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If I choose Florida I will look in the areas of Central Florida on up to the north near Jacksonville. I'm hoping the humidity in that part of Florida isn't so bad. The humidity in NY during the summer can be oppressive at times but I can live with it. I know that Florida has it for alot longer during the year.
Are most of the problems you mention about car insurance, bad traffic and rednecks mostly in the southern part of Florida? Is the weather and way of life better towards the northern part of Florida?
Even though I work from home and won't be traveling much will my car insurance still be high?
Re Jacksonville, I agree with one of the posters (on one of these two threads) about Atlantic Beach being a good choice.
I think if you looked back deep into the Tampa Bay Area threads, you wouldn't find any residents with the, IMO, extreme perspective of Seain Dublin. We have lovebugs and locusts aplenty in Houston, and the thought of painting a vision of similarity between the two is, IMO, absurd. Yes you want to get lovebugs off your car, but they are harmless to humans. If they happen to brush up against a human....it tickles. Uncomfortable humidity 8 months a year.. perhaps if someone is super sensitive to humidity....but not for the average person. In one post Seain Dublin draws a picture of 86 degrees at 11pm. I tried to find a search engine hit that would would break down average temp over a month for each hour of the day...but I couldn't find anything. I don't know which hour of the day = the coolest during the summer, but the average low for a month (each day's low added together and then divided by the number of days in the month) is 75 or under for every month of the year in Dunedin. Seain Dublin writes about Hwy 19. I almost never use Hwy 19...pretty much just to go to Countryside Mall or to Barnes and Noble. ALT 19 (U.S. Route 19 Alternate) connects Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, and Tarpon Springs (among others) very close to St. Joseph Sound, and is a much nicer and normal drive. At least two of the hospitals I mentioned in the previous post are very close to ALT 19.
While checking out different areas in different parts of Florida, when you find an area you like, do an internet search for 'compare cities moving.com'. One of the first hits will be for the compare cities page on moving.com. Once you pull that page up, you can plug in two zip codes (say compare one you are looking at to your current zip in New York) and you will bring up many of the relevant stats for those zip codes, including the crime index (for the crime index, weather index, etc....100 is the national average, and lower is better). A company called Onboard Informatics provides the information to moving.com.
I almost never use Hwy 19...pretty much just to go to Countryside Mall or to Barnes and Noble. ALT 19 (U.S. Route 19 Alternate) connects Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, and Tarpon Springs (among others) very close to St. Joseph Sound, and is a much nicer and normal drive. At least two of the hospitals I mentioned in the previous post are very close to ALT 19.
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I was just in Tampa and spent a lot of time on 19. Other than in Clearwater at rush hour, the traffic was flowing fine though it was pretty heavy all day. I have always been surprised when driving in FL how well the traffic moves. Yes if at a red light, you have a long wait, but once moving you rarely hit a red light again. In CA it is kinda a requirement to hit every red light. OK, maybe not every one, just 9 out of10. Then the streets in so much of the area, not Frwys, but main roads, are 3, and 4 lanes each way and with a smaller population than CA, it makes for very good flow. Now mind you, it is still far heavier than I like but much better than say LA or OC. Even the 275 to the 4 at rush hour was not bad and nothing like the 110 or 405 or the 5 in SoCal.
Re Jacksonville, I agree with one of the posters (on one of these two threads) about Atlantic Beach being a good choice.
I think if you looked back deep into the Tampa Bay Area threads, you wouldn't find any residents with the, IMO, extreme perspective of Seain Dublin. We have lovebugs and locusts aplenty in Houston, and the thought of painting a vision of similarity between the two is, IMO, absurd. Yes you want to get lovebugs off your car, but they are harmless to humans. If they happen to brush up against a human....it tickles. Uncomfortable humidity 8 months a year.. perhaps if someone is super sensitive to humidity....but not for the average person. In one post Seain Dublin draws a picture of 86 degrees at 11pm. I tried to find a search engine hit that would would break down average temp over a month for each hour of the day...but I couldn't find anything. I don't know which hour of the day = the coolest during the summer, but the average low for a month (each day's low added together and then divided by the number of days in the month) is 75 or under for every month of the year in Dunedin. Seain Dublin writes about Hwy 19. I almost never use Hwy 19...pretty much just to go to Countryside Mall or to Barnes and Noble. ALT 19 (U.S. Route 19 Alternate) connects Clearwater, Dunedin, Palm Harbor, and Tarpon Springs (among others) very close to St. Joseph Sound, and is a much nicer and normal drive. At least two of the hospitals I mentioned in the previous post are very close to ALT 19.
While checking out different areas in different parts of Florida, when you find an area you like, do an internet search for 'compare cities moving.com'. One of the first hits will be for the compare cities page on moving.com. Once you pull that page up, you can plug in two zip codes (say compare one you are looking at to your current zip in New York) and you will bring up many of the relevant stats for those zip codes, including the crime index (for the crime index, weather index, etc....100 is the national average, and lower is better). A company called Onboard Informatics provides the information to moving.com.
Actually you're quite wrong. Plenty of people hate the many, many months of humidity.
FL's big claim to fame(at least in Tampa) that it never got over a 100 degrees, well with the heat index factoring in the humidity it does. They try to downplay that.
As far as NY humidity(I am originally from NY), yes it does get quite humid in the summer, but you see it ends, in FL it goes and on and on and it's worse. Summer starts in March and goes till Dec, that's the difference, I could deal with humidity and heat if I know come Sept it is coming to an end.
In fact in NY you might get a heat wave with over 90 temps for a week, and it breaks, in FL the heatwave is 8 months long.
That's not the case in FL. And yes in the summer, it will stay well into the 80s at night. It doesn't cool down when the sun sets like CA does.
US 19 is one of the most dangerous highways in America. For those not familiar with it is like a freeway but with traffic lights. You also have endless strip malls on both sides so you have cars pulling out right onto a highway with traffic doing 60 MPH. One day I saw not one but two accidents with fatalities. Unlike other states FL doesn't seem to believe in service roads where people can pull out, gain speed and than enter the highway.
They have bumperstickers "Pray for me I drive 19".
You mention hospitals? Be very careful in FL, not the best state for medical care.
Sounds like you're from Houston, someone coming from Houston, TX is used to horrific humidity for several months. The humidity in FL is worse than NY, and it goes for months and months.
Actually you're quite wrong. Plenty of people hate the many, many months of humidity.
FL's big claim to fame(at least in Tampa) that it never got over a 100 degrees, well with the heat index factoring in the humidity it does. They try to downplay that.
As far as NY humidity(I am originally from NY), yes it does get quite humid in the summer, but you see it ends, in FL it goes and on and on and it's worse. Summer starts in March and goes till Dec, that's the difference, I could deal with humidity and heat if I know come Sept it is coming to an end.
In fact in NY you might get a heat wave with over 90 temps for a week, and it breaks, in FL the heatwave is 8 months long.
That's not the case in FL. And yes in the summer, it will stay well into the 80s at night. It doesn't cool down when the sun sets like CA does.
US 19 is one of the most dangerous highways in America. For those not familiar with it is like a freeway but with traffic lights. You also have endless strip malls on both sides so you have cars pulling out right onto a highway with traffic doing 60 MPH. One day I saw not one but two accidents with fatalities. Unlike other states FL doesn't seem to believe in service roads where people can pull out, gain speed and than enter the highway.
They have bumperstickers "Pray for me I drive 19".
You mention hospitals? Be very careful in FL, not the best state for medical care.
Sounds like you're from Houston, someone coming from Houston, TX is used to horrific humidity for several months. The humidity in FL is worse than NY, and it goes for months and months.
CA medical care was pretty bad for me. FL was not the best either though.
I lived in Florida from 2003-2008. Quite honestly I wouldn't do it again. After our first year we were in 4 major hurricanes in 2004-2005. It was pretty bad, and we were out of power for a month total because two of the hurricanes were pretty much back to back. It never seems to stop raining and the humidity is killer. Some of the beaches are nice, and has some pretty areas, but I did it once and would never again. My mom currently lives there and she plans on moving out to California with us because she's just ready for change and tired of the bad humidity.
I've been contemplating either moving to Florida or California. I know the weather between the two are different and the summers can be unbearable in the summers in Florida. California has great weather for the most part, however, California is so darn expensive.
I checked and since Florida has no income tax I would bring home a little over $600 per month more in my paycheck and the cost of living is cheaper.
California i would lose $600 monthly and taxes are higher but the weather is gorgeous and I have family out there so I'm back and forth with my decision.
In Florida I could afford to live either on or very close to the beach. California would be impossible financially.
What would your choices be and for what reasons?
Thank you
Theresa
the humidity is ridiculous in florida, also its not exactly that much cheaper, unless you're living in the ghetto and even thats not REALLY cheap and then have to spend almost 365 with your windows closed cause either your AC has to run constantly or if you're lucky enough to have a place with a standalone humidifier as well, but both are running 24/7
and forget thinking once the sun goes down it gets better, any "low" temp you see on a weather channel is B.S., it'll finally dip down 5 degrees right around 5am before shooting back up, and waking up in a bed of sweat
and this is coming from someone who grew up in jersey which is about halfway between as humid as Cali is and how it is here in florida
not even LA is as bad in the summer as a JANUARY is here
I've been reading this thread with much interest because even though I'm a Southern California resident, I did live in Orlando, Florida for few years as a kid (this was before Disneyworld and other area attractions came into existence, to give an idea of how long ago this was).
I have to agree with what many have mentioned about the oppressive heat, humidity and bugs. My family and I lived in a small 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house and we had 2 A/C units, one at each end of the length of the house. We had to have the A/C units running 24/7 most of the year in order to be comfortable. When the A/C wasn't on and it was hot outside, it was downright hellish inside.
The bugs were really bad. I could remember having those "No Pest Strips" hanging inside our screened-in patio. I could remember the mosquitoes always being on the attack if we were outside. Someone mentioned the palmetto bugs AKA flying cockroaches. I've heard it said that if a palmetto bug comes inside the house, then it's a cockroach.
My parents didn't particularly care for living in Florida and couldn't wait to move back here to California.
Now two of my uncles (my dad's brothers) live in Florida near Tampa. They've lived there for almost 10 years after living here for a long time, and they've grown to enjoy life in Florida.
To sum it up, I wouldn't mind going there to visit but I would not want to live there again.
Actually you're quite wrong. Plenty of people hate the many, many months of humidity.
FL's big claim to fame(at least in Tampa) that it never got over a 100 degrees, well with the heat index factoring in the humidity it does. They try to downplay that.
As far as NY humidity(I am originally from NY), yes it does get quite humid in the summer, but you see it ends, in FL it goes and on and on and it's worse. Summer starts in March and goes till Dec, that's the difference, I could deal with humidity and heat if I know come Sept it is coming to an end.
In fact in NY you might get a heat wave with over 90 temps for a week, and it breaks, in FL the heatwave is 8 months long.
That's not the case in FL. And yes in the summer, it will stay well into the 80s at night. It doesn't cool down when the sun sets like CA does.
US 19 is one of the most dangerous highways in America. For those not familiar with it is like a freeway but with traffic lights. You also have endless strip malls on both sides so you have cars pulling out right onto a highway with traffic doing 60 MPH. One day I saw not one but two accidents with fatalities. Unlike other states FL doesn't seem to believe in service roads where people can pull out, gain speed and than enter the highway.
They have bumperstickers "Pray for me I drive 19".
You mention hospitals? Be very careful in FL, not the best state for medical care.
Sounds like you're from Houston, someone coming from Houston, TX is used to horrific humidity for several months. The humidity in FL is worse than NY, and it goes for months and months.
It's obvious you never lived close to the Atlantic Ocean! Oh, and health care, have you ever heard of a a little health network called Mayo Clinic?!
Another observation is that folks who are overweight and out of shape really suffer from the effects of humidity than those are in shape and are height/weight proportionate. The US Army learned this years ago. Read "fat people sweat more".
I want to live in a very nice area close to a beach with nice shopping centers/stores. Not run down mini malls with scummy laundromats.
I think that leaves you with Florida, then. Especially if you have 2 dogs and need at least a 2BR. I just don't think you'll be able to buy or rent a place near the beach in CA on 81K. Outside South FL, you'll be upper middle class on 81K a year.
You know, you might want to check out the North Carolina/South Carolina coastal area rather than Florida. The Atlantic has a better climate than the Gulf and the Carolinas are far enough north of Florida to be cooler. I stayed in St. Augustine, Fl which is on the Atlantic side in late June and the Atlantic breezes made it quite tolerable...nice even.
St. Augustine is nice and has relatively cool summers by FL standards. Winters are on the cool side, but typically at least a few degrees warmer than Jacksonville, an hour's drive to the north.
The problem with it is it's being "discovered" and there is more and more development and traffic to go along with it....but no mass transit or other infrastructure to support the growth.
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My family and I lived in a small 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house and we had 2 A/C units, one at each end of the length of the house. We had to have the A/C units running 24/7 most of the year in order to be comfortable. When the A/C wasn't on and it was hot outside, it was downright hellish inside.
