Florida

Tampa area, to be specific. Honestly, I love it here. If I were moving here now, I'd definitely rent, probably somewhere in or around Lakeland in the middle of the state. Homeowners insurance can be someone else's nightmare. A 3/2 here in a nice area is $1800-2k/mo. Same for a condo if you don't want to ever mow anything. Plus, renting lets you pack up and move elsewhere in the state if you're not happy with the locale. I'd stay away from Miami. Miami is like that drunk friend. You know they're a lot of fun, but nothing good is going to come of you hanging out together.

That said, where you want to live depends on what you want to do. You mentioned the Keys, not sure if it's the lifestyle or the proximity to the ocean. You have to stay prepared, as hurricane (hype) season starts in like February now. Yeah, the weather folks on the tv like to keep the folks good 'n scared almost year round at this point. No state income tax. Not sure if that matters to you folks.

Of course there's endless stuff to do here for entertainment. For example, here, we've got the beach 30 minutes away. More theme parks within an hour than I care to think about at this point. Golf courses, parks, markets, bars, all the usual stuff. We have great sports teams like the Lightning and the Rays. We also have the Buccaneers (they try really hard). Baseball spring training is all over the place. Plus, it's right in the middle, so everything else in the state is either a day trip or a nice weekend.

Downsides? Oh baby, you bet. It IS hot, but you get used to it over time. The drivers here suck. I mean not like Jersey suck, but really suck. This naturally makes traffic a problem (actually, that's more a population problem, but whatever). The politics are terrible, as the entire place is gerrymandered all to hell, and the stupid voters currently outnumber everyone else. There are gators, like really big ones, in every body of water that isn't chlorinated. Oh, and back to the weather. It can be absolutely pouring in one side of a street while the other side is completely dry. It will pour for 20 minutes, dropping an amazing amount of rain, then back to a beautiful day. With that rain comes local street flooding, because our politicians will let anyone pave and build, but won't touch infrastructure. Someone above mentioned palmetto bugs. I'll let you google that. Or DuckDuckGo that. Whatever we're not boycotting today.

If you want any other opinions or info, you're welcome to message me.

Good luck with your decision!