I prefer Florida. I've hiked many mountains in the AZ summer heat and it is stifling. At least here in Florida, there is usually a slight to moderate warm breeze to go with the heat. No such breeze in AZ.

We had some heat, some humidity but quite some huge mosquitoes in Minneapolis during the Summers of 1986 (late) through 1991. I think the joke goes is that mosquitoes are the State Bird of Minnesota.

I have very dry skin so prefer the humidity.

Ah perfect question for me as I just moved from the Phoenix area to The Villages. The biggest difference here in TV for me is that the temp is in the 70's in the morning until about 8 or 9am. I can go on really long walks here, even with the humidity. In Arizona, the temp is already in the high 80's at 6am and by 8am the temp is in the high 90's and will go over 100 95% of days in the summer. I used to play pickleball at 6am (getting up at 4:30am) and be done with pickleball by 8am. By then the temp was too hot to do anything outside and I would sit around the house too much. The backyard artificial grass was way too hot for the dogs paws to do their business (we weren't allowed real grass in our yards at PebbleCreek). And the sun being out constantly with no cloud cover absolutely killed me. I had gotten heat stroke twice in AZ. The fact Florida has a lot of cloud cover plus an almost daily rain storm in the summer is a plus as that keeps the temp down

So yes while I don't love humidity, my body seems to be adapting to Florida way easier than Arizona. In fact, I adapted quicker than I thought I would. My skin feels so much better here - in AZ the air was so dry that I would develop cracks in my skin, especially around the knuckles. My skin healed up in less than a month here. And sure I feel wet and sweaty when I am outside in the afternoon here, but that is okay with me as I didn't sweat enough in AZ (which possibly made it more likely for me to get heat stroke). Florida is by no means perfect, but it is better for me than Arizona.

Cindy

Where we lived in SoCal before moving here we didn’t have the FL cockroaches of course but there were other types, and we didn’t have fire ants (these guys have attacked me twice now, not fun!), and definitely no armadillos and alligators. We did however have an abundance of all of the other creatures mentioned plus mountain lions, too many raccoons, and far too many rats, which kept our outdoor feral cats very busy.

While I personally would choose SoCal’s summer weather over Florida’s any day, I would never choose AZ desert heat. Our kids asked us why we didn’t choose AZ over FL when looking for a retirement community since it was so much closer to them in SoCal, and we told them we’d never survive 115-120 temps for months at a time, not to mention the barren desert landscape. Plus, more importantly there is no Villages in AZ or anywhere else for that matter. We wanted the Villages lifestyle despite the summer weather that comes with it. Hubby grew up in MI so he’s adapting better than me to the humidity, but I, as a native Californian, am taking longer to get used to it.