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Hello to anyone who has taken time to read this! And thank you in advance for any responses. We are a family of 3 with an 8 year of sin. We have lived in a tiny town called Ironwood in the upper peninsula of Michigan our entire lives. Long story short, we absolutely hate it here. This area is about 20 minutes from Lake Superior, which is gorgeous in the summer but it makes for lake effect snow and why our area is called "big snow country". P.S. we detest snow... Not our thing. Our winters here are around 7 months and we get temps in the negative degrees often. -30 is no shock to anyone here whatsoever. With the long winters, we rarely see the sun or any color. Gray everyday! We want to relocate to somewhere with a lot of sun and a warmer climate. Since we are so close to a Great Lake, we like being near water. I'm really a sun worshipper and love the beach. We initially debated FL or SC for a move, but I would still like somewhere to vacation south, and although we don't mind humidity and we desire heat and sun, we don't want the summers COMPLETELY unbearable. We also aren't stoked to encounter giant creatures and terrible bugs on a regular basis, though we are used to a summer filled with mosquitoes here. North Carolina seems like a great balance. Then we won't be TOO too far away from Michigan like we would be in The other states we initially mulled over. Considering we are trapped indoors for a large majority of the year here, we're really looking for somewhere that we can be outside often. Our town is also TINY with a population around 5,000 or less. It is a dying area and we are looking to move somewhere with life and culture! I am a dancer and own a dance studio here. Not sure if I would try to open another there or look for a job in one, but arts and culture are important for me and my profession. My husband works for the city here and has water licenses, a CDL and ten years under his belt at his job. I imagine he could find a job doing something with his experience! We're obviously looking for a good school system as well for our son. Since our town is so small, the cost of living here is low. We don't want to relocate somewhere and not be able to afford life so an extreme high cost of living wouldn't work for us. We plan to rent so we're positive we love the area before committing to buying housing.
I think I covered everything, but we're very unfamiliar with North Carolina and would like any information, advice or direction anyone has. We would like to get an idea of areas to visit this summer so we can see what we like! Thank you!
It always kind of boggles my mind when someone says they "want to move to NC, but don't know anything about NC"....how can you know you want to move here?
Anyway, this question is asked almost daily, and thoughtful longtime posters have put together this thread:
Good luck in your research. Once you narrow it to a specific area of the state, it's best to post in the specific subforum for that area for more specifics.
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bethanyhellen
Hello to anyone who has taken time to read this! And thank you in advance for any responses. We are a family of 3 with an 8 year of sin. We have lived in a tiny town called Ironwood in the upper peninsula of Michigan our entire lives. Long story short, we absolutely hate it here. This area is about 20 minutes from Lake Superior, which is gorgeous in the summer but it makes for lake effect snow and why our area is called "big snow country". P.S. we detest snow... Not our thing. Our winters here are around 7 months and we get temps in the negative degrees often. -30 is no shock to anyone here whatsoever. With the long winters, we rarely see the sun or any color. Gray everyday! We want to relocate to somewhere with a lot of sun and a warmer climate. Since we are so close to a Great Lake, we like being near water. I'm really a sun worshipper and love the beach. We initially debated FL or SC for a move, but I would still like somewhere to vacation south, and although we don't mind humidity and we desire heat and sun, we don't want the summers COMPLETELY unbearable. We also aren't stoked to encounter giant creatures and terrible bugs on a regular basis, though we are used to a summer filled with mosquitoes here. North Carolina seems like a great balance. Then we won't be TOO too far away from Michigan like we would be in The other states we initially mulled over. Considering we are trapped indoors for a large majority of the year here, we're really looking for somewhere that we can be outside often. Our town is also TINY with a population around 5,000 or less. It is a dying area and we are looking to move somewhere with life and culture! I am a dancer and own a dance studio here. Not sure if I would try to open another there or look for a job in one, but arts and culture are important for me and my profession. My husband works for the city here and has water licenses, a CDL and ten years under his belt at his job. I imagine he could find a job doing something with his experience! We're obviously looking for a good school system as well for our son. Since our town is so small, the cost of living here is low. We don't want to relocate somewhere and not be able to afford life so an extreme high cost of living wouldn't work for us. We plan to rent so we're positive we love the area before committing to buying housing.
I think I covered everything, but we're very unfamiliar with North Carolina and would like any information, advice or direction anyone has. We would like to get an idea of areas to visit this summer so we can see what we like! Thank you!
I'd suggest that your husband find a job. Then look at smaller cities & towns near the work location to see if there is a dance studio. People on here can help with picking one town over another if you have it narrowed down to a smaller area.
We want to relocate to somewhere with a lot of sun and a warmer climate. Since we are so close to a Great Lake, we like being near water. I'm really a sun worshipper and love the beach. We initially debated FL or SC for a move, but I would still like somewhere to vacation south, and although we don't mind humidity and we desire heat and sun, we don't want the summers COMPLETELY unbearable. We also aren't stoked to encounter giant creatures and terrible bugs on a regular basis, though we are used to a summer filled with mosquitoes here. North Carolina seems like a great balance.
I don't know how you Michiganders take those winters. I would be frozen solid! Don't blame you at all for looking for warmer climes.
HOWEVER, I really don't think there's much difference at all between a North Carolina summer and South Carolina summer. And there's not that much difference between a North Carolina summer and a Florida summer. It gets HOT here and very humid and lots of bugs (google "palmetto bug"). Might want to do a little more research on summer weather before you commit. I like Weather Forecast & Reports - Long Range & Local | Wunderground | Weather Underground . You can plug in any city you want and then hit the "history" link and you can view daily temps for any month of any year. Typically summers here are a mix from the high 80s into the high 90s, but it can go even higher as it did in July of 2012. A day or two that goes over 100 is pretty common and certainly a heat index over 100 (temp + humidity) is not uncommon at all.
I don't know how you Michiganders take those winters. I would be frozen solid! Don't blame you at all for looking for warmer climes.
HOWEVER, I really don't think there's much difference at all between a North Carolina summer and South Carolina summer. And there's not that much difference between a North Carolina summer and a Florida summer. It gets HOT here and very humid and lots of bugs (google "palmetto bug"). Might want to do a little more research on summer weather before you commit. I like Weather Forecast & Reports - Long Range & Local | Wunderground | Weather Underground . You can plug in any city you want and then hit the "history" link and you can view daily temps for any month of any year. Typically summers here are a mix from the high 80s into the high 90s, but it can go even higher as it did in July of 2012. A day or two that goes over 100 is pretty common and certainly a heat index over 100 (temp + humidity) is not uncommon at all.
When we moved from Winston-Salem to Greenville, SC in 2008, I was quite surprised how much more uncomfortably hot the summers were in Greenville, even though it's in sight of the mtns. Also, I've never lived in FL, but I've read plenty of comments here on C-D about how much hotter FL is than NC. Of course, there are all sorts of degrees of difference depending on where you are in NC/SC/FL.
I don't know how you Michiganders take those winters. I would be frozen solid! Don't blame you at all for looking for warmer climes.
HOWEVER, I really don't think there's much difference at all between a North Carolina summer and South Carolina summer. And there's not that much difference between a North Carolina summer and a Florida summer. It gets HOT here and very humid and lots of bugs (google "palmetto bug"). Might want to do a little more research on summer weather before you commit. I like Weather Forecast & Reports - Long Range & Local | Wunderground | Weather Underground . You can plug in any city you want and then hit the "history" link and you can view daily temps for any month of any year. Typically summers here are a mix from the high 80s into the high 90s, but it can go even higher as it did in July of 2012. A day or two that goes over 100 is pretty common and certainly a heat index over 100 (temp + humidity) is not uncommon at all.
I have no worries about being too hot. It would be a welcome break from being much much too cold for my entire life! Haha North Carolina just seems more realistic a move than going from the very north tip of the country in a chunk of land that no one knows exists (and is usually not included on the US map) to the very southern most states! The thought that someday I may be able to complain about being too hot is a dream!
I'd suggest that your husband find a job. Then look at smaller cities & towns near the work location to see if there is a dance studio. People on here can help with picking one town over another if you have it narrowed down to a smaller area.
Shouldn't we nail down general areas we want to look for jobs first? I imagine looking for a job throughout an entire state would be difficult! :s
It always kind of boggles my mind when someone says they "want to move to NC, but don't know anything about NC"....how can you know you want to move here?
Anyway, this question is asked almost daily, and thoughtful longtime posters have put together this thread:
Good luck in your research. Once you narrow it to a specific area of the state, it's best to post in the specific subforum for that area for more specifics.
We came to the conclusion this way:
We want somewhere farther south as we currently live in one of the most northern points of the country, we want to be near the coast, but we don't want to be SO far away that visiting family back here would be impossible. I did tons of research on SC and FL and now we are looking into NC. We don't have the luxury of traveling all sorts of places to decide where we like best, but we KNOW we want to get the heck out of here. So I am trying to do my best with research to pick areas to visit this summer. We will really not have a lot more opportunity to check other places out unfortunstely. I figure asking locals or people who know the area can give me some insight. At least I can narrow it down to some areas in a certain state that way.
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