How Many People That Move South for the Weather End Up Moving Back Home? (houses, transfer)

[canudigit]

I wonder if a lot of the people who start threads on this forum that begin like this: "I can't stand another winter here in _______! We want to move to Charleston, Atlanta, Savannah, Raleigh, etc., etc., etc." actually do move on impulse, find that they actually hate it, and move back home?

The reason why I'm wondering this now is because I live in Michigan, and have lived in Ohio and Michigan my entire life. I am one of those people who hates winters here--well, not the entire winter, but definitely most of January, February, and March. During those long, gray months, chances are you will find me longing to live somewhere in the Southeast. However, now that it's April, I am completely enchanted at how the earth is "coming back to life", so to speak. It's like a gift from God to see the grass slowly turning vivid green again, the flowers popping through the ground, and the buds bursting out on the trees. It's like you almost have to endure a long winter to truly appreciate spring, and during the months of April through October, there's no place on earth I'd rather be than right here in Michigan. It makes me realize that, in reality, I probably wouldn't be as happy in the South as I think I would be, and that just visiting there for a month or two in the winter would be plenty good enough. I just think that I would get tired of heat, bugs, and humidity for so many months of the year, and it seems like it's getting so crowded down there too. It makes me wonder how many Northerners move on impulse just to escape 3-4 months of cold, gray weather only to hate the heat, humidity, and crowded beaches and become homesick for the very things that they *thought* that they hated and turn around and head back home. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the South, I just don't know if months of hot weather would be any better than months of cold weather, and when you figure in having to live hundreds of miles from the people that you love and everything that is dear and familiar to you, is it really worth it or do you find that it isn't?

[west336]

I hear you, and feel the same way in Jan and Feb, but I know myself well enough to never make a decision about moving South when it's the dead of winter. Kind of like I don't like to grocery shop when I'm hungry or drive when angry.

[tahiti]

is your title really true or just projection?

[CMDallas]

Well my father moved from Michigan, and hasn't moved back.

We have spring here too. Everything dies for a little bit. Spring isn't the issue. IMO, I think the springs here are nice. The fall is what gets me. The autumn in the north is so much prettier.
Everything turn brown and dies, maybe if you're lucky it might turn a nasty shade of red for a few days...
That's an exaggeration... but the autumns there are nicer.

I would generally prefer to fry myself than to freeze myself.

[Pine to Vine]

I stayed in the south for many years because I had a great job and built a good life there. As soon as I retired, however, I headed back north, with the weather being one of the key reasons. I used to tell myself that the horrid summers "down south" were an equal evil to the hard winters up north. Not true:

1. Winters may be nice(r) in the south, but the sun sets at 5, so there is not much daylight to enjoy it. I'll take the nice LONG and PLEASANT summer days up north where I can actually be outside and not sweat my butt off.

2. Put on a good winer coat, hats and gloves, and I am fine to face a northern winter. There is no cover for that wretched, constant, oppressive humidity that grips the south for five months minimum.

3. Rather than the spring you mentioned with blooming bulbs and trees and the glorious return of life, southern springs signal pollen drops and mold. And before you know it, it's late April and that oppressive summer I mentioned has started.

4. Kiss fall foliage all but goodbye in the south.

5. Bugs. Everywhere. Including in your house.

I suspect most northerners who elected to move south for the weather did so after winter visits. I wonder how many would have moved if their first trip south was in August? For all those people who moved south and love the weather - bless you. I will never go back south to live.

[Lamplight]

We have Spring in the South, too. It's just that it's 85-90 and humid, and there's no relief until late October, if you're lucky.

[canudigit]

Thanks for all of your replies, I am enjoying reading your various perspectives.

We relocated to Arizona a couple of years ago because my dh could transfer there with his company if he wanted to and we had visited in February, of all months, and fell in love with the palm trees, swimming pools, unique desert foliage, and, most of all, the warm winter weather. In short, we thought that we had found paradise. Once we had made the move, however, those things all got to be routine and we found what hot, dry, and (for us) miserable was. Suddenly, the unique foliage and palm trees were just okay and I would have traded all of them for one big, shady maple tree. Having a pool was way cool, except that it was actually too hot to use it most of the day. We never saw our neighbors, because everyone pulled into their garages, shut the garage door, and hibernated in their air conditioned houses. It made me realize that in most instances, when you move to get away from something such as cold weather, you end up moving to something that can be equally undesirable, just in a different way. It was eye opening, and we didn't end up staying long. That's why I'm trying to find out if a lot of people move to the Southeast and feel the same way, because my dh wants to move to suburban Atlanta in a couple of years and I am not at all sure that I want to do that.

Thanks again!

[musicislife.glee]

We will be moving back to Pennsylvania soon from North Carolina.
I love winter, and I can't stand summer.
It's April and it was 90 degrees. 90. 90! My first reaction was, "hell no." In winter, you can keep putting on layers to keep warm, but there is only so much you can take off in the summer before you are charged with public indecency. There is really no spring. I say that there are two seasons here: summer and fall, because it doesn't get cold enough in the winter (to my liking at least), and for the rest of the year, even starting in March, it becomes summer. I guess people like that. I don't.
Yes, you don't have to shovel heat, which is something people say when they move down here, but
I find shoveling good exercise, and I don't want to stay in the house all summer because it's way too hot to go outside. I have never gotten sunburn until I moved down here. I was in the sun for an hour in NC, and got sunburned.
And I agree with people that autumn is more beautiful in the North than it is in the South. Autumn in NC lasts like a week of some beautiful colors, and then they are all dead. I forgot what a really beautiful autumn looked like until I went to visit my sister in New York.
Spring here means allergies galore, even if you've never had them before.
If you'd like to move for the weather, it's your choice.

[Buckeye in SC]

I grew up in NE Ohio and moved to Columbia almost 4 years ago.

Some of those of you have moved back north are over-exaggerating things a little...even here in 'Famously hot Columbia' we do not have "a minimum of 5 months of oppressive humidity & heat" - it's more like 8-10 weeks...from mid-June through August, plan on mid-90s during the day & mid-70s at night. I don't mind the heat in the day (there's these things called air conditioning & pools that seem to help a lot to deal with it), but I admit, not a big fan of it being 80 degrees at midnight...thankfully, the majority of us get to sleep though through most of the night!

Yes, the temperature rose to 85-89 over the weekend here, but that was close to record highs for this time of year. Today through this weekend is more normal (75-80 during the day w/minimal humidity and upper 40s at night) for this time of year. May will be mid-80s during the day/low 60s at night (on average) - typical of summer days up north.

And no fall foliage? Sure, it doesn't happen in October like it does up north, but the leaves still change here and offer lots of pretty colors (typically around Thanksgiving is the peak).

I will give you that bugs are nasty here - I HATE bugs! But there are things to prevent them, we have only had one time (a couple years ago in early Fall) where we had an issue, about once a week we'd walk into the kitchen in the morning or middle of the night to find a lovely palmetto bug on the floor greeting us <sarcasm>...but spraying the interior walls & also around the exterior of our house w/Home Defense spray (costs about $9 or $10 for a gallon) eliminated that problem, and now I just spray twice a year - just did it this past week, and will do it again probably in mid-September - and have had virtually no problems since. Of course every once in a while we will have a bug show up in the house, but that happened up north too.

And we moved the last week of July, it was 90 and hot the day we moved in, so we didn't make a rash decision in the middle of winter!

Compare that to Ohio - where there are literally 5 months of cold and grey (November-March), not to mention snow. I will trade off 8-10 weeks of heat for 5 months of that any day! I always tell our family & friends back home who insist on coming to visit during the summer (mostly so they can go to the beach) that they pick the wrong time to visit - in fact, we usually make at least 2 trips to Ohio during the summer as I will totally agree that July & August are far more enjoyable there than here....however, the other 10 months, I will gladly take the weather here over there. It makes me laugh when I see all my facebook friends back in Ohio whining non-stop about how they are so sick of the weather (for instance when it was mid-40s and raining yesterday in the middle of spring) while it was in the low 70s here and sunny.

We didn't move just b/c of the weather, but it sure was taken into account when we decided to move out of Ohio. The main reason was job opportunities though, honestly, had we had them in NE Ohio, we probably would still be there.

[garmin239]

I've known some people to move back up north due to missing things such as skiing or other winter activities. Other people I've known that have moved strictly because of weather have stayed.....But I find these types to be rather simple minded and dull.