Live Your Best Life: Affordable Living in Barry's Bay, Ontario

We moved to the area 6 years ago from Waterloo Region. It was the best thing we have done in our lives. Because my husband has a rare illness friends worried about healthcare. Let me tell you, we have had better healthcare in Barry's Bay and Ottawa than any we have had in Waterloo region or with Toronto specialists. The people we have met are wonderful. The community is amazing. The peace and quiet, the relaxed lifestyle is so calming. If you find your home , it will be forever.

Hi, 2 years ago we moved to Barry's Bay from KW. We didn't have kids with us. One day we just made the decision to change our life, come closer to nature, live in a smaller town and so far we are very happy. We relax, we work, we meet people, we travel - everything at our own pace. The town is very welcoming, it has everything we need. With kids we have no experience here because ours are adults, but they love to visit us! On another side, the bugs are here much longer, the winter is longer, yeah...not always we have things delivered to our door. Life in big city has different problems, especially KW changed a lot for worse. We are glad we moved out and now we enjoy small town life.

We just moved up here from GTA a week ago. Family of 6 with 2 teenage boys, and 2 elementary aged kids. Primary motivators were slower pace of life and socio-economic reasons. I agree with most other commenters about friendliness of people, cleaner air and general beauty of the area. Yes, there are more bugs and yes, the winters are longer and colder. Those are the things you get used to with time IMO. We've been coming to the area for 15+ yrs at all times of the year and don't find it that much worse than the city. Mind you, we lived more in the country in GTA than we are here (oh, the irony!) The healthcare/shortage of doctors is concerning, at the same time the quality of healthcare in the city has gone down the drain and along with degraded quality of education were secondary reasons why we moved out. Access to shopping is a bit of a limiting factor, you have to drive out further to get the same stuff you'd get in the city. The basics are here in town (food, housewares, etc.), for everthing else there's Amazon delivery and Costco is 2hrs away either direction - Peterborough or Kanata. We invested in multiple freezers and stock up on bulk food to avoid frequent trips. Work is not a problem for us, I work remotely and my wife is a homemaker. I just need access to fast internet, which has been a bit of an issue, but not a roadblock. So far we're loving it and not looking back.