Harrisonburg, VA?

This thread has all the info you need. The running is good 20 minutes out. Its easy to make some good rolling runs in town, but it will be all pavement. The social scene has gotten a lot better since i left for non college students, but its still pretty rough. I would say the rent is pretty cheap. I paid under 600 for a really big one bedroom and paid mid 300s for a room in a two story townhouse. Not sure on the stauton rent.

Anybody up for doing a Lama run?

Love the Llama run.

I'd say student housing prices are not comparable to prices to buy a house, totally separate markets. While not outrageous by any means our housing prices are certainly not dirt cheap either. You can get a little more for your money in Staunton.

Does anyone have any directions to the trails in the area? Any good forest roads?

One really sweet one, though a bit of a drive (30 mins or so):

Get on 33 west until you get to West Virginia, then park at the scenic overlook on the left. Run west on the road and you'll soon see a trail on the right, this goes into the woods for 16 miles (actually loops back into Virginia) It's probably been mentioned on this thread, but it's old so whatever.

What about on the VA side...more specifically, any good dirt or gravel roads in the Harrisonburg area?

There are quite a few options but the majority of them take a little driving to get to. The 16 mile loop Brad mentioned is Forest Service road 85. Starts a 1/4 mile from the WV/Va border and brings you out about 1/2 a mile or so from where you started. Not far from here is another forest service road/jeep trail that starts at Switzer Dam (112 acre reservoir). Take 33 West, proceed up the mountain and look for a gravel road on left. You can get in a lot of miles on this trail if you are into out and backs. This trail goes for ~ 12 miles and then connects to another dirt road/trail at the top.

The Reddish knob area is another good place for forest service roads and jeep trails. About 2.25 miles from the top of Reddish knob there is a jeep trail that starts on the right (can't miss it, there is a really sharp turn in the road at this point) and this trail goes for ~ 16 miles and brings you out in Union Springs. Before you start going up the mountain to Reddish knob there is a gravel road on the left called Tillghman road. This is a 7 mile relatively flat gravel road that will take you to the Wild Oak trail/Gorge/Todd Lake recreation area. Past Todd Lake there are more gravel roads that are pretty nice.

All of these places I have mentioned so far are West and Southwest from Harrisonburg. As mentioned before there are a lot of other good places East of Harrisonburg in the SNP area.

If you haven't already I would purchase the Staunton/Shenandoah Mtn. and the Shenandoah National Park topo maps that National Geographic puts out. These are great tools for finding trails.

Harrisonburg is not very nice. A pretty big town, not very aesthetically pleasing, little culture, not much good running very close by. The Staunton idea might be better.

hated running there. too hot, too much concrete. driving 20 mins to the trails is ok once in awhile, but if you're working that's not something you're going to want to do every day.