Okay so I moved here from Michigan. That was 2014 I think? Maybe 2015. Actually no it was 2014 because my daughter was starting kindergarten and that was the year. Anyway.
The first thing I noticed was the light. Sounds weird but in Michigan winter the light is gray. Like everything is gray. Sky gray, snow gray, buildings gray. You forget what the sun looks like. Here it’s just brighter. Even in winter. The sun hits different.
The Heat
The second thing I noticed was the heat. We moved in July like idiots. Who moves to South Carolina in July. Idiots that’s who. We pulled up to the house and I got out of the truck and I thought I was going to die. No joke. The air was so thick I couldn’t breathe. My shirt was wet in like two minutes. I looked at my wife and she looked at me and we both had the same look like what did we do.
We got through it though. You get through it. You learn to stay inside between like eleven and four. You learn to drink a ton of water. You learn that deodorant is not optional ever not even at night.
I had this friend from Chicago visit in August one time. He said he wanted to see what the heat was like. He stepped off the plane at the airport in Charleston and walked outside and just stopped. Like physically stopped walking. He turned to me and said oh my God. I said yeah. He said people live in this? I said yeah. He said why? I didn’t have a good answer honestly.
The Trade-Off
But here’s the thing. The rest of the year makes up for it. October is perfect. Like actually perfect. Seventy degrees. No humidity. You can sit outside all day. November is the same. December is still nice. January gets cold for like two weeks but then February warms up again. You get maybe six weeks of actual cold. The rest is fine.
So you suffer for three months and then you get nine months of good. That’s the trade.
Pollen
I forgot about the pollen when I first moved. March hits and everything turns yellow. Like a yellow dust covers your car your porch your driveway your dog. You wash your car and it’s yellow again an hour later. My sinuses were wrecked for like two months. I thought I had a cold that wouldn’t go away. Nope. Just pollen.
I take allergy meds now starting in February. It helps.
Cost of Living
Everyone says it’s cheap here. It used to be cheaper. It’s still cheaper than a lot of places but don’t move here thinking you’re gonna get a mansion for fifty thousand dollars. Those days are gone.
The house we bought in 2014 was one hundred forty thousand. Three bedrooms two bathrooms a yard trees. That same house now is probably three hundred. Maybe more. We got lucky with timing.
If you’re coming from New York or California you’ll still think it’s cheap. If you’re coming from Ohio or Michigan like I did it’ll feel normal but a little higher.
The Car Tax
Nobody told me about the car tax. You pay property tax on your vehicle every year. First bill came I thought it was a scam. Called the county and everything. Nope. It’s real. It goes down as your car gets older but that first year is rough. Just know it’s coming.
Power bills in summer are high. We keep our AC at seventy four during the day and seventy at night and our bill is still like two fifty in August. If you keep it colder it’ll be worse. Just budget for it.
Gas is usually cheaper than most places though so that helps.
The Food
I could talk about food all day.
The barbecue here is ridiculous. There’s a place near me that’s just a shack. Like literally a shack. Wood panels. Dirt parking lot. A guy named Bubba runs it. Best barbecue I’ve ever had. People drive an hour to eat there.
There’s also fancy places downtown that charge thirty dollars for shrimp and grits. The shrimp and grits are good don’t get me wrong. But the shack barbecue is better and cheaper and you don’t have to wear real pants.
Seafood is everywhere. If you’re near the coast it’s fresh. If you’re inland it’s still good but probably frozen at some point. That’s just how it works.
Biscuits
I didn’t know biscuits could be like this before I moved here. The biscuits up north are like hockey pucks. Here they’re fluffy and buttery and they fall apart in your hands. I ate so many biscuits my first year I gained fifteen pounds. Not even joking.
Sweet tea. If you order tea at a restaurant they bring you sweet tea. That’s just what tea means here. If you want unsweetened you have to say unsweetened tea. I drank sweet tea for like two years thinking that’s just how tea tasted down here. Then someone asked me why I was ordering sweet tea if I didn’t like sugar. I felt so dumb.
The People
When we moved in our neighbor came over with brownies. Her name is Diane. She’s like seventy something. She told us about the neighborhood who to avoid who to talk to which houses had kids. She also told us that the previous owners had a problem with raccoons in the attic which was nice to know.
People wave here. Like you’re driving down a residential street and people wave at you. I thought they were waving at someone behind me at first. Nope. They’re just waving. It’s a thing.
There’s a phrase here. Bless your heart. It can mean like ten different things depending on how they say it. Sometimes it’s nice. Sometimes it’s not nice. You learn to tell.
The Pace
The pace is slower. If you’re in a hurry all the time you’ll get annoyed. Contractors show up when they show up. Stores close early. People take their time. You either learn to slow down or you spend a lot of time being frustrated. I learned to slow down.
Bugs
Palmetto bugs. They’re cockroaches. They fly. They’re huge. They come inside when it rains. I don’t care how clean your house is you will get them.
One time I was brushing my teeth and one crawled up the drain. Just came right up out of the sink. I screamed. My wife came running in thinking I was hurt. I pointed at the sink. She looked at the bug. She looked at me. She said you’re from Michigan huh. Like that was supposed to explain why I screamed. I guess she was right though.
Fire ants are bad too. You step on a mound and they all come out and bite at once. Hurts like hell. You learn to watch where you walk in the grass.
Mosquitoes are bad near water. We have a pond behind our house so it’s rough. I keep bug spray in the truck and by the back door. If I’m going outside after like three I spray myself.
The Humidity (And What It Does to Your Stuff)
I put some boxes in the garage when we first moved. Christmas decorations. Old photos. Some winter clothes. Figured they’d be fine. Came back six months later and the boxes were soft. Like the cardboard had gone soggy. The photos were stuck together. Some of the clothes had mold spots. I was so mad at myself.
Nobody told me. I grew up in Michigan where you can throw stuff in the garage and it’s fine. Here the garage is basically like being outside. The humidity gets into everything.
Now we have climate controlled storage at our facility for exactly that reason. People move down here from up north and they don’t realize. They think their garage or their shed is fine. It’s not. Not for anything you actually care about.
We’ve got folks storing holiday decorations, furniture they’re not using yet, winter coats they only need for that one week in January, boxes of stuff from their old house they don’t know what to do with yet. Keeps it safe until they figure it out.
I wish someone had told me that when I moved. Would’ve saved me a lot of ruined stuff.
Traffic
Too many people moved here. That’s just the truth. The roads weren’t built for this many cars. Charleston is a mess during tourist season. Greenville is getting bad. Even around here you hit backups at rush hour.
You learn the backroads though. You learn what times to avoid certain intersections. You give yourself extra time.
Honestly though it’s not that bad compared to where I came from. Detroit traffic was worse. So it’s all relative.
So Should You Move Here?
If you can’t handle heat don’t. If bugs freak you out don’t. If you need things to happen exactly when you expect them to don’t.
But if you want to live somewhere where you can actually afford a house. Where people talk to you. Where you can sit outside in December. Where you can drive to the beach in two hours and the mountains in two hours. Then yeah. You’ll probably like it.
I’ve been here eleven years now? Twelve? Something like that. I complain about the summer every year. I complain about the pollen. I complain about the traffic. But I’m not leaving.
Diane still brings me brownies sometimes. I sit on my porch in the evenings. The fireflies come out. It’s quiet.
That’s worth the three months of hell if you ask me.
A Couple Things to Remember
Just don’t move here in July. Move here in October. You’ll have a better first impression.
And don’t store anything important in the garage. I’m serious about that one.
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