I just moved to Ocean Springs, MS from Los Gatos, CA. We have been looking for about a year, this is the place that checked the most boxes for us. Most places we were looking at either had terrible schools (Alaska, apart from like 3 magnet schools) or were very remote (Islesboro, ME) Very happy I got out of CA before PG&E killed my family (we had a fire break out in June about 100 meters from my front door, if it had been windy we had 0 chance of escape as it would have blocked all the roads to our house. This forces us to bite the bullet and make the move, and Ocean Springs was top of our list).
Great schools, very progressive area (at least for MS). No homeless people leaving needles in the streets or throwing poop at me. Quite humid! 5Gb/s fiber to my house from multiple competing providers. Paid way way way below $1M (way below $500k lol) for 2500sft house with a huge yard, walking distance to the gulf of mexico (and a nice beach area) and about a mile from dozens of downtown restaurants. 10 minute drive to Biloxi and casinos and other nightlife. I have lost count of the number of people who have gone down my street on bikes or jogging (or on golf carts, which are street legal here). Gulf Islands National Seashore's entrance is less than half a mile away.
I also moved to a beach town for remote work (albeit one I had deep family ties to). I love it here, and I had to accept higher risk of natural disaster by making this move.
That being said, I would not have wanted to move to the gulf, and certainly not that part of it. Lake Charles got hit by multiple strong hurricanes in 2020, and I drove through a few weeks ago and they’re still covered in tarps and boarded up windows. Look at all the blue roofs on Google Maps! And then compare the distance of Lake Charles and Ocean Springs from the gulf.
Edit: To clarify, I’m sure you know this already. You can’t live there for long and not know. The above is more for the benefit of others who might read your post and not realize the extreme danger posed by rapidly developing, strong hurricanes in the gulf.
I'm aware of the chances of hurricane. However, I came from the Santa Cruz mountains, where I could have woken up minutes before my death due to wind driven fires, which PG&E loves to start. https://www.businessinsider.com/pge-caused-california-wildfi...
A house is just a bunch of stuff, and I have insurance up to the gills. I won't be in the house when the hurricane hits (hurricanes give you hours or days of warning, a wind driven fire might not give you any, an earthquake doesn't give you any), and I sleep a lot better knowing my kids won't burn in their beds.
Well not too much yet, but my kids are begging me to go because they want to go to the mall there. It's about 1.5 hour drive, which seems like a long trip, but my commute to SF was longer than that (each way) via Caltrain so it's not really that bad I guess.
Great schools, very progressive area (at least for MS). No homeless people leaving needles in the streets or throwing poop at me. Quite humid! 5Gb/s fiber to my house from multiple competing providers. Paid way way way below $1M (way below $500k lol) for 2500sft house with a huge yard, walking distance to the gulf of mexico (and a nice beach area) and about a mile from dozens of downtown restaurants. 10 minute drive to Biloxi and casinos and other nightlife. I have lost count of the number of people who have gone down my street on bikes or jogging (or on golf carts, which are street legal here). Gulf Islands National Seashore's entrance is less than half a mile away.