Looking to get out of Florida

FloridaReLoaded wrote:

travelnutz wrote:
WTP-GC,

Yes local area economics, recreational opportunities, quality of education metrics, availability of needed services, and how far the actual dollar goes in comparison to the national average does make big differences. However, many of these factors are established and determined by the makeup of the people living in those various areas. They reap what they sow might be said!

You sure didn't see me saying how great the Detroit City, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or other similar places are great or nice to live at. If the shoe fits! Glad Florida makes you happy but this Thread's OP clearly states he's not happy in Florida with the intense heat and humidity and neither are most of our family members either now as they have traveled to other places north a lot and learned first hand the real difference and want out also! Florida is nothing like the Florida of the past and it's not for the better for sure! We have watched it happen since the early 1960's and seen it evolve. Neither is Detroit or so many other once nice places to live. Crowding, taxes, cost of living, crime, unreal regulations, decay and blight, devastated economies, and changed citizenry makeup have really taken their sad tolls and so obvious in much of Florida also. All combined to make life living in these places unbearable for many not even including weather or temps dynamics effects. Sooner or later, the final straw seals the deal for vacating!



When you say you have friends living in SW Michigan and they live in a "somewhat depressed" locality, I know just what locality you are referring to and it's the local resident makeup who have created, caused, and maintain their area issues but their dollar goes so much further than it would in Florida. Demographics has been a hobby of mine for more than 35 years now as I had an office in the Detroit side of the state and it used to bug me as why life was so different there than in the West Michigan area. So I spend countless hours to understand the metrics at play and why it was so. Don't even get me started on the very many areas of Florida that have the same or even much worse issues as I can name over 40 right off the top of my head all over the state of Florida.

You need to research the facts of the rest of the State of Michigan and especially the West Michigan area. Open the gook rather than just reading a couple words on its cover! For instance:

Our area schools, colleges, and universities are constantly rated by all reporting researchers and agencies to be in the top 5% of all schools in the entire USA.

Our cost of living which is the measure of how far a dollar goes is constantly for decades been in the 83% to 87% level of the national 100% average.

Services and healthcare in West Michigan and most of the state is very topnotch as rated by the gov and the various research rating agencies with also having the world renown universities for human health and of course the Medical Mile and the large medical research operations like Van Andel Institute and MSU Human Health operations plus others in the Grand Rapids area. Vast U of M in MI and Wayne State on the east side. MSU, GVSU, and Ferris State on the west side. Huge pharmaceutical corporations like Pfizer and Perrigo (just to name 2 of the 72 Pharmaceutical Corps in Michigan).

Don't even mention recreational opportunities as Michigan is tops as 4 of the 5 Great Lakes are on its shores and they are potable fresh water and UNSALTED, along with over 11,000 inland lakes, and a total of over 87,000 miles of rivers and streams and all are loaded with fish both very large and small and all eatable and very desirable. Many species of salmon, lake trout, steelhead, brown trout, white fish, walleye, bass, rainbows, lake perch, crappies/sunfish/bluegills, etc just to name a few of the many.

Vast boating all over Michigan and it's "FRESH WATER", not salted! We bought a very nice not cheap new boat and kept it in Florida for 19 years and learned to hate salt water as it ruins everything and the intense sun and humidity driven mold finishes what the salt misses. We miss our place in South Florida we had for 19 years like 2 broken arms and 2 broken legs at the same time. Now for the last 10 years know for sure that an RV with turning wheels under it is the smart way to visit Florida and only from December till April and load the RV with canned and dry foods from the north before leaving home as the $$$ savings alone will easily pay for a couple months of average CG fees. Then make those wheels rotate no later than April.

There's early 4,000 campgrounds as this is an RV forum site and so related. Yes, snowmobiling, snow skiing all over the state in deep winter and even ice fishing too. Try those in Florida! No poisonous snakes to worry about or fish or scorpions or alligators or biting ants or other things and just a tiny fraction of the bugs and termites also.

Economic opportunity? You really need to find out where the best place in America is as Grand Rapids area has been rated No 1 for years now for the best economic opportunity and why we here in the Grand Rapids Metro Area of over a million residents have a persisting unemployment rate of 3% or less.

Homes and land real estate and commercial (not the postage stamp size like is the norm in Florida) both new and resale are a fraction of the cost of most in Florida as is food too. We don't have depressed, blighted, or rundown areas anywhere within miles of where we live in West Michigan.

The community area we live at has been given "the Happiest Seaside Town In America" along with pages of other accolades. Look it up!

Just perhaps your knowledge of Michigan is extremely limited and you have so much to learn!

We have been coming to Florida every year since 1963 to visit family from Key West all the way to the Georgia/Alabama border and had owned lots of stuff and properties in Florida and learned well.

True happiness for being and living in is where everything that's important to you fits your lifestyle and wants and it varies so much. Perhaps, no place will fit 100% or meet 100% of one's wants, needs, or desires. However, facts are facts and not just opinions as they are just like a body's posterior evacuation item as everyone has one of them!

As someone who appreciates Florida, I say stay up there, we don't need you in Florida anyhow. You're just trying to justify living in the frozen tundra! Everyone see's that you're just trying to convince yourself. I've found Florida is no higher than anywhere else, cheaper than most since it has no state income tax. Three months of winter haha give me a break Michigan Winters second most brutal in the nation

I read that article a while back, got a laugh out of it. Written by some pessimistic people for sure. I too live in s.w. Michigan and could think of a hundred places worse to live during the winter. Granted the U.P. of Michigan is far colder than where I live and that is one of them:-). I'm not a cold weather person but the summers are fantastic here. If I had to pick the perfect year round place to live it would be higher elevations in east Tn, still want to see some snow and four seasons unlike in Florida. In reality someday when we retire I see us spending 2-3 months in Florida and the rest in Michigan.

Dan