JoeSki, I agree that a change of scenery would do you good. Maybe a nice, friendly college in the Pacific Northwest would be nice. If you’re unhappy you should definitely get out. You might also want to check into counseling if you really feel that way about your family.
May I inquire as to where in of Florida you’ve been residing? I’ve not seen that much pollution in the areas I’ve been in; maybe I’ve not been looking closely enough.
And you can pay me to be your friend if you want. 
flips you a quarter 
I was half joking about the statement about florida sinking. I love my family, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to them, but I would love it if Florida just sunk right into the ocean the moment I reached Georgia. I wouldn’t mind moving to the northwest. Oregon would be nice. I’ve heard nothing but good things about that place, and the freshwater fishing is supposed to be great. I’d really like to move to Denver. I lived there for a little while once and loved it. The mountains were always a pleasant view.
I live in Brevard, one hour away from Orlando, and close enough to the Spacecenter that when the rockets and shuttles go off, we can see them, and the sound even rattles our windows, sometimes even wakes us up. I can understand why other people might not notice the pollution. When I was a kid, I would go out looking for snakes and lizards and animals all the time. Daily even. The amount of garbage kinda stuck out when you had to rummage through it to look for critters. And as I said before, many creeks that used to be full of fish and whatnot are now clogged with crap. Unless you’ve lived by those creeks, you might not even notice the decline of life in them. Also, I did a lot of walking, and tended to look down while I went from place to place so I did notice a bit more than other people might. Eventualy my bad posture caused a small hump to form on my back :-/.
Hmmm. Could be that the pollution isn’t as bad on the other side, we don’t get quite as many expatriate New Yorkers and New Jerseyites as you do over there. It’s not that there hasn’t been any, I just don’t think it’s been as dramatic as you’ve got. Certainly just with the sheer numbers of people that have come to the area it’s going to go downhill a bit. But I would certainly swim in and eat fish that come from the Tampa Bay shoals. Probably also helps that there is no real heavy industry in the area.
I remember when I was about your age, I also felt that I really just needed to get out of there. I think long exposure to Florida can do that to you. I once went almost ten years without ever leaving the state. And you really need to drive about to Atlanta to start to get significantly different terrain, a little farther for mountains. You’re young, get out, see the world, it will give you a better perspective. Oh course there are jerks everywhere.
Oh, and for a quarter you get two smiles.
ShibbOleth I’ll see your two smiles and throw in a 
for JoeSki.
We are looking for a smaller town not too far from city. I like to have peace and quiet, but I also love to shop.
Does anyone live in Miami? I have watched a few episodes of CSI Miami and am intrigued by the look of it in all the aerial shots. Surely the traffic can’t flow as well as it seems to on that show - whenever they show major roads the traffic is pretty sparse.
And is everyone in Florida an author? Off the top of my head I know that Carl Hiassen, Charles Willeford, Thomas Harris, Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard, Michael Connelly, John Dos Passos, Ed McBain and of course Ernest Hemingway live or have lived there.
I’m a new Englander at heart, but we had the coldest January in 133 years! Damn, that was awful. I’d consider moving to Florida, just to escape winter. But i hear summers are brutal…do you eventually get used to them?
I don’t think it’s so much that the summers are brutal (it gets hotter and more humid in the Midwest), it’s how long they last. Summer can start as early as March and last until November, some years. Note that my data is for the Tampa Bay area and it’s going to vary by how far north/south you are in the state (it’s a long state, close to 447 miles north to south, although not very wide) and how far inland you are.
Wow, this many posts, and no one even mentioned the retirees? Love them or hate them, it’s definitely something that should be mentioned.
The oldest people in the world live in St. Petersburg; their parents live in Clearwater.
Not as true as it once was, but the demographic definitely still tilts that way. Downtown St. Pete used to be all people with blue or white hair sitting around on park benches. Now it’s a pretty hip, vibrant place. I think that all of the old people are now out driving on US 19…
Has anyone else noticed that this here state is kind of a cultural wasteland? Or maybe that’s just Gainesville…
I would have to reccomend Mount. Dora . It’s a very nice looking place on top of a giant hill, full of all kinds of small privately owned clothing, ice cream, and toy shops. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a playground and a beatifull lake. It’s all very quant, and somehow the town manages to reach some sort of Disney vibe. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but then entire time I was there it felt like I was in a theme park. Maybe it was because we visited them while a festival was taking place. Also, it’s just 25 miles away from Orlando.
As a product of the Pinellas County school system, I would like to say that it is not as dire as Shibb says. Every district has low-ranking schools, but Pinellas also has some excellent schools with involved teachers. Even in the “southern end of the county”. In addition, the magnets are largely not centered on the underperforming schools any more. The magnet high school (Lakewood, home of the Center for Advanced Technologies) I graduated from has had its program for 14 years, as have St Pete High (IB) and Gibbs High (Pinellas County Center for the Arts). The newer magnets are at some of the elementary schools, but by no means are they all underperforming schools. Also, there is at least one magnet school in the north end of the county – Palm Harbor University High School – offering an IB curriculum.
Nvme77, you will probably like Pinellas County. I live in Pinellas Park (about 15 minutes from LouisB, probably), which is more or less centered on the population base in the county, and even though I do want to move away from here post-college, I have to say that it’s a perfectly fine place to live and to raise a family. It’s done for my family for 23 years.
I don’t know where your offer is, but I can tell you some generalities about this area, if you want. Echoing what the others said, Florida is really like several states in one – each major metro area is significantly different from each other and from the rural areas. Any questions specific to Pinellas, I can probably answer, so ask away.
BTW, the bugs aren’t so terrible. I mean, every state has 4 inch cockroaches with wings and mole crickets and giant grasshoppers and 15 kinds of ants, chiggers, fleas, and mosquitoes, right?
I found public schools in Tallahassee to be overcrowded and packed like sardines. When I was there (I moved away in '98), 3 of the 4 major high schools were capped beyond capacity. They literally shved people in. The buses were standng room only after the 2nd stop. The classrooms were 35+. Electives were all but canceled due to lack of funding.
I hear it got better after they opened the new school out in Kilearn, but I don’t believe that until I see it…
Generally speaking though, it’s a good place to live. Tallahassee was beautiful. I’ll probably go back eventually
I spent five years living full-time in Florida after visiting regularly for five years before that. I lived on Sanibel Island (hence the name), on the Southwest Florida coast. I moved to St. Louis for college in 2002. And if I can swing it, I’ll never go back.
As a student, I found nothing to love in SW Florida. I hate the traffic, I hate the tourists, I hate the lack of cultural activities, I hate how everything’s spread out, I hate the ignorance and I don’t even care for the beach. I spent some of the most stressful years of my life there, and that’s probably colored my view. But there are so many advantages to living in St. Louis, at least for a college student.
My university is in a nice suburb and within walking distance to many shops and restaurants. FGCU, the university in Lee County, Florida, is surrounded by million-dollar golf course mansions and the nearest restaurant is McDonald’s, which you’d still have to drive to. I live off-campus but can be at my university in about 10 minutes. Living on Sanibel meant driving across a three-mile causeway every morning and afternoon, and inevitably I’d end up behind some tourist who saw a dolphin off of one side and decided to follow it at 20 miles an hour. When you finally get off the island, you drive on all divided highways and go from 0 to 60 to 0 and back, over and over again, constantly trying to pass and fearing being rear-ended when you don’t run the light like the guy behind you wants you to do. Driving in Florida is the most stressful experience you’ll have. And South Florida - Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, etc. - is ten times worse.
There’s not much for professionals to do either. It’s all right for families, if you’re willing to live in boring suburbs filled with bored teens whose idea of entertainment is removing your mailbox at 40 miles an hour with a baseball bat. (Please note this wasn’t MY idea of entertainment.) The schools, as mentioned by others, are crappy. There are very few entertainment or cultural opportunities - you’ll see those same bored teens at the only multiplex for miles around, talking during the movies and throwing popcorn, and God forbid you should decide to see an independent or foreign film - you won’t find it at the Bell Tower, Fort Myers’ only multiplex and only real movie theater. Local theaters put on a few good productions, and every year Carrot Top drops by to entertain sold-out crowds - I think that should tell you something right there.
I’m sure I’ve missed some aspects - I skipped the special insects, for example - but I think you get the idea. And if I haven’t dissuaded you from moving to The Sunshine State, and you should decide to settle in SW Florida, please feel free to e-mail me with any questions you might have. You might even get more facts than opinion.
Gah! That’s another thing I hate! Where I live, the traffic lights aren’t sycronized like they are in every other part of the country. Most places, you catch a green light, every light you pass will be green from that point on. But not in Brevard, oh no. If you catch a green light, the next light has a 50/50 chance of being red, and the light after that has about a 70% of being red (and after that, you can bet your ass the next light will be red). As a matter of fact, the only way to drive down a road without stopping at a red light is to speed…and when you do this, you get speeding tickets, and that’s how they get your money. Damn local government. It’s frusterating as hell not being able to just drive down one road without stopping every 10 feet. Ugh. SanibelMan , you have a friend in hating florida .
JoeSKi, you probably visited Mount Dora during its annual art festival, which draws a lot of crowds. Aside from that, it’s always seemed like a sleepy litle town to me.
I’ve always been fond of Ocala, but that’s largely because it is horse country up there. You can definetly find some isolated neighborhoods in that area.
There are several new and developing neighborhoods around the Sanford/Longwood area that are nice (all in Seminole County). Unfortunately, many roads (SR 46) are being slated for widening. Chalk it up to Orlando sprawl. I remember seeing orange groves all the time in central florida; now they’re all subdivisions.
Someone mentioned the retired folk - yes, there’s a bunch of them down south. You’ll also be exposed to the “snowbird” phenomenon, in which retirees come to live in Florida only during the winter months. The entire dynamic of a town will change, not to mention the traffic patterns.