I'm a native Floridian who left after 60 years. The high prices, traffic, and bad weather made it unlivable.

• Native Floridian Kimberly Jones said her state has become unrecognizable.
• Lots of construction, traffic, and higher costs made Jones feel no longer at home.
• In 2025, she and her husband moved to a small town in North Carolina, where she's happier.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kimberly Jones, a 60-year-old native Floridian who moved to North Carolina in 2025. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

I was born and raised in Miami and spent my entire life living in South Florida. But last year, my husband and I moved to North Carolina, and it wasn't an easy decision.

Our reasons for moving were multifaceted. A major factor was affordability; the cost of living in Florida had gotten out of control. Prices increased for everything — homeowners' and auto insurance, and even for everyday expenses like groceries and eating out. Those costs felt particularly high in South Florida compared with other parts of the state.

Another reason was that South Florida feels overly developed. If there's a corner available, they'll build a high-rise on it. It's turned into a congested, expensive city. I used to spend 2.5 hours a day commuting to and from work.

Beyond affordability and congestion, my husband and I were also looking forward to a slower pace of life.

My children are still in Florida, along with the rest of my family, my friends, and the life I'd always known. For us to leave, it was a big deal.

I hardly recognize Florida anymore

South Florida is nothing like what it used to be.

When I passed another cluster of cranes and new buildings going up, I would always think: who's living in all of these places, especially at these prices? It's not the people who actually keep the city running. Not the teachers, the grocery store workers, or the hospitality workers.

These days, even young adults with a college degree and a decent job are having a hard time affording to live here unless they have a partner to help pay half the bills.

My kids are single and already out of college. My daughter works two jobs to keep up with expenses, and my son also has a secondary income.

My daughter managed to buy a condo a few years ago, when prices were lower, and interest rates were still low. But my son has little chance of buying anytime soon; he'll be renting for the near future, like most of his friends — most of my friends talk about the same thing with their kids.

I grew up in Florida, so seeing what's happened is surreal. It's just sad to watch that kind of change. Buildings just keep going up and up; they're even trying to push farther into the Everglades. It feels like they're displacing wildlife and disrupting the ecosystem.

And then there's the question of infrastructure — what are they doing to support all of this growth?

My quality of life has improved since moving to North Carolina

In January and February, there's no better place to be than South Florida. But the other months of the year, the heat and the humidity were just brutal. You couldn't leave your house, and your AC never shut off.

We wanted better weather, but my husband and I didn't want to go somewhere far, like the Northeast. Many Floridian transplants are moving to Southern states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.

We chose to move to North Carolina.

My husband retired a few years ago, and I was able to transition to remote work. We live in a small rural town about an hour from Charlotte. We love its slower pace of life and the fact that people are very nice up here.

My husband and I custom-built a lakefront home on 1.5 acres of land we bought in the town 20 years ago. There's no way we could have afforded this quality of a home in Florida.

Living in North Carolina does have its give-and-takes. For one, there's a state income tax, which Florida doesn't have. Still, sales tax is pretty much the same in both states, and overall, the cost of everything else here is much lower than in Florida. We've been saving money on home insurance. Even grocery stores and restaurants are more affordable.

My quality of life — my stress level, everything — has improved tremendously just from being out of what felt like a rat race.

A lot of my friends have already left Florida, and the ones who haven't want to, but they're stuck for different reasons, like owning a business. I think my husband and I are really lucky our timing worked out.