[justin230]

I was born in Florida, but I only like northwest Florida because it's still southern. Central and south Florida ain't southern anymore, and I call those parts of Florida, South New York and South New Jersey.

[chopchop0]

Originally Posted by justin230

I was born in Florida, but I only like northwest Florida because it's still southern. Central and south Florida ain't southern anymore, and I call those parts of Florida, South New York and South New Jersey.

central FL isn't like south FL (yet). Parts of Orlando maybe....

[bmw335xi]

Originally Posted by PDF

I'm a Florida native. But if I wasn't born there, then I definitely would have never lived in FL. I was just curious if there are any Florida natives who love it or felt that they would have been drawn to the state if they grew up elsewhere. Transplants outnumber natives to begin with.

It seems that most people who are attracted to tropical places are those who never had it growing up. On the other hand, I grew up in Florida...so I like the opposite: cold weather, urbanity, and lots of history.

Thoughts? The natives I've met in real life have yet to come back to FL, so it seems like you leave for good once you do leave.

I grew up in Alaska and Washington until I was 14 and always wanted to live in a tropical place. I'm 28 years old now and still love tropical places.

[New Horizons]

Tampa native here. In short, no. I would have moved to Los Angeles. But as a kid being raised in FL, I was totally content.

Originally Posted by PDF

I'm a Florida native. But if I wasn't born there, then I definitely would have never lived in FL. I was just curious if there are any Florida natives who love it or felt that they would have been drawn to the state if they grew up elsewhere. Transplants outnumber natives to begin with.

It seems that most people who are attracted to tropical places are those who never had it growing up. On the other hand, I grew up in Florida...so I like the opposite: cold weather, urbanity, and lots of history.

Thoughts? The natives I've met in real life have yet to come back to FL, so it seems like you leave for good once you do leave.

[PDF]

Originally Posted by New Horizons

Tampa native here. In short, no. I would have moved to Los Angeles. But as a kid being raised in FL, I was totally content.

Yup, as a kid it's definitely different. But I'm glad you were able to move out West like you wanted to, I know you said you love it out there.

[theurbanfiles]

I think growing up in Ohio, Florida (and it's Disney and Beaches), were seen by many as "the promised land". I think that's why ultimately my parents chose to move down here (and I sort of did by default, at 18). I went through several stages with it. At first, just naturally being in a new place, for the first year, I really enjoyed everything that was new about being somewhere, well, new. But, when things started to turn were the day I moved down here. Because, on that day, I also took up distance running/endurance sports. Since then, I have had an even more radical shift in my temperature preferences, and I got absolutely sick of the fact that all there was down here was Disney and Beaches* (At the time I thought that way. I realize now there is much more than that). My low point came about 3 years ago. I was so ready to be out, and we summered in Ohio, and at the time we left, I was literally depressed about leaving Cleveland to come back to Florida. No variety, no nothing. When I got down here that fall though, I resolved that if I was here, I at least needed to make the best of it. So I did a lot of research on things to do in the area, and found that you can really find most of what you want, and good almost anywhere. Florida still isn't my ideal, and honestly I don't think it will ever be. I was just up in the Western NC Mountains and ATL for the past week and it was 50s-60s the whole week, and I can say with 100% confidence that I preferred that (and the natural and cultural offerings) there over FL, even though, being late March, it hasn't fully warmed up yet in FL, I still find the climate in NC right now preferable to FL. Now, I've come to realize over the past few years still that there are many wonderful people and things Florida has to offer, but it simply isn't my ideal, and my hope is that I won't still be living here in 5 years. That being said, if I was, I wouldn't feel miserable about it either. Part of that is just my mindset in general. Even if I really loved everything about Florida, I still don't think I would want to live in the same exact place for long term (unless it was somewhere like Midwest or NE where that was part of the culture). Who knows though, the grass is always greener on the other side until you're there though, so perhaps upon moving to a place like Ohio or Oregon or Western NC again, I'd find that there were more things about FL that I missed/preferred. But right now, that's a chance I'm willing to take.