The town of Davis began as "Davisville," a small stop on the Southern Pacific railway between Sacramento and the Bay Area. Some of our graduate students choose to live in Sacramento or the Bay Area, making use of the commute-by-train option, which is still very much in place. For those commuting by car, Davis is a 15-25 minute drive from Sacramento and a 60-90 minute drive from the Bay Area.
Students also choose to live in Davis itself, which CNN once ranked the second most educated city in the US. Davis is a college town of about 75,000 people. Orchards, farms and ranches border it on all sides. The town boasts a legendary twice-weekly farmers market (complete with delicious food trucks and live music). Bike and walking paths lead everywhere (many students prefer not to own a car while they are here) and there are copious amounts of planned green space in every subdivision. The flatness of the land makes Davis ideal for biking, and the city over the past 5 decades has installed bike lanes and bike racks all over town. In fact, in 2006, Bicycling Magazine, in its compilation of "America's Best Biking Cities," named Davis the best small town for cycling. Packed with coffee houses, bookstores, and restaurants that serve cuisine from every continent, Downtown Davis has a casual vibe. It’s a great place to hole up and write. Davis is filled with hard wood trees, and flower and vegetable gardens, and wild ducks and turkeys walk the campus as if they own the place. It’s a gentle place to live. Although summers get quite hot, the other three seasons are mild, and each, in their own way, quite beautiful. For more about the town, check out the Davis Wikipedia page.
Woodland and Winters, two small towns close by to Davis, are also options for housing—and they’re good options for those who are not so desirous of the college town scene. Yet another option is to live in the scenic rural areas Davis is surrounded by.
To the west of Davis, Lake Berryessa and the Napa valley are close by. To the east, the Sierra mountains are close by; Reno and Tahoe are just a couple hours drive in that direction.