Reviews & Comments
Durham, NC
Meh. Ready to move on. -
2/7/2021On the whole, I really don't see what people get so excited about when pitching Durham (and the triangle) on all those "best places for 20-somethings" lists. I've had to relocate here for a few years, and initially was looking forward to the "great food scene" and "welcoming culture." Online, you read that this is a city on the upswing, with lots to do while retaining its quirky local flavor. Trying to be as objective as I can (since I obviously don't like the place), I really feel that this is more hype than reality.
Food scene: if you're into barbecue and/or southern food I guess it's pretty good, but no better than any other decently sized southern metro. Also a handful of pretty standard gastropub type operations, as well as some food trucks. Beyond that, most international foods you'd care to find (Asian, European, Latin American, African) are pretty mediocre to average, if they have it at all. The nearby town of Cary is a little better in this respect, but people who hype the food scene here IMO mostly have limited experience in other cities. Compare Durham for example with the the similarly sized (technically smaller) city of Charleston, SC; also a small southern city yet with a far stronger food scene. Booze scene is here is overhyped: there are some okay craft breweries, but very limited options in terms of wine bars, upscale stuff, and candidly even the quality of the local craft brews doesn't measure up within the state. NC is an awesome state for craft beer, but most of the really good places are farther west.
Culture & lifestyle: mostly feels like some big suburban collection of strip malls, office parks, and mcmansions/cheaply built apartments with very poor public transit that's oozed over the countryside without rhyme or reason. Downtown small and run-down. There is a mix of locals and transients, but I've lived in a number of other cities in different regions of the country and on the whole find this to be the least welcoming place that I've lived. Other than that, there's minor league baseball (something that's standard in cities across the country, even ones significantly smaller than Durham) and a distinctly average (yet surprisingly expensive) performing arts center.
Also, what's this crap I always hear about the ocean and mountains being 2 hours away? Wilmington (beach) is just over 2 hours its true, but if you want to get to the real mountains in NC it's more like 3.5 hours, and even that just gets you to towns at the foot of them (you have to keep going, closer to 4 hours to really get up to trailheads or the bigger parks). Point is, the beach is a really long day-trip, and doing anything meaningful in the mountains makes for a kinda long weekend trip. These natural amenities aren't nearly as accessible in practice as the boosters would have you believe. Central NC has a few small parks, but to be honest the scenery is pretty mediocre in the middle of the state. I'll grant that NC has some of the best Appalachian and coastal scenery on the east coast with the Smokies, Mount Mitchell, Outer Banks etc but Durham is NOT a good place from which to really appreciate either of these things. If you want a convincing urban experience, the nearest is DC and that's 4 hours drive north optimistically (considering traffic).
All this is not to say Durham is a terrible city-hence why I gave it 2 stars instead of 1. It's just that it's pitched to newcomers and outsiders as some vibrant, interesting place that punches above its demographic weight in terms of opportunity and stuff to do, as well as accessibility to other points of interest, and I think that's simply not true. If anything I'd call it a glorified college town in a pretty isolated location with a heaping helping of crime on the side, and if you come here expecting more than that you'll likely be disappointed.