Learn me: why Florida?

In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) :

I'm in Suwannee County.  I've lived in Ohio,  Tennessee,  and Texas as my comparison.  As an example in Texas a bought a couple guitar projects, one for $25 and one for $75 from pawn shops.  So I've hit several pawn shops around here and inquired about a very rough looking squier. They wanted $10 less than you could get one for new from guitar center. It was in worse shape than the one I paid $25 for.  Similar experiences when shopping for bicycles and trailers.  People want just a few bucks less than the new price. 

I know I'm a little late to the party, but here's my two cents:

I wasn't born in Florida, but I lived most of my life here. The short version is my dad got a job in Southwest Florida, so that's where I was raised. Went to college in St. Augustine and then moved in with my then-girlfriend (now wife) who lives in Central Florida.

Yeah, there's no snow and the winters are really quite pleasant, but I'm getting pretty tired of only getting a handful of weeks of nice weather and then blazing heat the rest of the year. I'd like to experience some seasonal changes every now and again.

And yeah, just about every place has some sort of natural disaster, but I think I'd like a break from hurricanes.

Really, I think most of my perspective is from someone who didn't choose to live in Florida. So take this with a grain of salt.

75 years old.  Born in Miami, went through high school down there.  Moved to Tallahassee area in 1967 to attend FSU.  Stayed in this area because of the rural nature with so much less concrete, more rolling hills, seasons, and trees.

Florida today is so much different than my childhood.  It changed from a tropical paradise to a concrete jungle.  We grew up without A/C; didn't have it until 3 years into college.   None of the elementary, or high schools had A/C.  But there was far less concrete, buildings, pavement, sidewalks, highways et al to hold heat, and a lot more vegetation.  Old conch houses were built to have open windows to allow sea breezes to flow through.

Orlando had about 150,000 residents, not 2 million.  North Port was wilderness.  Port Charlotte had 150 homes.  The only way on Boca Grande was by rail.  You could only get to Sanibel Island by boat.  St. George Island had less than 10 houses.  Cape San Blas had only one house.  The hotels on Miami Beach basically closed after Easter and opened again around Halloween.  There were miles of undeveloped beach up at Vero. The villages was a massive cattle range.

We made fun of "snowbirds", now I realize they were far smarter than we were.  I'm getting a wee bit tired of experiencing over 100 days each year with heat indexes over 100.

Mndsm said:

I do not like snow. 

Fair enough, but I can tolerate cold and snow muuuuuuch more easily than I can tolerate heat and humidity.

I've visited Florida a handful of times.  I don't mind a visit at the right time of year, but I don't think I could live there.  As nice as it might be in the winter, the summer is unbearable.

I only lived in FL for about a year, and it was in Ruskin which is somewhat isolated and full of old people, but I will offer this:

Having grown up in PA and having lived in a lot of different states, they all have their quirks.  I remember when I moved to L.A., my mother prayed for me every day because she was totally convinced I was going to die in an earthquake.  When I got to L.A., there were more than a few people who asked me how I could possibly live in a place where you get freezing temps and "all those blizzards."  There were folks who actually thought that people just keeled over dead if the temperature got that low.  In the 7 years I was in L.A., there was one earthquake.  It was something like a 2.1R, and I didn't feel it.  My pendant lights swung about 1/2" which is the only reason I suspected anything.

When I lived in New Orleans, everyone was afraid that a surprise hurricane would instantly form over my head and kill me with a flying car.  I was there in 2017 during Hurricane Nate.  My friend lost a shingle on his roof, and two people died because they decided to go swimming in the gulf during the storm and drowned.  I'm not downplaying Hurricanes at all, but many of them are of limiting damage.  We see weekly news reports showing a house in a tree in FL, or an upside-down car on a flooded street in NC, but in reality, the chances of a hurricane directly affecting one individual are pretty slim.  It's like seeing Tesla fires in the news.  You see a new story every few months and think "OMG" without realizing that in the same few months there have been 16,000 ICE car fires that no one cares about. Edit to add: My friend down there has lived in the same house for 30 years, and even Katrina didn't wipe it out.  His roof lifted a bit and had to be repaired.  Downtown was obviously a complete mess with a lot of death and destruction, but most of that was from the horrific flooding and the crippling fallout from the chaos of many people not having a place to evacuate, or lacked the financial means to evacuate.  These are often the perspectives that the news doesn't report.  They show pictures of horrific devastation and report on the thousands of people who died in gruesome ways, but they don't report that 2 miles away, a person living in stability and 6-feet higher elevation only complained about the power going out during the game.

When I lived in Montana, everyone was afraid that I was going to be eaten by a Grizzly

When I lived in Ontario, everyone was convinced I would either freeze to death or become a pothead

When I lived in Florida, everyone was certain I would be eaten by an alligator

I find Floridians to be remarkably wonderful people who are resilient and generous.  I'll say this...  The majority of Floridians are of a political side with which I don't identify.  Portland should be more my jam, but I just want to punch so many Portlanders in the throat.  I would rather have a beer with a typical Floridian than have a triple soy half-caf latte with a typical Portlandian.

Duke said:

Mndsm said:

I do not like snow. 

Fair enough, but I can tolerate cold and snow muuuuuuch more easily than I can tolerate heat and humidity.

I've visited Florida a handful of times.  I don't mind a visit at the right time of year, but I don't think I could live there.  As nice as it might be in the winter, the summer is unbearable.

 

everyone had their nopes. I don't have to shovel excessive sun to get to my car. I don't blame you for hating the heat though. It is brutal. 

In reply to Mndsm :

That's for sure. I really can't handle the heat, my HR goes up by at least 10 when running in heat, and I can not really stand long without sweating. And heat is high 80s to me. I have had skin cancer, so doing sun things with short sleeves is really tough. Plus, we camp a lot, and really hate having to use AC to sleep, since it's so loud. 
 

OTOH, we are camping now, the high is 48 today, and it's really windy. Not ideal, but far easier to deal with than anything north of 85F. 
 

I used to think I hated snow. But, to me, the compromise to not have it is worse. 
 

And that is why we are all so spread out from the tropics to the desert to the mountains to the cold north. We are just all so different. 

In reply to Duke :

The same with me. I wear short sleeve shirts most of the year, in the mornings I may throw on a sweatshirt at the worst of winter. The Florida heat is a definite problem for me. 

In reply to Mndsm :

Maybe not snow, but you do have to shovel the humidity out of your driveway to get to your car.

Just busting your chops, though. Liking different climates is why humanity has pretty much spread all over the world.

In reply to Duke :

I've lived in humid areas my whole life.  I'm so used to it that I get nose bleeds from dry air in other places.

Florida is not for me year round. At least not with kids. 

but met a dude the other day who did enterprise sales. Would spend the winters in Melbourne and summers in Minneapolis.  That sounds about like a good way to go 

In reply to Stampie :

You can take Stampie out of Florida but can't take the Florida out of Stampie.

Thanks everybody!

This San Francisco Bay Area native and life long resident has had his eyes opened.

Humans have the ability to normalize anything. No matter how weird or bad it might be. Its kinda why we are at the top of the food chain; we adapt.

I have lived in several countries and cities. I like to start by hating everything about any place I move to and then settle in from there. Takes about 18 months to transition. From there on in, its "just a place to be". I suspect this would be normal for most people.

Never lived in Fl, but I have parents and two brothers who have been there for 30 years, so I am familiar with the place. I don't WANT to live in Fl, cause on the face of it, a lot of stuff looks pretty berkeleyed up, but I know from my past experience that I certainly COULD live there and normalize the place as "just  the way things are and a place to be".

I've written this post twice, I've deleted this post twice. They just turned into long rants.

I lived in Florida for 16 years.

I would never go back.

As it has been said, Florida is a big state that can be divided into many areas. I lived in Fort Lauderdale, and I have family members in North, Central, and Southwest Florida. I have vacationed several times all over the state, and it’s hard to beat the weather when you visit between December and March. More recently, I’ve considered moving back, especially after vacationing there twice with my family in the past year.

Of course, there are some negatives that have already been mentioned: hurricane season occurs every year, there are some scary species of animals and insects, and the infamous Florida Man and Woman. Additionally, you have to deal with a constant flow of vacationers/transients and the state that is being over developed. My current challenge point is my kids are grade school aged and overall the education system is very poor. The Housing is different in Florida because it's over developed and relatively new houses, with no basements.  I would choose a gated condo (on the second floor) over a house because of the floods and maintenance of a house and the amenities that come with a gated community, however the HOA is not cheap, but as it has been said the relatively low taxes might even out. In a ideal world I would like to live up north in a cottage in the summer/Hurricane and live down in Florida the rest of the time, but financially and having kids in grade school not a plausible.

However, Florida truly feels like the fountain of youth. The amount of time you can spend golfing, outside in the sun and enjoying the beach is virtually infinite, thanks to the pleasant weather—as long as you can handle the heat. I’m from Ohio and Pennsylvania, and while the summer heat can be similar, the key difference is that in Ohio and Pennsylvania, you might experience a week of 90s, whereas in Florida, it can be 90s consecutively for a month or three. Personally, I always did outdoor activities in the morning to avoid the heat. Of course if you like pools which I do you can spend a lot of time in them.

In reply to trigun7469 :

You're right the public schools are near the bottom in the nation and teacher pay is near the bottom as well. I couldn't move there with a working spouse. She'd take a massive hit in pay, like 50%.   No ammount of low taxes can make up for that. 

A lot of people, no matter where they live, seem to have the "I can't believe someone would have weather preferences that differ from my own." To me, that sums up this thread and the reason people want to live in Florida.  Different strokes for different folks.  You like snow? Good for you. You want sunshine and are willing to trade off the heat/humidity? You do you.  Personally, I can't handle having 4 months where the sun rarely makes an appearance and cold that traps you inside for those same 3-4 months coupled with getting dark before 5pm.  I will take the heat and humidity as a trade off to what I classify better weather.  I have friends here in PA that almost melt when they sprint from their car to their house when it's above 72-degrees. 

What has kept me put is a few things.  1. Insurance costs in FL are out of control.  I plan to wait another 2-3 years before I made a final decision to relocate back south to see what is going to happen with the home insurance crisis.  2. Public schools like trigun mentioned.  I want to let my kids get as much top quality PA schools as I can before we relocate.  I pay around $9k a year in property taxes but honesty, it's worth it.  We do have an area in FL that has good schools by Florida standards that we would move into.  3. I have a super low mortgage rate that will be hard to give up.  With that comes a ton of equity in my house, but still. Home prices have gotten absurd in Florida but my equity here offsets that. 

There is a lot of motorsports activity in Florida.  There are events to participate in or spectate literally every weekend.  I've lived here my whole life but I've traveled all over the country.  Every area has something cool to offer, but I keep coming back to Florida happy to be "home".   The recent population explosion does have me eyeing areas in N GA and TN, however.

In reply to P3PPY :

THat is why we are trying to get to FLorida in hte next 3 years. Been a life long hoosier with family and friends in different parts. Been going there since I was 3, many times more than once a year. I love the atmosphere, the sunshine, the lack of winter and consistency of temperature. You dont usually get a 50* day and rain followed by 85 and sweltering heat, then 40mph winds and 60 the next day there. 

I didn't get a choice on growing up here in Central Florida but I do like it. Sure like everywhere it has its pros and cons but overall, so far, the pros have outweighed the cons. A big reason for staying here is family, almost all my family lives down here except for some on my moms side that live in New York. Another reason is I can do outdoor stuff almost 365 days of the year, sure it gets hot in the summer and the beach gets a little chilly for a few months but I can ride my bike almost any day of the year. Also my wife and I really like the theme parks and having them an hour away makes it super easy to have an annual pass to one and visit as much as we like. A big plus is living 15 mins away from Daytona International Speedway, a few hours from Sebring and 2 hours to the FIRM, our official test track, making going to and participating in motorsports year round very easy.