjoy but I really wish there were better options to choose from third thing that I hate about living in Arizona is the fact that it grows wide but not tall and it's so spread out there are so many cities and you kind of have to drive one hour one hour and a half sometimes two hours to get from one city to the other which makes a lot of things challenging when I was in Chicago downtown Chicago was the hub everyone gathers in downtown Chicago the majority of the events happen in downtown Chicago while here there's sometimes things going on in downtown phoenix and downtown mesa and downtown tempi there's just not one centralized location where all of people go and it made a lot of things difficult for me sometimes even when you go to events and make new friends and then you realize this friend probably lives two hours away and then one hour away it's just hard to bring people together and it's hard to go and meet people and it's one of the things that I personally struggled with too I found making friends in Arizona a lot difficult you kind of have to put a lot of time and energy to make it happen but that's definitely one thing that I don't appreciate about living in Arizona next thing is the transportation and the infrastructure for the transportation system the transportation system is not reliable in Arizona there is not a web of trams and trains and buses that you can really rely on to get to and from places unlike Chicago and again I just keep comparing to Chicago because that's where I lived before and it just makes getting to and from places a lot difficult in here so if you are moving to Arizona you certainly need a car unless you live you know across the street from from your office or from where you're working which I did in the past but you still need a car I remember back in Chicago the train system was so very reliable with different lines there was like the blue line the green line the red line and it makes it difficult to go from one place to the other and you don't really need the car I never really need the car in Chicago but here in Arizona it's a totally different story if you don't have a car you will feel like you know you're just left out you are living on the edge of the world and there's just no possible you can you can still rely on ride chairs but it gets so expensive like I said earlier it's so spread out so getting from one city to the other can cost you a lot of money so that's not so great about Arizona I don't see a change in anytime soon because even right now with the construction that's happening it's still growing wide and wide and wide there's not just even with the buildings you will notice that in Arizona we don't have a lot of high-rise buildings some in downtown Phoenix but it's all kind of flat low and it keeps spreading wide and wide and wide the other thing that I don't like about living in Arizona is that you don't really get to experience seasons you don't really experience winter as winter and then fall and then spring sure the temperature and the weather is beautiful and pleasant throughout the year and then there's the summer season when this crazy wave of heat will hit you but we don't really experience fall as fall we don't have rainy days and when I say rainy days we have the crazy monsoon season which by the way the monsoon season we have a lot of rain usually around June and it's just crazy and nasty and sometimes flush floods but we don't have just a normal rainy day where you can just put your coat on and umbrella and go and have a cup of coffee or we have you know just like snowy winter days although to be fair you can still drive up north to Flagstaff during winter and you can see snow and you can play in snow and you can enjoy winter activities like skiing and snowshoeing and snowboarding but the majority of people not living in Flagstaff they are living in Metro Phoenix and you don't really get that it's not something that I hate but I just wish that we I kind of just miss the changes in in the weather that I used to experience back in the east coast or the Midwest and then talking about the weather we have our dry season during summertime and when you get super dry we have a lot of fires this year we had so many fires during summer that the national parks and national forests they had to close a lot of the forests and so people were a little bit frustrated because you can't go camping when the weather is pleasant like up in in Flagstaff or anywhere really all of the forests up north there's there are so many fires because it's so dry outside and I know that other states like California suffered a lot of this I know that the situation right now in one of our favorite national parks the Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park is just horrible right now but it's just when I lived in Chicago it's not something that I even thought about or had to worry about but you when you experience it close to you or close to home it kind of just hurts and especially when there's not much that that you can do by the way I kind of feel like I want to throw this out there about Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park they are one of the best one of our favorite national parks here in the country if you guys can go to the link that I'm gonna leave in the description box and donate to the national park just so that you can help with the current situation that will be so much appreciated I know it's not related to the topic but if you can please do this last one not that it really bothers me but I feel like I kind of have to talk about it and that is scorpions and snakes it's something that you have to think about if you are moving to Arizona I remember one day when I moved to my new house I was sitting in the guest bedroom just laying in the bed and you know just meditating and then as I lift my eyes I look towards the wall and I see this scorpion crawling on the wall I was terrified because it's just not something that I expected so it's something to think about and snakes I used to be so afraid of snakes in the past I mean not that they are going to be around where you're living unless you live close to to the mountains for example I used to be so afraid of snakes in the past but now that I kind of spent more time learning about their behavior and just by way of spending time outside and in the mountains I feel more comfortable around snakes I would say but it's definitely something to keep in mind I know right now when we go hiking you will certainly see snakes especially if you are hiking in the heat especially during the summer months but I learned that snakes are more afraid of you than you are afraid of them they don't want anything that has to do with you really so as long as you are making enough noise if you are hiking outside and you're not startling them you should be fine so snakes and scorpions is definitely something that you will have to think about if you are moving in here that's pretty much it for today's video obviously I am still living in Arizona right now and I have had so many great memories and experiences over the past five years there are days where you know I think wow it's great that we live here and then there are days where I'm just thinking oh it's probably time for me to move somewhere else just somewhere where there are mountains maybe Colorado or Washington but I do like the states I think that the desert is so beautiful and living here overall is not bad so thank you so much for watching and if you enjoyed this video please do give it thumbs up and subscribe to the channel my name is Habiba this is trekking pals and I will see you very soon on a new adventure