[itsajourney]

I am just curious on the opinions/experiences floating around out there right now. There have been variations on this question in the forum previously.

My question is directed to those of you who moved to Florida from elsewhere; then left Florida BECAUSE YOU DID NOT LIKE IT HERE, then moved BACK TO FLORIDA because wherever you went wasn't what you thought it would be either.

After all of those moves, where is your mindset now? Do you like Florida any better or do you still dislike it?

Are you staying here? or where are you going next?

Thanks for replies. I am really curious about this as I hear more stories than one would think on this topic.

[Sunny-Days-in-Florida]

You will have to ask ChrisA70 as he is been in and out of Florida so much he changes his license plates every other month.



* Chris this was meant as a joke.

[Florida15]

Originally Posted by itsajourney

I am just curious on the opinions/experiences floating around out there right now. There have been variations on this question in the forum previously.

My question is directed to those of you who moved to Florida from elsewhere; then left Florida BECAUSE YOU DID NOT LIKE IT HERE, then moved BACK TO FLORIDA because wherever you went wasn't what you thought it would be either.

After all of those moves, where is your mindset now? Do you like Florida any better or do you still dislike it?

Are you staying here? or where are you going next?

Thanks for replies. I am really curious about this as I hear more stories than one would think on this topic.

Moved to Florida because of a job transfer(Orlando area) and was there for fifteen years. Moved to Wilmington,N.C. six and a half years ago. We have been wanting to go back to Florida ever since the first year here and as soon as we get the opportunity,we're going to move back to Viera in Brevard county and hopefully,want have to move again. Love the lifestyle there!

[007.5]

I dont think youre going to get a good feel for Florida because there are many subjective reasons for moving out of Florida to a different place where it didnt work out. Could be the person was homesick for family left in Florida, maybe the persons job didnt work out in the new place, couldnt make friends , had a bad experience , ran out of money, etc..et al... Many of these might not have any bearing on Florida when you think about it. People live where they do based on subjective reasons ; one person might consider a place a hell-hole while the next might feel its a slice of heaven .

[Shoreone]

I was born and raised in New Jersey. Not long after getting married my wife and I moved to Florida for college. We then after 2 years of school moved back to New Jersey to be closer to family. Not because we did not like Florida. We actually loved it. We are now in the process of buying a house and moving back in 2011.

[StreetSmarts]

Born in FL, moved to NC (not by choice the first time), moved back to FL (by choice), and have moved back to NC (by choice). I feel that NC is a better place to live and raise a family. But being a FL native and still having a lot of family in FL, I will always have love for it.

[MovedfromFL]

I grew up in Central FL from 1974 to 2006. My husband and I left FL in 2006 & moved to Northeast Georgia. We made a lot of money when we sold our FL house in 2006 but we couldn't afford to buy something else in FL. At that time, I had just quit my job to stay home with our 6 week old baby. It was going to cost us $700+ a month for family health insurance, so we couldn't afford that either on my husband's plan. We moved to GA, his salary increased by about $4,000, and we were able to get family insurance for $220/ month.

Fast forward 4 years and most of the benefits of moving here have gone away. There are many things we don't like about this area, so in January of this year, we put the house on the market. It sold and we are headed to FL at the end of May!

My entire family still lives in FL, so I am looking forward to being closer to them again.

I found that I really don't like the hilly landscape here. It makes me feel closed in. Sure, I can see the mountains from the road that I take to and from the store, but just for one second, and there is always an incredible haze. Sometimes you can barely see them at all.

So give me the flat FL landscape, the ocean breeze to clear the air, and the mix of people from all over. I will take the brutal heat and humidity in order to get plenty of sunny days, and no cold, bleak winter! I'm looking forward to getting some citrus trees and planting a Bougainvillea again too.

I'm a person who loves water, warm weather, shorts, and bright sun. FL is the place for me. It was a good experience for me to see life outside of the "FL bubble" but I wish it didn't cost us $50,000. I know there will be many things that I don't like when we get back there, but you take the bad with the good. If I get tired of FL, I will take a vacation to the mountains, but we are not moving again! There is so much to do in FL and now I'm kicking myself for not taking advantage of that before we had kids. Luckily, my kids are getting to the age where we can start to travel around FL and have fun in the sun.

[gypsychic]

Originally Posted by MovedfromFL

I found that I really don't like the hilly landscape here. It makes me feel closed in. Sure, I can see the mountains from the road that I take to and from the store, but just for one second, and there is always an incredible haze. Sometimes you can barely see them at all.

So give me the flat FL landscape, the ocean breeze to clear the air, and the mix of people from all over. I will take the brutal heat and humidity in order to get plenty of sunny days, and no cold, bleak winter! I'm looking forward to getting some citrus trees and planting a Bougainvillea again too.

I totally agree with you. I was born and raised in the Tampa Bay Area. Back in 2005 I was feeling like I wanted a change, and me and hubby sold our country home in Dade City and bought a place in Asheville, NC with the idea we would vacation there and ultimately retire there (we still had a cottage in Dade City). At first it was a nice novelty visiting and going to the mountains, but by the third year I realized how much I hated the bleak and very cold (to me) winter - gray skies, ice, bare trees, etc. While the mountains were beautiful, I too felt "closed in" almost like living in a hole or something. And the haze in summer was terrible! More pollution than I expected there.

We sold that house in 2008 and bought our pretty little Florida rancher just two blocks from Sarasota Bay - I love the flat landscape and the fresh salty breeze - we never have a haze here plus it's easy to ride my bike! And I'm having a ball planting citrus and all kinds of tropical flowers. So bottom line, we ALMOST moved away, but started missing Florida before we ever made the move, lol!

[flfishie]

My family moved to the Fort Lauderdale area from the midwest because of my father's job transfer in 1988. Spent some time with family in rural Illinois in the summer. I went to hs, college, and grad schools in Florida.

I always wanted to leave because I loved the wholesomeness of the midwest when I would visit family up north. Ended up moving to Missouri with my husband (he's from there). We lived in a fairly large town, not rural at all. We moved to MO in June and by Feb we were planning on how to get back! Moved back to SFla nearly a year later!

I appreciate the good of down here...winter is wonderful, diverse population, great food, scuba diving, the beach, swimming are all things I love. The not so pleasant things of FL are still here...no value in the education system, bad service is kind of the norm, disrespectful people, not a classic neighborly/family atmosphere, transient area, cookie cutter-big box homes/stores, etc... But the beach....oh the beach!

Now, we wish we hadn't bought a house (thankfully not in the boom) and could look for job opportunities elsewhere. I don't see growth in our economy any time soon and it costs a lot to live here. It isn't my ideal for raising a family either.

[itsajourney]

I can so relate to every single one of these posts....and that is precisely why I am asking to hear from all of you who have lived thru and done exactly what I am talking about. In my 50 years I have come and gone from Florida so many times that in the early years of my married life it was like taking the escalator down & then taking it back up. In the 80's I believe I moved to Florida and left 6x.

It was easy to do BC (before children) and still easy before they got into school. We came and went because I missed family, money was better up north, hated the heat & humidity, missed the fall, no pumpkin patches or Christmas tree farms, got tired of listening to Spanish, and on and on. Car insurance down here skyrocketed, people couldn't drive, education system was crap. Trying to plant flowers & vegetables in this heat was more trouble than it was worth.

Then upon going back north--well, things weren't always exactly the way you remembered. Family was different, weather during the winter wasn't something I actually longed for, people in the east weren't as friendly as the midwest, the sun doesn't shine nearly as much or as brightly, etc. etc.

We moved back to Flolrida in 2001--but by then my oldest of 4 was starting high school. You can't keep packing up your kids for selfish reasons once they get to that age. Now, I am about to finish getting 4 kids thru high school.

I have spent thousands of $$$ during the past 4 years traveling the southeast extensively. I love the mountains also. However, I just recently realized what a few other posters have mentioned. The mountains are beautiful--esp. in the fall. However, I am sure that if I were to plant myself in them, I would also start to feel closed in and claustrophobic. I probably prefer more rolling hills than actual mountains. Yes, the haze in the SMOKEY mountains is always there....Yes, the skies do become grey in the winter--probably for longer than I would like. Yes, the weather will be colder than I would like also.

However, I get tired of the same things in Florida too--I find myself just praying for a cloudy day just to kick back. I cannot tolerate the extreme heat and humidity without becoming physically ill as I do not sweat easily. I turn red as a firetruck. I like the beach on occassion, but deplore the sand that coats the car & windshield daily. Don't always like the salty, sandly grit on my skin. Still hate the drivers down here and the high auto insurance, but do like the NO state income tax.

Get the idea????? I appreciate the good things everywhere and try to adjust to the negative things as best I can. I just really, really want to hear all of the things that come up for everyone else who comes and goes because at this point in my life, it gives deep meaning to things I really need to ponder when deciding where I want to be--hopefully for a good many years. In my case, i will be opening my own business so this is not a decision I want to make without looking at every conceivable issue that I can.

Thank you, thank you for all of the thoughts you are all putting out there as I am sure that things will slip my mind and you may bring them back to the surface.

Please keep responding!!!!