[Skadess1]

Originally Posted by Ken E

Good luck with your move. I'm sure you wont regret it.

Thanks

[rogercobb]

Originally Posted by Shagbark Hickory

Skadess, ( and anyone else thinking of moving out of florida)

This is going to be a long one...

You remind me of a younger me. I too moved all around florida. I grew up down there and lived there for about 20 years. I lived mostly in miami and ft.lauderdale but I also lived in jacksonville, west palm, tampa and orlando. And like you, I was not happy there.
About 10 years ago I moved to the Atlanta Georgia area. This is a place a lot of Floridians end up moving to and it's a much different world. Although 3 or 4 years into it, I started to get that unhappy, something's missing feeling and began literally touring the east coast looking for a new place to live, including new england.

I made a list of all the reasons I was unhappy here which proved to be a valuable exercise. It didn't stop me from making a mistake but it helped me to learn from it. More on that a little later.

I looked at new england, much the same as you are, perhaps even more carefully as I own a business and it was complicated to move a business.
And after I did, I totally chickened out.

New England is a vastly different lifestyle and culture. Right now you're hot and sweaty and so naturally you're thinking of moving to a place with a cold climate but think about this for a second... This is coming from someone who had to get acclimated to winters, albeit much milder ones than in VT, you are going to go from a place where people practically live outdoors to a place where 9 months of the year are spent indoors. Think about that for a second. Just let it sink in.

Set your thermostat to 65 degrees and let your place cool down and try to envision spending almost the entire year at that temperature INDOORS because that as warm as you can get it or as warm as you can afford to keep it. TRy to get in the routine of hourly lube-downs with moisturizer to combat the dry skin and itchiness from having the heat on all the time.

Aside from that, have you ever seen sunshine in New England? Have you ever wondered if the sun even shines in new england?

New england summers are lovely. There is no debating that but I was there during mid July and it was 55 degrees out! I know people that live there will swear it gets hot and sunny but come on. Between one Florida native to another, they don't know what heat is up there.

You're going from a place with endless diversity to a place that's.... let's just be frank... there's no diversity.

You're going from a place that's a slow paced way of life to an even slower pace.

You're going from a place that is fairly expensive to live to a place that is enormously expensive by comparison. Has anyone mentioned what it costs to heat a home for 9 months of the year?!?

And I may have missed it but I didn't see what you do for a living. Finding work in VT is going to be a challenge in and of itself. That's why so many young people are moving away to places with more opportunities. Florida is a pretty depressed place but you know that's how a lot of people make money down there. Feeding off the poor people, taking advantage of real estate booms, slip & fall lawyers etc.

So look, I'm not trying to convince you to stay in florida or to not move to VT, but instead I'm trying to point out that in certain respects, you're going from one extreme to another (like with the weather and scenery thing) and with other respects you are totally missing the mark.

I mentioned that list I made of all the reasons I was unhappy living in atlanta. One of the things I wrote on there was I didn't like the rat race.
So guess what I did. I moved back to florida! I moved to an extremely laid back place called Port St. Lucie. If you thought I was miserable before, that didn't even come close to how miserable I was after I moved back to florida.

One thing you will never hear me complain about are native Floridians. They are the friendliest bunch of folks. I know you probably don't see that right now, but you will after you move. Florida is a friendly place but unfortunately for me, on my list of things that I was unhappy about I mistakenly wrote "Tired of the rat race" when in fact I was quite pleased with the race race. I loved the faster paced way of life here in Atlanta. What I didn't like however were the people here are not as friendly. 6 months later I had my house on the market and I was moving back to atlanta.

What I think is that you've got some soul searching to do to really find out what kind of place you can adapt to versus what kind of place you'd like to go on a vacation.
Because I determined that everytime I got that itching to move, it wasn't because I was inherently unhappy with where I lived but rather I just needed a friggin vacation.

Someone mentioned "finding your vermont somewhere else". This makes perfect sense because a lot of what Vermont has to offer can be found in other places as well. You don't have to go from one extreme to the other to become happier with where you live.

Let's tackle the weather thing. I live 11-12 hours away from miami by car and yet I have not had to turn on the air conditioning hardly at all this year. Only sporadically, really. We have 4 real seasons here but our winters are mild enough so that a Florida native like myself can adapt to them. The coldest low temperature I've ever seen it get here was 9 degrees and that was this past winter. I can't imagine how cold it was in vermont on that day! Most of the time during the winter here it is very sunny. We get the cold fronts like in florida only they bring actual cold air but they're sunny so it's ok to be outside in it and it warms up the house. Our summers are hot and dry but the nights are cool and for the most part the humidity is tolerable. It's nothing like florida. More like socal, if anything. I would miss not having hot summers though. I don't think I would enjoy living in a place where you can only wear shorts for a very brief period of time.

You know another thing I would really miss, would be getting on the interstate and driving 80mph. You won't be able to do that for much of the year in VT. Too snowy or icy or wet.
I would also find it difficult living in a place where I couldn't walk my dogs every day or play with them outside.

Has anyone talked about "mud season" yet?! LOL.

I know someone mentioned "the smell of spring and the crisp air of fall". You can experience that at least as far south as Atlanta. You don't have to move to the north pole for that. Again, one extreme to another.

There are any number of places where the weather is more tolerable. The best part of all is you'll be leaving the hurricanes behind. Going from one extreme to another with the weather is going to trigger severe unhappiness and possibly depression as new england is gloomy and cloudy almost year round. (Ohhhh yes it is.)

Let's get to the scenery bit.
I know the scenery in Florida gets boring after a while. That can happen anywhere mind you, that's why people go on vacations and travel to other places. Where I live in the atlanta area is hilly and mountainous and there are rivers and creeks and woods. When I first moved here I said I'd never get tired of that. And I haven't yet but I do occassionally need to go see other scenery on vacation!

Our fall color in the mountains here is superb and I do believe it rivals that of new england. We have a lot of the same species of trees. In fact we actually have even more species of trees here that produce excellent color such as hickories, tulip poplar, sassafras, sweetgum and blackgum to name a few. Every year I take photos of the fall color here in the atlanta suburbs and it never disappoints.

I think what you'll find once you get out of that toxic wasteland is that there are lots of places that have scenic splendor and trees.

There is this thing with people who grew up in s. florida. We cannot stray far from the ocean. But the fact is if you live in a place like vermont, or atlanta for that matter, you are never going to go to the beach. You're never going to have a tan again. You're going to acheive a whole new level of pastey white.

Now for the people,
You can't compare the friendliness factor of a large megolopolis like south florida to a place like small towns in new england. Never the less, people that lived there told me it's a hard place to get established in. Hard to explain but someone mentioned that it's not the warmest, most welcoming place to newcomers from outside new england. You won't remember how friendly the people were in miami and ft lauderdale until you leave, I'm afraid, and you will miss it just like I do. The friendliest places I have experienced to date are Pennsylvania, OHio and Maryland. Clearly there are other places to find friendly people between south florida and vermont.

Now for the cost of living,
A quick look at real estate websites will reveal that vermont is not a cheap place to live. I bought a new 3 story, 3500 sf brick and stone home that looks like something out of the Scottish countryside, with warranty from a home builder for less than you could buy a mobile home in new england. Literally. The property taxes, food and heating costs will eat you alive up there.
The price of homes in florida are overpriced and the homes themselves are ugly stucco concrete bunkers. You don't have to move all the way to vermont to get a pretty house though. The style of architecture changes the minute you leave florida and the housing market is more competitive in a lot of places.
Not only does it cost a fortune to live in new england, you'd be lucky to find a home that's 50 years old or newer to live in that has more than one bathroom.

As for the shopping,
Do you really want to live in a place where *the place to shop* is Costco? Please! I am in the mountains and there are 2 bloomingdales within 30 mins from here and a nordstroms 10 minutes away. The shopping is never going to be as world class as miami or NYC etc but just so you know, you are going from one end of the spectrum to the other in this department.
I mean really, how can a place not have strip malls? Are you going to be able to adapt to that?

Do you know that in the 10 years I've lived here, I never had to wait in line at publix? That's just a florida overcrowding thing.

As for things to do...
You're going from a 24 hour place like miami/ftl which is a non stop party all day and all night with bars and restuarants and the beach and all the prime time entertainment districts to sleepyhollow. Be forewarned this will be the end of 'things to do' as you know it. People that grow up in miami suffer from chronic boredom for eternity once they move away. Even NYC is lacking by comparison. 12 months of the year, you can go outside and do stuff in florida. Just so you know, there is no other place on the east coast that I am aware of that offers this capability.

No place is perfect. You have to take the bad with the good.
For example, in Atlanta, I can afford to live comfortably in a beautiful area, in a big house and I can make a living here. I like the weather and the shopping and all of that. But this place is terribly conservative and too many religious zealots. It makes me want to move to vermont but hey that's going over the deep end, yeah?

So again, I encourage you to move out of florida. And I encourage you to get a taste of all kinds of different places to live. If you can manage to move to vermont and lead a happy, successful life, you certainly have my respect because I chickened out. But in the event you just needed a vacation, I wanted to try to open your eyes before you signed the papers and quit your job. Vermont is a different world. That's why it's such a great place to visit.

I don't remember how I stumbled across this post but it was very informative. An eye opener for some of us considering a dramatic move. I spent many years growing up in NH and the weather would be a very tough adjustment for someone from Florida, or anywhere in the South. Not just the cold but the grey and it gets dark very early in the fall/winter. I agree with PA/MD/+OH having very friendly people for the most part as well as the Carolinas.

[quickdraw]

Originally Posted by Shagbark Hickory

Skadess, ( and anyone else thinking of moving out of florida)

This is going to be a long one...

You remind me of a younger me. I too moved all around florida. I grew up down there and lived there for about 20 years. I lived mostly in miami and ft.lauderdale but I also lived in jacksonville, west palm, tampa and orlando. And like you, I was not happy there.
About 10 years ago I moved to the Atlanta Georgia area. This is a place a lot of Floridians end up moving to and it's a much different world. Although 3 or 4 years into it, I started to get that unhappy, something's missing feeling and began literally touring the east coast looking for a new place to live, including new england.

I made a list of all the reasons I was unhappy here which proved to be a valuable exercise. It didn't stop me from making a mistake but it helped me to learn from it. More on that a little later.

I looked at new england, much the same as you are, perhaps even more carefully as I own a business and it was complicated to move a business.
And after I did, I totally chickened out.

New England is a vastly different lifestyle and culture. Right now you're hot and sweaty and so naturally you're thinking of moving to a place with a cold climate but think about this for a second... This is coming from someone who had to get acclimated to winters, albeit much milder ones than in VT, you are going to go from a place where people practically live outdoors to a place where 9 months of the year are spent indoors. Think about that for a second. Just let it sink in.

Set your thermostat to 65 degrees and let your place cool down and try to envision spending almost the entire year at that temperature INDOORS because that as warm as you can get it or as warm as you can afford to keep it. TRy to get in the routine of hourly lube-downs with moisturizer to combat the dry skin and itchiness from having the heat on all the time.

Aside from that, have you ever seen sunshine in New England? Have you ever wondered if the sun even shines in new england?

New england summers are lovely. There is no debating that but I was there during mid July and it was 55 degrees out! I know people that live there will swear it gets hot and sunny but come on. Between one Florida native to another, they don't know what heat is up there.

You're going from a place with endless diversity to a place that's.... let's just be frank... there's no diversity.

You're going from a place that's a slow paced way of life to an even slower pace.

You're going from a place that is fairly expensive to live to a place that is enormously expensive by comparison. Has anyone mentioned what it costs to heat a home for 9 months of the year?!?

And I may have missed it but I didn't see what you do for a living. Finding work in VT is going to be a challenge in and of itself. That's why so many young people are moving away to places with more opportunities. Florida is a pretty depressed place but you know that's how a lot of people make money down there. Feeding off the poor people, taking advantage of real estate booms, slip & fall lawyers etc.

So look, I'm not trying to convince you to stay in florida or to not move to VT, but instead I'm trying to point out that in certain respects, you're going from one extreme to another (like with the weather and scenery thing) and with other respects you are totally missing the mark.

I mentioned that list I made of all the reasons I was unhappy living in atlanta. One of the things I wrote on there was I didn't like the rat race.
So guess what I did. I moved back to florida! I moved to an extremely laid back place called Port St. Lucie. If you thought I was miserable before, that didn't even come close to how miserable I was after I moved back to florida.

One thing you will never hear me complain about are native Floridians. They are the friendliest bunch of folks. I know you probably don't see that right now, but you will after you move. Florida is a friendly place but unfortunately for me, on my list of things that I was unhappy about I mistakenly wrote "Tired of the rat race" when in fact I was quite pleased with the race race. I loved the faster paced way of life here in Atlanta. What I didn't like however were the people here are not as friendly. 6 months later I had my house on the market and I was moving back to atlanta.

What I think is that you've got some soul searching to do to really find out what kind of place you can adapt to versus what kind of place you'd like to go on a vacation.
Because I determined that everytime I got that itching to move, it wasn't because I was inherently unhappy with where I lived but rather I just needed a friggin vacation.

Someone mentioned "finding your vermont somewhere else". This makes perfect sense because a lot of what Vermont has to offer can be found in other places as well. You don't have to go from one extreme to the other to become happier with where you live.

Let's tackle the weather thing. I live 11-12 hours away from miami by car and yet I have not had to turn on the air conditioning hardly at all this year. Only sporadically, really. We have 4 real seasons here but our winters are mild enough so that a Florida native like myself can adapt to them. The coldest low temperature I've ever seen it get here was 9 degrees and that was this past winter. I can't imagine how cold it was in vermont on that day! Most of the time during the winter here it is very sunny. We get the cold fronts like in florida only they bring actual cold air but they're sunny so it's ok to be outside in it and it warms up the house. Our summers are hot and dry but the nights are cool and for the most part the humidity is tolerable. It's nothing like florida. More like socal, if anything. I would miss not having hot summers though. I don't think I would enjoy living in a place where you can only wear shorts for a very brief period of time.

You know another thing I would really miss, would be getting on the interstate and driving 80mph. You won't be able to do that for much of the year in VT. Too snowy or icy or wet.
I would also find it difficult living in a place where I couldn't walk my dogs every day or play with them outside.

Has anyone talked about "mud season" yet?! LOL.

I know someone mentioned "the smell of spring and the crisp air of fall". You can experience that at least as far south as Atlanta. You don't have to move to the north pole for that. Again, one extreme to another.

There are any number of places where the weather is more tolerable. The best part of all is you'll be leaving the hurricanes behind. Going from one extreme to another with the weather is going to trigger severe unhappiness and possibly depression as new england is gloomy and cloudy almost year round. (Ohhhh yes it is.)

Let's get to the scenery bit.
I know the scenery in Florida gets boring after a while. That can happen anywhere mind you, that's why people go on vacations and travel to other places. Where I live in the atlanta area is hilly and mountainous and there are rivers and creeks and woods. When I first moved here I said I'd never get tired of that. And I haven't yet but I do occassionally need to go see other scenery on vacation!

Our fall color in the mountains here is superb and I do believe it rivals that of new england. We have a lot of the same species of trees. In fact we actually have even more species of trees here that produce excellent color such as hickories, tulip poplar, sassafras, sweetgum and blackgum to name a few. Every year I take photos of the fall color here in the atlanta suburbs and it never disappoints.

I think what you'll find once you get out of that toxic wasteland is that there are lots of places that have scenic splendor and trees.

There is this thing with people who grew up in s. florida. We cannot stray far from the ocean. But the fact is if you live in a place like vermont, or atlanta for that matter, you are never going to go to the beach. You're never going to have a tan again. You're going to acheive a whole new level of pastey white.

Now for the people,
You can't compare the friendliness factor of a large megolopolis like south florida to a place like small towns in new england. Never the less, people that lived there told me it's a hard place to get established in. Hard to explain but someone mentioned that it's not the warmest, most welcoming place to newcomers from outside new england. You won't remember how friendly the people were in miami and ft lauderdale until you leave, I'm afraid, and you will miss it just like I do. The friendliest places I have experienced to date are Pennsylvania, OHio and Maryland. Clearly there are other places to find friendly people between south florida and vermont.

Now for the cost of living,
A quick look at real estate websites will reveal that vermont is not a cheap place to live. I bought a new 3 story, 3500 sf brick and stone home that looks like something out of the Scottish countryside, with warranty from a home builder for less than you could buy a mobile home in new england. Literally. The property taxes, food and heating costs will eat you alive up there.
The price of homes in florida are overpriced and the homes themselves are ugly stucco concrete bunkers. You don't have to move all the way to vermont to get a pretty house though. The style of architecture changes the minute you leave florida and the housing market is more competitive in a lot of places.
Not only does it cost a fortune to live in new england, you'd be lucky to find a home that's 50 years old or newer to live in that has more than one bathroom.

As for the shopping,
Do you really want to live in a place where *the place to shop* is Costco? Please! I am in the mountains and there are 2 bloomingdales within 30 mins from here and a nordstroms 10 minutes away. The shopping is never going to be as world class as miami or NYC etc but just so you know, you are going from one end of the spectrum to the other in this department.
I mean really, how can a place not have strip malls? Are you going to be able to adapt to that?

Do you know that in the 10 years I've lived here, I never had to wait in line at publix? That's just a florida overcrowding thing.

As for things to do...
You're going from a 24 hour place like miami/ftl which is a non stop party all day and all night with bars and restuarants and the beach and all the prime time entertainment districts to sleepyhollow. Be forewarned this will be the end of 'things to do' as you know it. People that grow up in miami suffer from chronic boredom for eternity once they move away. Even NYC is lacking by comparison. 12 months of the year, you can go outside and do stuff in florida. Just so you know, there is no other place on the east coast that I am aware of that offers this capability.

No place is perfect. You have to take the bad with the good.
For example, in Atlanta, I can afford to live comfortably in a beautiful area, in a big house and I can make a living here. I like the weather and the shopping and all of that. But this place is terribly conservative and too many religious zealots. It makes me want to move to vermont but hey that's going over the deep end, yeah?

So again, I encourage you to move out of florida. And I encourage you to get a taste of all kinds of different places to live. If you can manage to move to vermont and lead a happy, successful life, you certainly have my respect because I chickened out. But in the event you just needed a vacation, I wanted to try to open your eyes before you signed the papers and quit your job. Vermont is a different world. That's why it's such a great place to visit.

There are no good places and bad places and you can't determine where someone would enjoy living based on your preferences. Personally Atlanta , except maybe Houston, would be the dead last place I'd want to live. That doesn't mean it's a bad place, it's just not what I want. I can totally understand people not wanting to put up with our Januarys or Februarys.
As for your things to do, again it's a personal preference. Personally I enjoy staying home and having my friends over or going into Burlington for an evening on Church St. or the waterfront. Your things to do list and prime time entertainment districts are exactly what a lot of us moved away from, purposely.

Bloomingdale? Nordstroms? No big deal to me. I lived near them and rarely went to them. We have a Macy's 15 minutes away and I've never been there. I wear my LL Bean stuff and get the rest at Kohls, with a slew of Old Navy T-shirts. It's part of what I like about Vermont, nobody cares what you're wearing.

Your advice about seeing other places is good. Vermont is such a stereotypical escape destination that it certainly would seem perfect to someone in a crowded city or in the midst of a heatwave. As much as I love it here I often suggest people look else where before committing
to Vermont's deceivingly high cost of living. There are FAR cheaper options that offer a nice quality of life such as the NC mountains or rural midwest.
The relative lack of sunshine should be considered too. But you can't say Vermont is a good place to visit but not to live because a lot of us moved here and are loving it. I've lived in about ten states and Vermont has been my favorite place. Like you said, every place has drawbacks and anyone expecting utopia is going to get slapped into reality quick. One thing I can honestly say about Vermont, there's no other state remotely like it. It has it's own vibe you can't get elsewhere.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Well, one thing:

If you're used to the wetness that Florida is known for, Vermont will be more like that of Colorado and Idaho.

It's NOT typical to get a torrent every day. LOL.

And it's NOT normal for Vermont to be cloudy everyday, either.

If it's cloudy everyday, then it must be an unusual year.

Also, Vermont is good for skiing and snowboarding. You shouldn't have any complaints. (except Killington being expensive)

I don't recommend northern Vermont, that's where most of the depressing-weather reputation comes from.

I recommend southern Vermont or central Vermont. Windsor county has some of best weather.