Kind of like asking what are good places to eat in New York City, since there are so many amazing options. Can you be more specific?

CT is amazing. Why not live in Hartford proper though? That way you're in the center of everything, and you can walk places. Many of the towns farther out from Hartford are not walkable at all, although there are a few nice sections like West Hartford center, Wethersfield, Manchester etc. You might also want to check out areas along the shoreline (New Haven, Branford etc) since you also get easy access to the beach/ocean, not just forest trails.

Totally doable if you are used to urban biking and traffic. I know people who ride that route daily. There are some side streets that might be more pleasant for biking on than the big ones

You have a place there called Mamoun's that is open until midnight at least, if you like middle eastern coffee. And there are some other restaurants/bodegas with seating that are open really late or even 24/7 and serve coffee, but they aren't all great for studying and the coffee may not be that good.

There's an excellent boba shop / cafe with coffee right across from the main Starbucks, that stays open until 10 or 11pm most days i think. There's also at least one other boba tea/coffee place by the Green that's not as fancy, but is open until 10pm most days I think. Pistachio also stays open late some nights.

There are TONS of really nice cafes for studying in New Haven, but generally they are open until 8pm or 9pm. I guess it's tough to find baristas who want to work at a coffee shop after 9pm these days. No 24/7, sit-down, studying type coffee shops that I'm aware of. Gather East might be open later some days.

At least it's not like Hartford where everything closes at 3PM (or is closed altogether thanks to COVID!)

Agree. Raccoons and squirrels can be nasty. They'll jump out of dumpsters on to you if you walk by at the wrong time. Raccoons will also definitely live in your attic and that can be a HUGE problem

Rats tend to be pretty chill or nonexistent in CT because they get trapped or caught by cats and other predators, though there are some houses in Hartford where they will come inside and are a bad problem for a specific complex or city block sometimes.

If you're in a big city and they are swarming in large groups (or stuck in a subway car with you) or endemic to an entire neighborhood, they can be more of a problem, but that's definitely not the case here.

Rats aren't too bad in Hartford compared to big cities like Philly, Baltimore, Boston, etc. I don't know if you've all spent time in some of those cities but in the summer there can be large (cat sized) rats swarming around, even in nice neighborhoods. But there are definitely some localized problems with them in some of the outlying Hartford residential areas, where the city and/or landlords aren't doing their jobs.

That's good to know rents aren't continuing to rise like they were last year, if that's true. Last year was just insane.

Giv is great. Willoughby's too, but Giv has a wider range. You can mail order from them.

Story and Soil in Hartford, and sometimes Fussy in New Haven, have some really nice boutique selections. Like, amazing small production lot stuff you won't find elsewhere.

You could commute in from an outlying town like Meriden, but I would usually recommend getting roommates instead... or just spending a LOT of time looking really hard for a good place that's below the market rate.

Scam artist?

They used to give out a lot more tickets though, like, 10,000 more. The number of tickets issued peaked around 2009 after a bunch of pedestrians were killed and people complained. Then people stopped complaining and the police stopped enforcing traffic laws I guess.

In practice they sometimes leave the time check stops early too.

Some tips:

In my experience you have to make sure it doesn't come early, not just be at the stop on time. Buses coming early might be a bigger issue than buses not coming at all.

Always have the schedule with you (or on phone) so you can be prepared to wait for the next bus or find an alternative if it's infrequent/last bus.

Look for alternate routes or choose routes/destinations where there are multiple ways to get to the same place. So if one line isn't running, you can walk a couple blocks over and catch a different bus that's going to the same area. With buses, I find that normalizing the idea of walking 15-20 minutes on either end of the bus trip can be helpful since it gives you many more options and besides it can be good exercise.

There are tons of options I think including some open lots you can walk to the terminal from and others with reliable shuttles that will take you the 5 minutes to the terminal.

I think they are all closing including the one in Hartford and Providence. Those were never as vibrant as the ones in New Haven though.

The New Haven ones are all reopening as fancier/better places I hear. Not sure if Hartford will reopen since the downtown is pretty dead.

I don't think it's as much of an issue as it would be in Baltimore, since New Haven is also technically a part of the NYC metro region and has lots of other good sized cities around it. I think there are likely about 1,000,000 or more people who work in the general area within a really easy 30-45 minute drive of New Haven (this includes Hartford), and of those, only about 30,000 either work or go to school at Yale or the Yale-New Haven Hospital.I know a lot of people who work in Hartford who live in New Haven for example.

Atticus downtown inside the British Art museum makes an excellent breakfast sandwich. I've also tried Zoi's and Olmo and they are also good.

If you're looking for pizza, you really never have to leave New Haven, but it's fun to walk around Brooklyn and try the different pizza places there that get good reviews too.

Cool. One of the other nice things if you choose to live south of Hartford is being able to take the train to NYC on a lark anytime, to catch shows or just walk and bike around, even just to pop into the city for dinner. The trains from New Haven to NYC run more or less 24/7, sometimes as often as every 15 minutes. Less doable from Hartford because the trains don't run quite as late and you have to switch in New Haven, but you could do weekend trips now and then.

Not sure if you've been to NYC but it's better than all the other large cities in the United States combined.

Connecticut has great trains!

A lot of people who work in Hartford live outside the immediate Hartford area, in places like New Haven, the other shoreline towns, Western Massachusetts (Northampton is nice), etc., even towns closer to NYC. The nice thing about New Haven would be the direct train service since it's much more relaxing and cheaper than driving.

If you have to work in Hartford 5 days per week in person though I'd understand why you would want to be close, and would recommend some of the neighborhoods within Hartford itself, but maybe not downtown. It's pretty desolate these days.

Downtown Hartford is a wreck these days. You might consider commuting in from a suburb or a neighborhood like the West End of Hartford. Areas like Blue Back Square are pretty walkable, though they have a clear suburban strip mall type feeling to them, in my opinion. Manchester is one area that's a bit more authentic feeling but it's farther away.

If you want to live in a thriving city/downtown, you might consider living in New Haven and taking the train to Hartford, especially if you'd be able to have a hybrid schedule where you don't have to do the commute all 5 days of every week. There's a nice commuter rail service now. You'd have all weekend and every evenings in a good-sized walkable city, and that might be worth it even if the 35 minute train ride is a drag.

Move somewhere within walking or easy transit distance of Yale if you want to maximize your safety and quality of life. Your biggest risk of injury, by far, will be driving around, especially a place like West Haven that has a lot of high speed traffic. Crashes have gotten worse in recent years maybe because people are driving around while high.

Within CT "lively downtown" only describes New Haven, really, if you want to be honest. Though the Hartford area has its charms, they are more spread out. I also like Greenwich but could never afford it LOL.

Star of India in Orange is worth checking out too, good buffet.