Forums

In the past two years I've become addicted to several forums. Prior to planning our move here I was barely aware of forums, occasionally overhearing an office co-worker talk about a parenting forum. Now there are several that I scan daily...which has become more difficult with no home internet access :(

The first forum I tried out was UK Yankee, which proved to be an invaluable resource because it's for Americans living in the UK. The members there provided advice on everything I could possibly need to know.

When I started planning our move back I discovered City Data which has forums for all major US cities. Initially I was using it to plan our move to San Diego, since I'm clueless about the area but it proved to be very helpful for Milwaukee as well.

Another Milwaukee site I've found to be helpful is Milwaukee Moms. I can't benefit from the parenting discussions quite yet but there's lots of other general information about living in Milwaukee.

By far my favorite forum is Trip Advisor, probably because I love planning trips and traveling :) For a long time I only used it to search for hotel reviews but it also has a great forum. There are so many members that popular cities have almost a hundred posts per day. Paris is one such city, so now that our trip there is rapidly approaching I try to keep up with all the current posts.

Trip Advisor is better than a guidebook in the sense that it's very timely information. For example, I recently discovered that the Metro line from the airport in Athens will be closed as of July 1 for the remainder of the year, which is helpful to know since we leave on Tuesday for Athens!