Mr.Wrekker moved us to the Upper Peninsula of Mich. for a few years. I had 3 small children. We had a blast up there. The kids experienced snow for Christmas and learned ice skating and rudimentary skiing. I have to say I was happy to get back to Arkansas., though. Because of family, mostly.
After living just above the 41[sup]st[/sup] parallel and just below the 30[sup]th[/sup] parallel, I split the difference. 
Born in CT, educated in Boston and Chicago, moved to Raleigh in 1979.
I love it here. Of course, I married into a real southern family (tobacco farming, related to everyone, actual pig pickin’s, and so forth), so I got a little bit of an advantage. Even though I’m a Yankee myself, I have to say that my tolerance for new Yankees moving down here is even less than that of the true natives.
As for “no good money jobs,” that’s a load of crap. In a high-tech industry or have a professional skill? There are good salaries and your money will go a long way.
If you want to feel like you never left New England, buy a house in Cary.
Lived all my life in Chicago until I retired and moved to NC in 2006. It didn’t take me long to adjust to life here. I don’t miss the colder and snowier winters.
I was reminded today at the farmer’s market that Cary stands for “containment area for relocated Yankees”.
So I grew up just south of the Michigan border. Michigan was where I lived longest as an adult. There’s some bits that might surprise you.
One is just the experience of cold when you are outdoors. I spent a winter at Ft Knox which is west of Louisville, KY. It was one of the most miserable winters of my life despite being further south. Back at home the thermometer read colder. The difference was mostly between 25-30ish at home and high 30s in northern Kentucky. At home it snowed. We were getting cold rain out of some of the same fronts. Cold rain soaks in and reduces the insulation value of clothing. It sucked. It sucked a lot. It was harder to stay warm and felt a lot colder regardless of what the thermometer said.
There’s also the Great Lakes factor. The Great Lakes hold a little over a fifth of the worlds surface fresh water and 84% of the North America’s surface fresh water. That has noticeable effects on the weather patterns near them. They are giant, air temperature moderating, heatsinks. Michigan is smack dab in the middle of the Great Lakes system. The lakes mostly don’t ice over. Cold fronts typically warm significantly on the way across the respective Great Lake and pick up a lot of water. That means a lot of water to become snow but temps that aren’t as low as before the front hit the lake. Later in the winter, as ice cover increased, temps and snowfall both tend to decline. Fast moving fronts were an exception. They just didn’t have much time to transfer heat from the water. Michigan is probably warmer in winter than many might think given it’s latitude.
Yeah, in the climate sense. DinoR kind of got most of it. Michigan winters get a lot of snow, but it’s very temperate. Centex (Central Texas) in the summer is pretty warm. Nothing like Sonora, but bearable, and dry. But winter is frigid, and the wind makes it more frigid. They don’t even use salt when the roads ice, because it’s too cold for salt. That rarely happens in Michigan, where we salt liberally.
And also, I was stationed there, implying that I was in the military. In the Army, you tend to spend a lot of time outdoors: physical training, morning formation, motor pool duty, going to the field. You’ve got to dress for that crap. In Michigan, I’ll carry an emergency kit in the car, but in general, I don’t wear a coat in winter for daily life, because I’m only outside long enough to get between a car and a building. (I do love winter camping, where clearly this strategy isn’t valid.)
Lived in the US W, NE and SE. The big cultural divide is W-E, not N-S. The NE and SE have a lot more in common that either wants to admit.
One big difference I noted. As a college prof, the attitudes regarding education, esp. higher education were quite notable. Far more favorable in the NE, not so much in the SE. Teaching a bunch of “elite” students in the SE who are just trying to coast by since they didn’t care about actually learning stuff is maddening. (Vs. the NE students who were working hard to get A’s in everything. And not just faking it. Actually learning the material.)
My SIL moved from Iowa to Florida. She’s been there for years and likes it a lot.
The biggest thing I recall her commenting on is the “manana” attitude among workers in Florida. They get to things “whenever”.
Ah, yes, the varying definition of “ahorita” in Spanish.
I recently spoke to a northerner who had moved down here to be closer to her daughter. She complained that it’s always too cold indoors because everyone has the AC running all the time. :dubious:
Is Arizona “South?” I don’t consider it so, but the OP might.
I moved from the East coast (I grew up in Silver Spring, MD, worked for one year on Long Island) to Arizona in '83.
I love it out here - wide, open spaces, our worst traffic is better than the daily commute of most DC residents, inexpensive housing, people are generally friendly, good restaurants, low humidity, beautiful winters, dark skies within a 90 minute drive, lots of beautiful scenery, fitness-oriented attitude.
I miss some of the culture of the DC/NYC corridor (museums, theatre, historical sites), but that’s what vacations are for.
You were a Yooper? I was in East Lansing, in the lower part of the state, for three years. Liked it there.
We lived in East Lansing for a couple of years. I liked it.
I grew up in CT, went to college in Maine and then stayed there another 6 yrs or so. Went from there to Mi, IN, and then PA. Our first southern move was to Chattanooga, TN (though some people consider IN to be southern is). We spent 10 years there and now live near Columbia, SC.
I am a Yankee at heart, and in some respects I miss New England. I especially miss it around Christmas, because to me Christmas means frosty air, snow, icicles … real winter. It doesn’t get that cold here until the end of Jan, usually, and by that point I’m ready to be done with cold and wet. We don’t get much (if any) snow here. Winter usually means rain.
I love the warm winters, hate the hot, humid summer. I love the southerners attitude towards bad weather, which is to cancel everything and stay home. I like how friendly people are. Southern hospitality really is a thing.
I don’t like the gun culture, I don’t like how red this state is. I like that there is no deductible for replacement of car windshields. I love unsweetented corn bread and some sweet tea.
I miss New Enngalnd, but not enough to move back permanently…
From the Northeast/Midwest/Upper South to Gulf Coast Texas meant better Tex-Mex food, and air that could be cut into chunks in late spring through early fall and stored for keeping the house warm in winter.
I grew up in Chicago then moved to close to the latitude of Nashville. It’s lovely here; mild winters, good paying jobs, nice people. The last 32 years have been awesome, and I’d never move back. San Jose has really worked out for me, I love the South! 
Not sure why there is confusion with this. It’s hot outside so you dress for the weather, you then go into a place that has the a/c on full blast and you end up freezing because you’re only in a t-shirt and shorts.
It could be 95 degrees out and I need to bring a sweatshirt to some places because they keep the a/c blasting on the coldest setting possible.
My regular UPS delivery guy about 10 years ago once mentioned that he was from the Upper Peninsula, and he did a double-take when I said “You’re a Yooper!”
I have lots of friends in Michigan.
What part of the south were you in? Your driving eperience is exactly what I experienced while visiting OK City a few years ago. The 9 months spent at Ft. Knox KY and the 3 years at Ft Stewart GA taught me that people in that part of the country drive like their ass is on fire and their trying to out run the heat. Midwesterners are scary bad drivers and everywhere else is “normal”
I grew up in the Baltimore suburbs, and after being moved around by the Navy for a few years, ended up in Jacksonville, FL. One of the most striking things to me was that some people were *still *fighting the Civil War! Good grief, people, LET IT GO!!! And I always felt like so-called southern hospitality was shallow and plastic. Maybe that’s just me.
We moved back to Merrylande 15 years ago, and we now dread every trek we have to make to visit my inlaws in FL (who, BTW, were originally from Indiana.)
This is the first time I have heard the Bay Area referred to as the South in my life.