Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
I lived in Penticton for three years in the 90s. I had to drive to Kelowna all of the time for Court, in all seasons. Very rarely is snow a problem on Hwy 97. I never found it to be dangerous. There are some annoying single lane stretches, but traffic is not bad in the winter. I think that drive is one of the most scenic drives in all of Canada. I could usually get to Kelowna in 45 minutes, and Vancouver in 4 hours.
Penticton is a tourist town, and had many more fine restaurants for a town of 30,000 than you would expect. I still go back once or twice a year, and the explosion of new wineries with great restaurants attached is amazing. From Naramata to OK Falls, there is lots to try.
In the winter, it was kind of a ghost town, and overcast much of the time. Sometimes in the summer it was too damn hot. Overall, I think it was a great place to live, and I would consider retiring there or having a summer home there.
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The problem with that stretch is that they haven’t upgraded it to match the traffic levels from the 90s, which are much, much higher now.
I should have said winter conditions, not necessarily just snow.
I know several people that have driven it almost daily for the last 10 years. It’s an awful stretch of road right now when the weather is ugly.
I like Penticton. But it’s not Kelowna. This is not really a debate. It’s just the reality of living in a place 1/3 the size.
I don’t know why anyone feels the need to defend Penticton here. I’m just pointing out that moving from Calgary at 1.1m people to a small city of 50k people is going to be a huge change. Some good, some bad.
All of a sudden it turned into some weird battle of defending cities. Who cares? Small cities are a different life than big cities. This is news to people and it offends them now?
Never knew it’d be such a touchy subject to make a simple post pointing out that comparing Calgary, Vernon, Kelowna, Penticton and Salmon arm might need some context on city size. I never meant to rile anyone up, just trying to help the poster who said maybe he’d like to move to the interior.
We’re also talking about living here, not visiting from time to time or vacationing. Those are totally different topics that are pretty hard to comment on if you don’t actually live here now.
As a city dweller, Kelowna is already too small for me. Penticton would be way too small. Having fewer restaurants, entertainment options, shopping options etc are reality. Not a knock on the cities, it’s reality.