GainesLexNext?

I want to thank everyone for the tips. My long weekend to Charleston has been sidetracked a bit, but I still hope to make it down. Anyone have any opinions on the IT ( i.e software development ) market in Charleston?

Hello Everyone. I have been lurking on this board for a bit and I am hoping you guys can give me some advice. My wife, my mother, my daughter, and I will be coming to Charleston in mid April to visit/scope out Charleston. We originally are native North Central Floridians and we currently live in Lexington Ky. Well, we are Southerners at heart and although Kentucky considers itself Southern, it just isn't for us. Kentucky is beautiful and the people are kind, but we are drawn back south.Plus, my wife is not down with the winters here. We really want to move someplace closer to the coast as well. We reaaalllllyyyy miss the food. We have always found ourselves drawn to South Carolina. So, back to April....we are hoping you could help us with a few things: 1st: Can you advise us on a good public beach to visit? We want to walk the beach together and enjoy the late afternoon there. 2nd: Can you advise on a family friendly restaurant (preferably seafood) that you guys would consider a Charleston fixture? Any good local Barbecue joints we should try? 3rd: If you were only coming for a weekend, what sorts of off the beaten path things would you guys advise us on seeing? On the beaten path things? 4th: Can you offer up some advice on a reasonably priced hotel @$150.00 a night? I really appreciate any thing you guys can offer up...and mods if you want to move this thread feel free. Thanks! p.s we have visited Greenville already and the people on the Greenville board were very helpful. It was nice, but we want to be a bit closer to the coast.

I really appreciate the responses I have gotten so far. Thanks a bunch everyone. I feel like I will have some more direction this visit. Looking forward to more input.

Hello Everyone! I have been reading this forum for awhile now and I have learned a lot about the happenings in Greenville. I am hoping you guys can help me out. My family( wife and daughter ) and myself are thinking of maybe moving to the Greenville area from Lexington Kentucky. Originally, we are from Gainesville Florida, but we moved to Lexington about two years ago. Lexington is a beautiful place and the blue grass region is gorgeous but we feel we have moved a little too far from our families and my wife does not care for the winters here.Plus, we would like to live in a state that does have a coastline. We feel a little too far North but dont want to go back to Fla. We have family in Asheville, Morganton NC, Morganton Ga, and some close friends in Athens Ga as well. So we figured Greenville would be a great place that is closer to Florida, and even closer to our families in the towns above. In July, we were visiting in Asheville and made a day trip down to Greenville to check it out. Being that we had our three year old with us, we were not able to make a day of it. We did see the downtown area and it was awesome. We drove around the more historic neighborhoods that surrounded downtown. The downer for us was Googles fault. We made up a map that would take us from Greenville to Taylors ( which I am not sure we saw much of ) to Travellers Rest by the way of some routes that did the town no justice. So, my wife an I want to give it another look over labor day weekend ( our daughter is going to be with her Grandma ) and I have a few questions. 1. What areas besides downtown would you suggest that we see? 2. What is a Greenville fixture that we should visit for lunch? I.e if you were making a day trip where would you want to eat? 3. Where is most of the growth in Greenville? I was in the NorthEast section ( Rutherford rd? ) and it looked like it was missing out on re-vitalization.Also, I did notice there were some abandoned Ingles buildings coming into town on the Poinsett Highway. I believe I have read some complaints in this forum concerning those. 4. Greenville seems to be in a boom right now. When reading this forum I see stories posted all over about companies moving to the area. My question for the locals is this...How do you guys view Greenville's economy? Do you guys feel like it is becoming the future of S.C. ( so to speak )? I know this can sometimes be a negative for natives, but do you feel things are going in the right direction? 5. How is the comute from some of the surrounding towns into the city? Which surrounding towns do you guys think we should see? In Gainesville we lived in the country and in Lexington we live in the city. If we decided to move to more a rural area what areas do you guys like most? 6. How green is Greenville? The color...not green as in energy and stuff. I realize you guys have been in a serious drought and driving through town things looked brown and red ( stains from the clay ). When you guys get normal rain, what does your landscape look like? This may sound like a weird question, but it was a real shock coming from the blue grass. We are real dry here right now, but things still look pretty. Although, we have not had as bad of a drought as the Upstate and NC is having.. 7. What section of town ( and they all have them ) is chain restaraunt and mall row? This is not real crucial for us, but we are curious as to where this area is. 8. Also, how are taxes and such there? I pay a city/county occupational tax here and we pay property taxes on our cars. What sort of things tick you all off there? Anyway, I thank everyone in advance for any answers you can give and we look forward to visiting your town again this next weekend!! Also, if anyone has any question concerning Lexington let me know. As an FWI we have horse racing in town at a beautiful track in October and April. C'mon up!!