ATL Metro Wakeboarding
 

My family and I will likely be moving to the Atlanta metro area soon. I'm trying to get an idea of what we are getting ourselves into. We currently live in Lexington, KY with multiple wakeboarding venues within an hour from our house and an pretty fun downtown area with live music venues and cool restaurants. We both love Lexington, but need to move for a number of reasons. I have visited Lake Lanier a couple times so I am slightly familiar with the gwinnett co. area. Here is our most desirable situation in ATL:

- Within 1 hour from a desirable wakeboarding lake
- Within 1 hour from Peachtree City (wife's mom lives there and will be assisting in the care of our diabetic toddler)
- Outside the 285 loop
- House price range 160,000-200,000
- Good schools, etc.
- Would like to be in an area with a little culture (places to go for live music w/o driving into ATL)... does this even exist in the metro area?

Is this asking too much? I'm curious about the towns south of ATL positioned in between Peachtree City and Jackson Lake. If anybody has any knowledge or resources they could share I would greatly appreciate it. I'm pretty nervous about relocating because I love Lexington, but I am excited about a new experience. It also appears we can get a lot more house for our money in the ATL metro area than in Lexington.

Thanks.

That's not going to be hard to find at all, but you should probably enlist the help of a real estate agent to help you find good neighborhoods. I'd recommend staying on the South side since it sounds like driving to the Mother-in-laws is going to be high on the priority list. Peachtree City has a lot of character and probably has a lot of what you're looking for as far as night-life outside of Atlanta. Traffic is going to kill you though, a 30 minute drive from the North side of town to PC can easily turn into an hour and a half drive.

I like Lake Allatoona more and more each year. If you are anywhere on the Northwest side of Atlanta, it's a short hop to be on the water there. Roswell, Marietta, Alpharetta are all nice places up there. Lanier is also beautiful now that the water level is to full pool. Jackson Lake tends to be muddy but it has it's great spots.

Lake Spivey in the Stockbridge/Jonesboro area is also nice, but probably on the high end of your price range. It's also private, but its not hard to meet folks on the lake.

You might want to check out this neighborhood in Gwinnett county (East side of Atlanta): http://www.norrislakega.org/
You can find homes around the lake for very inexpensive, but you have to be on the water or know someone on the water to use the lake.

Post here for good local resources:

http://www.atlwake.com/

Good advice above. P'tree City is a very nice place. In general, I think the higher rated schools are north of the city - Cobb County, Gwinnett County and N. Fulton (Alpharetta). Lanier can be great and it can be awful. Great during the week, tough to find smooth water on the weekends. Jackson is decent, but you might consider a little further tow time and go West to Wedowee in Alabama (1 1/2 hr from PC) or go further west to Oconee and/or Sinclair (2 hrs from PC).

Lake Martin in Alabama is where its at from Peachtree City. One of the raddest wake families I know (The Autry's) live in PC and commute to the lake every weekend just about and live there during the week over the summers. Not a bad drive at all (1.5hrs) and its away from all the crappy traffic and rukus that is ATL. We have a good/growing scene thanks to Blue Creek Marina and Singleton Marine. Water is great during the week and good in the mornings and evenings most weekends.

I run ALWake.com as well as our Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/alabamawake) and would be happy to help you figure out the area if need be.

I also have a lake house up on Lake Oconee and know a pretty good bit about that area as well if you have any questions about it.