[wickedtravelah]

Originally Posted by Smokienorm

My wife and I moved to Gilford (pop. 7,000) last year after spending the last 40 years in South Florida. I was born and raised in Tampa. Although we had been coming to the Lakes Region for about 30 years, and owned a vacation condo on the big Lake for 8 years, we finally broke the chains with Florida and moved here permanently into a house in Gunstock Acres with a great view of the Lake. Yes, the property taxes are high, and yes there is a tax on dividends and interest income, and a sales tax on restaurant meals and hotel rooms, but . . . no general sales tax, no personal income tax, no estate tax, and all of our insurance costs dropped significantly (auto, homeowners, medigap, etc.). The NH people are generally much more pleasant, and the drivers (at least those with NH plates) are much more courteous than those in Florida. Construction and renovation costs for highly qualified and skilled workers who actually show up when they promise to do so are much more reasonable than in Florida. NH has a much longer and more distinguished history pre-dating the Revolutionary War, and there are numerous interesting places to visit in the state. As far as healthcare, we had heard the stories generally trashing the quality in the Lakes Region, but we have actually found a good number of excellent specialists and I have had excellent care with surgeries at Concord Hospital and Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Lebanon. We hired someone to plow our driveway and we bought a snow blower to do the edges, and this is our second full winter here. As far as I am concerned, I never want to leave New Hampshire.

Very well stated & accurate!