Retirees are moving to this quiet North Carolina beach town to avoid Florida's heat, costs, and crowds

• Northeastern retirees are opting for North Carolina over Florida for its low-key beach lifestyle.
• North Carolina has a warmer climate than the Northeast and is more accessible than Florida.
• Calabash, North Carolina, has a calmer lifestyle than some Florida cities, and is still near the beach.

Fleeing the Northeast and flying south — usually to Florida — to wait out the winter in warmer weather is a common move for snowbirds. But some retirees aren't flying quite as far south anymore for an escape.

Take Diana Cawood, who skipped Florida altogether and relocated to North Carolina from New Jersey at the end of 2019.

"Florida was not an option," Cawood told Business Insider, adding that it was important that she be in reasonable driving distance back to New Jersey to see her children and grandchildren.

"We can drive back to New Jersey in about nine hours," she said. "That's a day trip rather than a couple of days."

Cawood, 61, started looking for places five years before she retired in 2019. She knew she wanted a warmer climate than New Jersey, more favorable taxes, and a quieter life than the city provided. Wilmington, North Carolina, didn't quite fit the bill, and neither did Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Then she discovered a retirement town that's less crowded than Florida cities like Naples or Tampa and is a shorter commute back to the Northeast: Calabash, North Carolina.

The coastal town near the border of South Carolina is about 27 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach and offers a quiet, beachy lifestyle for retirees. Cawood and her husband settled on Kingfish Bay, a housing development about four miles from the nearest beach — and 569 miles from Medford Lakes, New Jersey, where they moved from. But that's still a better commute than driving home from anywhere in Florida.

Florida isn't for every retiree

Kathie Yllanes, 64, grew up on Long Island and moved to Calabash in 2017 from Raleigh, North Carolina. She's been retired for just over a year and said she travels to the Northeast about six times a year.

"Our oldest son still lives on Long Island, our grandkids are on Long Island, our daughter just moved to Boston, and we have a son who's in the Charlotte area," Yllanes told Business Insider. "Being able to get to Long Island, even though it's not easy to get there, is a lot easier than if you were in Florida."

Although the weather isn't as warm year-round in North Carolina as it is in Florida, it's still significantly warmer than in the Northeast — a plus for many retirees.

"The weather was a big factor in why we wanted to move here," Cawood said. "We love the fact that this area gives us all four seasons without the dramatic effects of winter. It gets pretty hot in the summer, but I don't know that it gets any hotter than where we were from in New Jersey. It may stay hot a little bit longer, but it's certainly not uncomfortable. But that is the reason we did not want to go to Florida, because we just didn't want to deal with that heat all the time."

Florida still is one of the better places to retire, though that depends on what you're looking for. While cities like Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg offer a lot for retirees, some lament that they've become overcrowded and expensive.

North Carolina real estate agent Darren Bouley said that not only has he seen an uptick in Northeasterners choosing the Calabash area, he's also seen "half-backs," or people originally from the Northeast who move to Florida and then move halfway back up the coast, leaving Florida for North Carolina.

"From the feedback we've been getting, Florida has lost a little bit of its allure simply because the costs have changed down there," Bouley said. "Also, the population has just gotten a little more dense than people are interested in having."

Yllanes' parents were half-backs who moved from Deerfield Beach, Florida, to Calabash, North Carolina. She said Florida wasn't for her, either.

Ex-Floridian retirees are finding a lot to like in North Carolina

The pandemic years were a boon for people moving to Florida, helping it become the fastest-growing state in 2022 thanks to its sunny weather and generally affordable cost of living. But as factors like home insurance price increases have people leaving Florida, states like North Carolina are capitalizing.

State-to-state migration data from the US Census shows nearly 40,000 people moved from Florida to North Carolina in 2023, the highest number from any state — including neighbor South Carolina.

Samuel Miller, a representative for Kingfish Bay, told Business Insider that Calabash, North Carolina's cost of living is on par with Florida's, and maybe better.

"We've had people come up from Florida to the development and particularly from the Northeast because they see the value down here, both in the housing prices and what you get for your buck," Miller said.

"When you talk of the state tax rates, for example, it's better in North Carolina than the Northeast, and that's obviously not a comparison for Florida," he added. "But in Miami, the cost of living is higher. You're going to get areas in Florida that are less expensive, but certainly the big centers are going to be more expensive. On the whole, Calabash is generally a very cost-effective place to live."

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