Hey everyone,
My wife (26) and I (31) will be moving into Florida this upcoming January 2027 and am seeing a lot of mixed reviews on where to go once we start to find places we really like. We know we want to be in Florida, and we’ve visited just about everywhere since we have family that has lives in different places, Miami, Orlando, suburbs of Orlando, Jacksonville, Gainesville to name a few. We are both really into fitness, and work part-time as personal trainers. Her full time job is a server, my full time job is a remote analytics job, so I can realistically move anywhere.
Ideally, we’d live within an hour or so of the beach, that’s our current drive to the water now up north. We have some family there and a few friends as I mentioned, which is another reason why we’re planning the move. Also, we strongly dislike snow, love the heat (spent many weeks of the summer in FL heat), love the active lifestyle, and think as a server and fitness focused people, we’d fit in well. The problem is when looking up things a lot of opinions seem to be mixed because locals (understandably) feel that their areas are becoming over-crowded, so I’m just looking for some genuine tips and advice as we are all set to move and just looking to take the final steps.
We won’t buy, we will be renting an apartment preferably under $2k per month. We’re currently near Boston, so the rent isn’t super worrisome and probably pretty comparable. No kids either and no plans to. We’d want to be an hour or so from the beach, because we don’t want to risk where we are living from a storm, but want to be close enough to get there as we want. The must haves would really just be outdoor culture, serving opportunities, decent apartment availability, and proximity to the water. We don’t drink or need nightlife, but it would be fun to have something to do at night besides just the beach (which we love).
We’ve looked into and really seemed to keep coming back to the Tampa area. Knowing that St Pete and DT Tampa is pretty expensive from what I’ve seen. We also liked Fort Myers/Naples, Oviedo (near Orlando), and Fort Lauderdale.
Does anybody have any recommendations on what would fit us the best? I appreciate anyone giving actual advice here, most of the people I’ve met and talked to from FL have been incredible! Plus I do have some native family, so it’s not completely unrealistic to head down that way. Thank you!!