San Antonio to Modesto Movers

Modesto is the seat of Stanislaus County and one of the anchor cities of the northern San Joaquin Valley, a community of a little over 200,000 that still introduces itself with the illuminated arch spanning I Street downtown — "Water Wealth Contentment Health," the 1912 slogan the city never retired. Its most established neighborhoods sit just south and west of that arch: La Loma and the College Area around Modesto Junior College, tree-shaded grids of Craftsman and Spanish-revival homes wrapped around Graceada Park. Downtown has filled back in around the restored State Theatre and the Gallo Center for the Arts, while newer, master-planned housing has pushed east into Village One and the Sylvan district and north toward Salida. Modesto is also, famously, George Lucas's hometown — American Graffiti is his portrait of its 1960s cruising scene — and every June the classic cars still roll down McHenry Avenue for Graffiti Summer, one of the region's signature events.

The local economy leans on two things the valley does better than almost anywhere: making food and moving it. E&J Gallo Winery — the largest family-owned winery in the world — is headquartered here, alongside its Gallo Glass bottle plant, and Save Mart Companies runs its supermarket business out of Modesto as well. Around them sit the orchards and dairies that make Stanislaus one of the top agricultural counties in the country, feeding processors like Stanislaus Food Products' tomato cannery and Blue Diamond's almond operation up in Salida. Healthcare is the other pillar, anchored by Doctors Medical Center, Sutter's Memorial Medical Center, and Kaiser Permanente Modesto. And then there's the Bay Area factor: thousands of Modestans commute west over the Altamont Pass on I-580 to jobs in the Tri-Valley and Silicon Valley — with an Altamont Corridor Express rail extension now being built down into Stanislaus County — trading a longer drive for a mortgage a fraction of what the coast demands.

For a household leaving San Antonio, that last point cuts both ways. Compared with the Bay Area, Modesto is a bargain — which is exactly why so many Californians move to it — but compared with Bexar County it's a step up: California home prices and rents run higher, the state levies an income tax Texas doesn't, and fuel and utilities cost more, so many families right-size before the truck is loaded. What the higher cost buys is position. Yosemite National Park is about two hours east up CA-120 through Oakdale, the Gold Country towns of Sonora and Jamestown sit an hour into the foothills, the Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers and Woodward and Modesto reservoirs put boating and rafting close to home, and San Francisco and the coast are roughly 90 minutes to two hours west — a genuinely central Northern California base wrapped in a warm, dry Mediterranean climate.