I do not like cold weather. I am thinking California or Texas.
Is the primary reason because they have close friends and/or family where they live?
Yes.
Also, a state like Texas seems like a neat change of pace, until you’re in the third consecutive month of temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s. I’m considering retiring in upstate NY to escape the heat. I can’t handle it.
That said, it appears that moving to Texas and buying a gaudy “McMansion” is all the rage with Northerners now. It’s best to buy up a few awful franchise restaurants that are 36x the size of anything you’ll find in the Northeast to complete the experience.
I did it before it was popular! 
Or because they like cold weather and snow.
people like cold weather half the year? is snow really nice for more than one month?
I like cold weather more than hot weather, especially when it is exceedingly humid. I can put on a coat and still go outside in below zero weather, but hot and humid? I am camped out in front of the air conditioner.
I was born and raised in Southern California, and I now live in New Hampshire. Yay winter!
Yes.
Mr. Athena and I both are independent consultants, working from home. We can live and work anywhere in the country. Hell, we can live anywhere in the world, assuming we have a good internet connection and we’re available for meetings during US working hours.
We choose to live in a place with Big Winters. We got about 2 feet of snow in the past 30 hours or so.
Warm climates are not the only places in the world people choose to live.
I thought most people just tolerated winter. I suppose if you had a huge home with awesome ventilation and rarely had to leave it except for groceries I could see it being nice and cozy. But, for people having to leave the house everyday…
I’ve lived in Ohio for about 12 years, and here where the climate is like Southern California’s for most of the rest of my life. If it were just a question of climate, I’d take Ohio – I returned to Australia for other reasons, and don’t like the summer weather here.
There’s a ton of people here who leave the house everyday and who would never want to live anywhere else.
Really, some people like winter. I missed it when I lived in an area that didn’t get big winters. The snow is beautiful, I can ski and snowshoe outside, and it doesn’t stop me from going anywhere I want to go because the city knows how to keep the roads passable.
Is that really so hard to understand?
While Southern California is blessed with great weather, and depending on your age, I’d think twice about California. Its dysfunctional politics have taken the state down a path to insolvency. And I see nothing on the horizon to reverse it. If you are retired and financially comfortable, it may not matter much. However, if you are younger and still need to earn a living, I’d head to Texas.
I understand the beauty of the snow. But, humans have developed a pain response to very cold or hot temperatures, which makes them want to avoid it. Ways this pain response gets quenched a lot is with alcohol. I think I could see it being nice for the people if the people drank a lot (not implying you have this habit) but otherwise, facing that coldness after being inside a warm building is sort of like taking a hot shower and walking directly out of the bathroom without anything and without drying.
You’re not going to tell me you also like cold showers too, are you?
Texas is a hole. Plus it was pretty darned cold in the winter up where I was. I’d suggest Hawaii. About as perfect a climate as anyone could find. It’s not even very humid, as the trade winds blow that away.
I have never heard this before.
You’ve never seen one of those westerns where they’re pulling a bullet out of the man’s leg and he demands the whiskey?
Cold weather’s nice if you have money to burn on sky high heating bills. Screw that. The older I get the less I care if I ever see another snowflake again.
OP, you should move to Kentucky or North Carolina. If you do Kentucky stick to the Lexington area. If you do North Carolina, stay away from the western part – pretty, but no jobs. Plus it tends to get more snow than the rest of the state.
Or … go to http://www.findyourspot.com and let them figure it out for you 
Cowboys got shot because of the weather?
I’m beginning to wonder if you’ve ever really been in a cold climate. There is no pain response to walking outside in the winter from a warm room, unless we’re talking polar climates or really bad storms. I walk outside without a coat with regularity to take the dogs out; my husband often does the same wearing shorts. There’s no pain involved for short periods of time.
Of course, wind makes a big difference with that, but even in a bad storm, you can go outside without being in pain provided you’re dressed for it. Or you just stay inside, like you do in hot climates when it’s too hot/humid to spend much time outside.
I’m really not trying to argue with you, and I get it that YOU (and a lot of other people!) don’t want to live in a cold climate. But to assert that absolutely nobody lives in a cold climate by choice or only because their jobs/families keep them here is downright wrong.
I’ll second the notion that when it’s cold outside you can always bundle up, but when it’s uncomfortably hot and humid outside there really are only so many things you can take off to try to mitigate it.
Plus with warm weather often come mosquitos, other bugs, and possibly diseases.