They Say You Can Never Go Back
 

What do you miss about your northern home state compared to living in Florida?
I think living in Florida is great at my age, but there are times I reminisce after 7 years down here.
We travel back, but it just isn't the same.

For me it has to be the 4 seasons, not the snow and cold, but the change in weather, the fall colors that never seem to last long enough.
The farm fields in summer watching the crops progress from month to month, or the smell of freshly cut hay and miles of corn fields.

I return up north spring thru fall. It's the food hard to find great pizza, good Deli’s (German, Italian, Kosher and Polish), Chinese, fresh seafood all that has been discussed already.

Food, Broadway Shows and city Department Stores.

The 20 acres we owned and a few hundred acres of woods that adjoined it.

For me - motherhood and apple pie !

i don't miss anything but the people i knew. we tried visiting 2 years ago for 5 days, & i couldn't wait to get back here

We have been in Florida since 1996 and here in the Villages since June or so of 2005. So, Florida is home.

Rohnert Park, CA; Reno, NV; Scottsdale, AZ; Itasca, IL; Belmont, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Denver, CO; Menomonee Falls, WI; and Provo, UT would all seem quite different now.

And I have run into people here in the Villages from every one of those places. Or, at least, while in Palm Harbor, FL.

What "northern state", LOL ! Left Florida once for college, twice more to grad school, was really tough me. I definitely understand your fleeting yearning from time to time. When I did leave Florida for school, I really REALLY missed Florida, the smell of fresh cut hay at our cousin's farm in Weirsdale, the sweet smell of the orange blossoms, the beautiful trees turning in fall in the national forest, just the sound of the waves lapping the shore and smell of the fresh ocean air. I'm sure we all pine for the sights, sounds, and even smells of our "home states". Oh, maybe most of all I missed HONEYBELLS, they seldom are available outside Florida unless you order from a specialty grove, never saw a single one in a regular super market in Champaign, IL (University of Illinois) or anywhere outside Florida ! I've visited Alaska a few times, I can even understand how you could miss it that far north if that was where you grew up. I'm sure mountain state people would miss that if they moved to Florida... Arizona might be a better choice for their retirement; mountains AND warmth, LOL !

Against my better judgement, I went to a reunion meet about 5 years ago to where I was raised. What I noticed the most, was the people who I remembered, and were still around, had got so old, and lived and acted so old.
No future but the Grim Reaper in nearly all of them. No looking forward.
Really depressed and shook me. Will never go back again.
I bl**dy hate 'old' people!:mad:

I've lived here in the TV for 10 years and it does have its advantages. Safety, people of the same age, convinces to doctors and overall cleanliness. I'm a native of N.Y.C. where there were a lot of disadvantages especially for people my age. Now that I said that I do miss the diversity and the quality of food, the theatre, the museums, the ability to disappear into the crowed without following some preplanned activity. When they say N.Y.C. is a city that never sleeps, it's actually true.

I miss the restaurants and sub/pizza shops up north as others have mentioned.

Not living in yourassic park
 

not having to look over my shoulder more than the sopranos crew. Up north they would go the way of the buffalo.
Ir en pedazos !

Who says "you can never go back"? Having a northern home is the way to go for many of us here. It's more expensive to run 2 homes, but for me who hates extreme weather, it's part of retirement 'heaven'.

exactly, you get the best of both worlds


,you just have to be able to afford it, some villages can’t

Winter is coming
 

me either