- I moved from upstate New York to South Carolina in 2020. Two years later, I’m returning home.
- The humidity, the huge bugs, and the strict laws of marijuana in South Carolina were not perfect for me.
- Although the South is beautiful and has a strong culture, there is nothing like New York.
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I was born and raised a New Yorker who spent most of my life in the north of the state. But at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I moved to South Carolina to catch up with my immediate family on what I thought would be a relatively short period of time.
After all, I’ve been living there for two years and I just don’t think the South is for me.
Before I moved to South Carolina, the farthest south I’ve ever lived was Las Vegas. However, that was only two years after high school, so it was a huge correction.
Now that I’m leaving South Carolina and returning to upstate New York, I’ve decided to break down some of the biggest reasons I chose to leave.
I find the strong heat and humidity unbearable
I’ll probably be scolded for being a northerner who complains about the heat, but it’s hot in here. And not in a fun, tropical way.
No, this southern heat feels as if you are experiencing the effects of real-time climate change. Unfortunately, I have a premonition that it will only get worse – and quickly.
Huntington Beach State Park, South Carolina. Shutterstock
My second summer in South Carolina was easily twice as hot as the first, which made it almost unbearable to leave the house between May and October.
And when I say unbearable, I mean. The air is so humid that I feel like someone threw a wet towel over my face as soon as I went outside.
My hair doesn’t stay in shape and my makeup doesn’t stay in place. I miss the idea of looking good in the summer instead of being a disgusting, sweaty swamp goblin.
I can’t stand the heat, so I’m leaving the proverbial kitchen.
Bugs in South Carolina are out of my category
I can handle alligators, snakes, birds, bats, lizards, turtles and frogs in the south. I even enjoy some of them.
But I can’t stand the bugs.
I’ve never been attacked by insects the way I’ve been attacked by the giant abominations I’ve seen in South Carolina. These bugs are huge. These bugs can take me down in a physical battle.
Banana spider in Kongari National Park in South Carolina. ShutterStock
In South Carolina, I came across banana spiders, crickets, palm trees, centipedes and centipedes, to name a few.
These scary, alien-looking creatures love to do things like dive to bombard my face when I’m out trying to do my job.
As someone who has lived in both New York and South Carolina, I would fight a rat on the subway every day for these bugs.
The transition from blue to red was rough
I grew up in a diverse, progressive city in New York, a state that usually votes for a Democrat in elections.
So moving to a country run mostly by Republican officials, many of whom have political views and morals with whom I strongly disagree, was a bit of a culture shock.
Although the staggering amount of racism and white supremacy is disguised as “Southern Pride,” I have learned that there are vast parts of the region that are beautifully diverse and desperately underrepresented.
And as I spent more time in South Carolina, I realized that its mostly conservative elected officials were not necessarily representative of all the people who live here.
I want to be able to buy weed that is still illegal in many southern states
New York legalizes grass for recreational use in 2021. Peter Daisley
It sucks to be a destroyer in a country where cannabis is illegal.
New York has finally legalized recreational marijuana in 2021 after spending its sweet time. Unfortunately, many progressive cannabis laws are still lacking in many southern states.
I didn’t even mind driving to a neighboring state to buy weed, but that wasn’t an option. Marijuana is generally illegal in all three of them: North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.
Laws against buying, selling and owning marijuana in some southern states are harsh. I find them morally regressive and unjust, as they disproportionately affect people of color. And I don’t want to live in a country that imposes them.
In South Carolina, I can still legally buy Delta-8 THC, a cannabis compound that gives me a “high” but falls into the legal loophole in the United States.
This is a great start, but I would still like to see cannabis legalized for medical and recreational use throughout the South.
I lack access to various vegan foods
The vegan food I loved in New York was hard to find where I lived in South Carolina. Shutterstock
It is important to advance my thesis by saying that access to vegan food depends entirely on where a person lives in the south.
I don’t want to paint the whole region as a huge desert with vegan food, because there is a lot of amazing southern vegan food that deserves recognition. But if you want access to this vegan food, you usually have to be in a big city like Atlanta, which has amazing vegan options like The Slutty Vegan and Vegetable Pizzeria.
If you’re a vegan moving to a small southern town like me, you’re probably out of luck.
My family’s home wasn’t as rustic as down here, but there weren’t many vegan options nearby.
I prepared all my meals from home, which is good, but I missed the luxury of being able to order a delivery of a vegan breakfast sandwich at the hangover on Saturday morning.
In this respect, there really is no place like New York
Walking through the Adirondack Mountains is the highlight of autumn in the northern part of the state. Shutterstock
New York State is one of the most topographically, ecologically and anthropologically diverse places in the world.
People complain about the harsh winters in the area, but they are a small price to pay for a breathtaking fall.
The Adirondaxes erupted in vivid flashes of red, orange, yellow, and purple. The smell of the autumn air in New York is the closest thing to the real magic I’ve ever felt, which sounds dramatic, but if you know, you know.
The south is also beautiful; I will not pretend it is not.
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