[princetontiger]

You should do it.

Princeton NJ is a beautiful part of the state, and close to the university.

Not sure where you will live, but Nassau Street has a quaint charm. There's plenty to do, and you are a 90 minute train ride to Manhattan.

Don't let the comments discourage you. People are just blowing off steam from the roe v wade ruling.

[shadytrees]

Princeton is indeed beautiful. The housing stock is a little mixed -- the apartments near the university are pretty old, and there wasn't much new construction happening when I attended the university in the late 2000s, but the homes (manors, really) nearby are nice (but expensive). You will absolutely need a car. There are buses, but the routes are sparse. It is indeed possible to do a day trip to NYC, as I did many times. You will end up in Penn Station, which is awful, and midtown, which is awful, but the subways will take you where you want to go.

I overall do not miss living in Princeton, though I know a fair number of people who stayed after graduation, or moved to Princeton after living in some big cities. It's monocultural, to borrow a term some other commenters have used. It is mostly people who work in or adjacent to the university; it is mostly affluent, white people; there is some art, centered around the theater or the museum scene, but it is the art of that one culture. However, take my subjective experience of the city with a grain of salt.

Moving is hard. Moving to a new country doubly so. Make sure you have a strategy for finding friends, likely through your wife's work, or perhaps through meetups. Americans are easy to make friends with. That is, at least, one thing we have going for us, still, in these troubled times.

Freelancing for software engineers is very common. I have many friends who do it. You do not even need to file for a corporation to do it. The taxes are not much worse than being a salaried, full-time employee: as with the W-4 form, it is copying numbers off a page someone mails you.

Ageism is a real thing in the tech industry here. It is not difficult to find a job, but you will likely work with younger people, probably people in their 20s. Some companies do a good job of integrating people across the age spectrum, but some -- the ones that expect late or odd hours, especially -- do not. That is changing though! The tech industry only gets older each year.

If you do move, find a place with central air conditioning. It gets hot and humid during the summers, and only more so now, a decade later, with climate change. Check out, also, the McCarter Theater, which is beautiful. David Sedaris, one of my favorite authors, often gives a talk there each year; and the students from the university put on a pretty good revue each year as well.