Plymouth, MA: Not Just For Thanksgiving But Also Your New Pleasant & Budget-Friendly Home!

Anyone traveling home to visit loved ones for Thanksgiving might have some spare thinking time. Would now be a good moment to move home, maybe to a new part of the country? Plymouth, Massachusetts — the site of America’s original Thanksgiving — with its pleasant ambience, thriving economy and reasonable costs, could be the ideal place to consider!

If the name of the city sounds familiar, it may be because Plymouth was the place where the Pilgrim Fathers landed and made their home in 1620 and where, a year later, gave thanks for their harvest together with local inhabitants of the Wampanoag tribe. The place has a thriving tourist sector based on its historic significance, all the benefits of an attractive coastal location and proximity to the great city of Boston — plus, housing costs are comparatively reasonable.

Plymouth is a jewel of New England quaintness and much more besides

Plimoth Plantation at Plymouth, MA

Strolling around Plymouth is a history-lovers delight, with its monuments, its attractive housing that includes colonial-style buildings, and the Pilgrim Memorial State Park situated in the center of town. Anyone who gets tired of the city’s urban ambiance can go fishing, picnicking or whale watching on Plymouth Beach, out on the other side of the harbor.

Plymouth’s peaceful atmosphere is appreciated by — and fostered by — a population that is somewhat older than in many places in the area. The average age here is 47.9 years, compared to Boston’s 33.3 years and 40.3 years in Massachusetts as a whole, according to US Census data.

History makes tourism the biggest economic sector in Plymouth

National Monument to the Forefathers, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Plymouth is certainly steeped in history, epitomized by the Plymouth Rock monument and the solid granite National Monument to the Forefathers, which stands 81 feet tall — a US record for such a structure. Millions of tourists visit Plymouth each year, boosting the population of 60K residents and their hospitality businesses as well. They will find quality dining and shopping options in the city’s up-and-coming Downtown and the adjacent village of North Plymouth.

Healthcare is also an important industry in Plymouth, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center being the town’s largest employer, while the technical and scientific research sectors are also represented. The local employment rate of 61.7% is close to Boston’s rate of 66.7%. And Plymouth workers earn more, with their median household income of $97,959 significantly higher than Boston’s equivalent figure of $86,331.

Plymouth’s housing market is better value than many in the area

Historic homes along Leyden Street in Plymouth, Massachusetts

Plymouth may well be the best-known city in the Massachusetts county that bears its name, but it is not the most expensive to live in, having an average apartment rent of $2,696, according to Yardi Matrix data. This is a middle-ranking rent among the major cities of Plymouth County — while Brockton has the cheapest average of $1,820, other cities such as Hingham, Pembroke and Kingston charge several hundred dollars more per month.

Meanwhile, the average apartment rent across the state of Massachusetts as a whole is also slightly higher than Plymouth’s at $2,713. Beantown is only 40 miles away, and as the average in the city of Boston rent is a full $3,938 — even the Greater Boston suburb of Cambridge charges $3,614 — commuting from Plymouth could be an attractive idea for many.

Self storage helps Plymouth residents live larger

Plymouth Long Beach Massachusetts Peninsula

Renting a local self storage unit is a way that Plymouth apartment dwellers can make their living space go further, helping keep their homes uncluttered. A 5’x10’ storage unit would hold the bags of golf clubs needed to play any of the 11 courses in the area, while fit young residents could keep their assortment of surfboards and camping gear in there.

For a standard 10’x10’ storage unit, the Plymouth storage sector charges an average of $179 per month, and there are also plenty of Plymouth, MA, storage units with climate control. Boston self storage would charge a significantly greater average of $211 per month, while Boston climate-controlled storage units generally cost slightly more.

Entertainment in Plymouth ranges from visiting museums to surfing the waves

Mayflower II Plymouth, Massachusetts

History buffs will certainly want to visit the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the US’s oldest museum that has been continually in operation, having opened in 1824. Plimoth Patuxet is a group of living history museums replicating the original 17th century Plymouth Colony settlement, and there is also the functioning Plimoth Grist Mill, complete with waterwheel.

With the sea being a huge part of Plymouth life, there is a full-size exact replica of the Mayflower, the ship the first European settlers arrived on. For more active fun, the best beaches around include Long Beach, Brown’s Bank and White Horse Beach, and the surfing in some nearby spots is surprisingly good, for example at Whitsand Bay to the southwest of town. Camping and hiking in Myles Standish State Forest are other great leisure options.

Five fun facts about Plymouth, MA, you might not know

1. State capital Boston is legendary for its Irish connections, but Plymouth actually supersedes it, with around a third of residents tracing their ancestry back to the Emerald Isle according to the US Census’s 2021 5-Year Estimates.
2. Plymouth Rock is traditional considered to mark the place where the Mayflower landed, but the first time we hear about it is in 1715 — the Pilgrims themselves never mentioned it!
3. Plymouth’s original Thanksgiving in 1621 lasted 3 days — they were probably happy to have survived their first winter! Only about a half of them did, while the indigenous people’ numbers had unfortunately also been declining severely due to disease.
4. Plymouth’s Thanksgiving was not in fact America’s first, as settlers from Europe had already held similar celebrations a couple of years earlier in Virginia.
5. Don’t come to Plymouth this year on the fourth Thursday of November expecting to see the annual Thanksgiving Parade as this already took place on Saturday November 18, 2023 — however, you are still in time for tree lighting on the first Friday in December, which brings the whole town together.

The Plymouth Rock marking where the Mayflower supposedly landed

Plymouth, Massachusetts, could be a great new home for anyone seeking a place with a leisurely ambiance plus all the benefits of a coastal location and an enduring historical significance. These factors ensure a vigorous tourism sector, and they attract other businesses as well. In spite of all this, costs in Plymouth are often less than in many places nearby. It’s no wonder Plymouth has been called “America’s Hometown.”