Well, first, we are headed towards the 70 age mark. I retired on SS when I was 62, but my wife is still working a full-time job. Thank the Lord, her job is only 7 miles from our apartment.
We moved here to Jacksonville in January 2009. The biggest attraction for us was the amount of water (St John's River and Intracoastal) for boating. We've been on the St. John's River a number of times, but only once on the Intracoastal and never on the ocean. Anyway, Before Jax, we had lived for a year in Huntersville, NC. Wife got laid off of her job there and 90% of the jobs I qualified for were in south Charlotte......just too far to bdrive for me. Before Huntersville, we lived south of Denver, CO for 5 1/2 years. First, an apartment, then bought a house. We sold the house when we left.
After first moving here, we pretty much fell in love with Jax and the weather here, but that has changed. When there are t-storms in Jax, they are definitely t-storms with lots of lightning. Since living here, we've been thru two Tropical Storms (one, lost of rain, the other, lots of wind) and two hurricanes (Mathew 2016 and Irma 2017). Lost power for 40 hrs. w/Irma, nothing with Mathew.
Winter months here in Jax can be awfully cold, like high of 45 for the day. We've seen an overnight low of 24. Never would we ever thought it would get that cold here, but Jax is in northeastern Florida. The Panhandle and northern parts of Florida get pretty dang cold at times. We've had to use the Ice Scrapper, we had from Colorado, to get frost and some ice off of windshields. Yes, it does get THAT cold! There are folks here that love it that cold, but many of them aren't Seniors.
Very little Spring months here. Summer months are two words..........hot and humid. End of that story. Just those two things can force some folks to move out or not move here at all.
As for gators, they don't come up to your back door and wait to eat you, like we were told when we left Huntersville, NC.. Since moving here in 2009, we've seen one "teenage" size gator near a retention pond by a boat ramp. He/she just sit there and looked at everyone, like saying, "go ahead, take my photo". And, I did. A number of gators do sometimes hang out near small lakes at golf courses, but golfers just ignore them.
Bugs and Lizards: Oh yes, got bugs and some of them are the cousin of the coach roach with the name of Palmetto bugs. They definitely look like a coach roach, but aren't. They can be as big as a person's thumb. Have Gecko lizards all over the place. For "newbees" to Florida, these two can freak them out. "I pay this much for rent (or mortgage) and have coach roaches??" some folks will say. There not coach roaches, but they sure look like them.
Boating (for us, since we did buy a 20' cuddy cabin boat here, after moving here)...........what saltwater and brackish water will do to an engine and/or outdrive can be pretty costly. And, we did end up paying the price for a repair on both. Colorado waters are all freshwater and navigating them is much easier than navigating any waterway here. Want to know anymore about boating here, just ask.
So, how do we feel about Jacksonville and/or Florida, in general...........making plans on moving back to beautiful Colorado! We miss RMNP and big rake Bull Elk, rodeo action and a number of other things that aren't here in Jax. We know about the winters, but, when living in any area, got to "take the good with the bad". The boating there is much, much better (for us, anyway) than here. The population of Jax is close to 1 million, while the town we are looking to move to in northern Colorado is 70,000. We are definitely not "big city" type people, but have to be where the nice salaries are. Wife will retire before leaving here and there we both might get a part-time job.
Bottom-Line: Jacksonville and Florida itself is fine for many and many love living here. Then again, there are those that would definitely like to move from here, but due to family or finances, just can't. Then, there are those that move here, like we did, and find out they don't like it and move out. IOW, we don't make good Flordians or Southern people. Heck, I'm a former farm-boy from Indiana and wife is from outside Detroit, Michigan. I spent many years in pro-rodeo/Team Roping.
What I'm telling you in this reply is 100% true, no matter what anyone who loves living here in Jax or Florida says. Also, one last thing, the crime/homicide thing in Jax is pretty high, but only in certain areas. Only one week into the New Year and homicides are already happening.