hey TJ! I'm living just west of Evans, technically Grovetown just northwest of Augusta. We moved down here about 6 years ago. I'll be totally honest - don't know a thing about Waynesboro. I've lived in Atlanta, Greenville (very briefly), and Durham previously.
Since it sounds like you've got a gig more or less lined up, I'll try to give you the area basics I guess. When people say "Augusta" they generally mean the towns of Evans, Martinez and Grovetown, as well as the city of North Augusta in SC which all orbit or border the main city. you'll see people mention the "CSRA" all the time as another name for this sprawl which stands for Central Savannah River Area. Evans is in Columbia county which is more suburbs, strip malls, and shopping whereas Augusta itself is in Richmond county, butted up against Fort Gordon. Richmond county has some highly concentrated wealth in the summerville neighborhood west of downtown area, and some cool shops on Broad St, but otherwise its more low rent and sketchy in places, particuarly the south/southeast corner. Its a real old city and feels that way...lots of decay in some places but a lot of revitalization in others, particuarly near the river. It gets a bad rap sometimes ("Disgusta" gets thrown around) and it can be deserved but there's been quite a bit of economic boom the last couple years and its helping. Downtown is small - there honestly isn't much once you get off of Broad Street. If you're looking for a bigger downtown area to play in after work or on weekends you'll be dissapointed.
Traffic sucks, and drivers here are sincerely some of the worst I've ever seen, I've literally tried to theorize how its possible but come up blank. I lived inside the perimeter in Atlanta for 5 years and there's times the I-20 corridor and any North/South route on the west side of town are backed up worse. That's what happens when you have 5x more people here than the town was built to handle even just 20 years ago (and the construction to widen the roads is making it worse right now). The weather is stifling, unbearably hot from May to October...and I mean it, we hit 100 degrees during the first week of October last year. But gorgeous from March to May, and of course the winters are a joke.
It seems like everyone i meet generally falls into 4 groups:
- family's been here for a billion years and i'm never moving and mom/dad/sister/brother all live 2 streets over.
- military transplant
- medical jobs
- education jobs (what brought us here)
For that reason we've got plenty of long-term locals that like to show off how "Country" they are but once you're in the towns its people of all kinds that get transplanted here. Like most of GA though, it tends to be a conservative political makeup. Overall I've found people to be very friendly here and truly from all over.
Not much car stuff to do, to be honest...closest track is probably Roebling or Road Atlanta. I've done some events with Atlanta region SCCA but you could also play with Buccanneer region SCCA. The car scene is mostly classics, drag racers and truck guys. You've gotta drive way north to have any fun roads to hit on the weekends, everything here is flat and open. The few clubs/groups in town tend to head over to Atlanta or Columbia on weekends for bigger events. I have a few car buddies in the neighborhood that I wrench with but otherwise I don't really have any other car guys I hang out with.
Lots of outdoors stuff though - kayaking/fishing on the savannah or Clarks Hill Lake, a lot of bike paths including mountain biking in the FATS trail system just over in SC, and a pretty vast new greenway system they're expanding in Grovetown. There's also a BMX track and skate park up in Evans. Greenjackets minor league baseball. We get some decent music festivals both downtown and up in Evans at their outdoor auditorium. Food-wise, you've got a few good gems all over the city- Fat Man's, Antonio's Italian, Southbound Smokehouse, Hawaiian Style BBQ, Sconyers, Dennis's BBQ, Guiseppes, Farmhaus, Groucho's, and Beamie's to name a few. If you're into sports there's some solid rec leagues up in Columbia county that play at Patriot's Park.
Overall, I like it alright. I hate the heat and the boring landscape but otherwise we have everything we need and typically go into Evans for a dinner or music event from time to time. Housing is still reasonable and there's more jobs and stores opening up all the time.
I think if you're driving back and forth a lot I would try to stick closer to Waynesboro though. 25 can get pretty hairy with traffic and its not really a nice drive through that area anyway.
