Dear LuvDaOcean,
I grew up in Southern California (Seal Beach/Huntington Beach) and in my opinion, Florida is a lot like SoCal was before Jerry Brown. I currently live in the Orlando area and can only speak 'Florida life' from that perspective, but it may give you some food for thought.
First, in this are, we have a lot of folks from the UK living here, so if your husband were so inclined, he could easily find a local (Real) English Pub and folks with a common background.
Traffic, horrible according to Floridians, is okay by California standards. We have our traffic jams, but mostly they are caused by accidents and not gridlock. A downside is that a lot of our major highways are toll roads, but that's offset by not having a Florida State Tax (unlike the terrific burden that California puts on its citizens).
I still own property in Southern California and I can say with some authority that while the wages in this area are noticably lower, cost of living is also considerably lower as well. Consider that during the winter months, even in Central Florida, heating is only required during a few weeks. We turn off our air conditioning long about November and we're only now just thinking about turning it back on.
An important point to consider is that if you have a screened in pool deck, you can open the doors leading outside and run fans. As you adapt, it's not as bad as those who insist upon living in 70 degree airconditioning year 'round. That screened in pool deck is out main living room. While we don't have a television out there, we have music and we enjoy sitting outside at night, temp in the mid-70's and just talking while sipping wine. For some strange reason, we find this much more enjoyable than the pap Hollywood doles out.
Finally, thanks to the turnpike running through Orlando, Kissimmee and St Cloud (where housing is still affordable), you can get to West Palm beach in about two hours - straight highway driving, car on cruise control, little stress. If you're in Lakeland, tack on another hour as the turnpike is further away. But there are a lot of us divers in Central Florida who bomb on down to various dive sites almost every weekend. So if you wanted to catch a ride, it wouldn't be a stretch.
I have had numerous offers to move back to Southern California and I've done the math. Basically, they would have to pay me at least four times my current pay to move back there and to be honest, I doubt if I would be as happy. My recommendation, jump in now or forever hold this as a dream.
Feel free to PM me if you have specific questions.
Best of Luck,
Lee
). Not as crowded as the east coast, but property values are going up. The diving is not as good here, but I'm only 2 1/2 hours from Ft. Lauderdale and 4 hours from Key Largo.
