Sunshine. Sandy beaches. Sunny winter days along the ocean or the Gulf. Florida is a paradise for many from South Florida to the Panhandle, the Keys to the First Coast. Whatever your jam, Florida has a city, suburb, amusement park or beach for you.
There are 33 cities in Florida with over 90,000 residents. Some are filled with tanned beachcombers, some with military pilots and some with costumed-character actors. But which city in Florida is best for you and your budget? Here are the 12 best places to live in Florida in 2022.
Marketing always helps. Boca Raton sounds like a much better place than “Mouth of the Mouse," the literal translation of the city's name. Boca has a reputation as one of Palm Beach County's best places to live. Situated about halfway between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, it features four miles of oceanfront, half of which is beach. And to that end, the city is one of the wealthiest cities in Florida.
Red Reef Park, South Inlet Park and Spanish River Park are the main accessible beaches in Boca. The three sit along Boca's two barrier islands. Adjacent to Red Reef is the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. While tourism is the most important industry, Boca Raton is also home to Office Depot's world headquarters. And a couple of miles inland is Florida Atlantic University.
Close to the waterfront is Mizner Park, named for the prominent architect who helped design the town. The downtown development is an upscale residential, shopping, dining and entertainment district. A bit farther inland is the high-end Town Center Mall — one of the largest in South Florida.
Life is good in Clearwater. Halfway down the Pinellas Peninsula, the popular beachside town sits in the neck between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. More than a resort, Clearwater is a key bedroom community for commuters to both Tampa to the east and St. Petersburg to the south. It's also a key Major League Baseball spring training site. The Philadelphia Phillies have called Clearwater home since 1947. That's the longest team and city association in the National League.
Unlike Miami and Miami Beach, Clearwater Beach is part of the city of Clearwater. It's separated from the city by the western Intracoastal Waterway over the Clearwater Causeway. The barrier island includes 2.5 miles of Gulf beach and features an array of hotels, homes on waterway inlets, a busy marina and entertainment at Pier 60.
East of the beaches, the peninsular mainland is a bustling city of 117,000. The economy is varied with a plethora of service, healthcare and science tech businesses. But yes, tourism, even away from the beach, is of central importance. The Capitol Theatre is a century-old performance venue. And Clearwater Marine Aquarium is known for its most famous residents, Winter, Hope and their family of bottlenose dolphins.
Fifteen miles inland from Fort Myers Beach, along the Caloosahatchee River, is the city of Fort Myers. The southwestern city of 87,000 is, of course, a tourist city. But unlike Miami or Tampa, it's a much more livable, residential, quiet and accessible city for permanent residents.
Snowbirds are nothing new here. The area has been a popular spot for the financial elite for more than a century. Industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone wintered in Fort Myers. The city's downtown lies along the river's eastern shore. Marinas and waterfront parks line the water. A couple of blocks inland, First Street is home to numerous bars, pizza shops and seafood restaurants.
Much of inland Fort Myers is family residential, single-occupant homes and apartment complexes. The southeastern section of the city lies across the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve. This section of town is dominated by country club communities and planned developments. The Red Sox spring training facility and Southwest Florida Airport sit nearby.
It's great to be a Florida Gator, all for the Gators, stand up and holler! The University of Florida is a nationally top five-ranked public university. And Gainesville is the best college town in the Sunshine State. The North Central Florida city lies in between Jacksonville, Orlando and Tallahassee — home to the rival Seminoles.
Gainesville, a city of 134,000, is the 13th-largest in Florida. And it's more than just the home to the fifth-biggest public university in the country. It's one of the most affordable places to live in Florida and nationwide. And it's flat-out one of the best cities to live in the entire nation.
But ask a local what their city is best known for besides football and Albert Gator. Their answer may be the incredible local music scene, akin to other college towns like Austin and Athens. Gainesville is home to the iconic local legend, Tom Petty. The Mad Dog rocker clubbed around Gainesville first with his band Mudcrutch and later with the Heartbreakers. Other artists like Stephen Stills, Don Felder of the Eagles and John Vanderslice also hail from Gainesville. The city has broken many bands, including The Motels, Against Me!, Less Than Jake and Sister Hazel, as well.
Looking for live music in Gainesville? Check out the High Dive or Lightnin' Salvage Enterprises. Just looking for a spot to party the night away? Put on your best blue and orange and head to Fat Daddy's or The Arcade Bar.
Florida is awash with tourist meccas like Miami, Daytona and Orlando. But hard-working Jacksonville is both overlooked and under-appreciated. J-ville is a city of contrasts. On one hand, it's a mostly coastal city, just across the Intracoastal from beautiful beaches like Atlantic and Neptune. And on the other, it's a honky-tonk Georgia Southern town, just 25 miles from downtown to the Georgia border.
It's also the largest city in the country. No, for real.
At a massive 750,000 square miles and over 40 miles across, Jacksonville is the largest city by area in the Continental United States. That's a lot of room for just 912,000 residents. Jacksonville offers the largest urban park system in the nation. A combination of the city, state and national parks, the National Park Service facilitates nearly 340 distinct parks. Jacksonville is also home to three major U.S. Navy bases, together forming the third-largest Naval complex in the U.S.
But this is still, mostly, the Atlantic South, and that means music and food. The country, blues, R&B and southern rock roots lay hard in Jacksonville. Icons calling the city home range from Lynyrd Skynyrd and Pat Boone to Mase and Limp Bizkit. And that part-Florida/part-South dichotomy makes for a fabulous local food scene. One of the best places to live in Florida is well known for Southern soul food often fused with fresh seafood and traditional Floribbean favorites.
Talk about wanting to get away from it all. You can do so in Key West, the southernmost point in the contiguous U.S. The South Florida island lies just 95 miles from Cuba. That's a shorter distance than its 110 miles from mainland Florida. It would take you well over two hours to traverse the rest of the Florida Keys just to get to Key West. It's out there.
The city of Key West is just four square miles and four miles long. It's, of course, a popular resort getaway. But people often ask, “Are there Key West natives and do people live there full-time?" It may be geographically tiny, but nearly 25,000 people call it home.
The population is a mix of relocated snowbirds, generations-long Floridians, a large concentration of Cuban people and Bahamian immigrants known as “Conchs." There are shopping malls and car dealers, high schools and cemeteries, supermarkets and a college, as well as an international airport. Key West is like any other small U.S. city, just a little more isolated.
Then again, it did briefly declare itself the Conch Republic, a nation independent from the United States. Most places can't say that.
West Palm Beach, Jupiter, Vero Beach, Cocoa Beach, Daytona. There are many incredible beach communities along Florida's Atlantic Coast. But in the center of it all is Melbourne. Just west of Orlando, Melbourne is the second-largest city on Florida's Space Coast. It lies just 20 miles due south of the NASA facilities at Cape Canaveral.
The majority of Melbourne lies on the mainland, across the Indian River from the South Beaches barrier island. However, the city offers two enclaves along the oceanfront. One features the family-friendly Paradise Beach & Park with picnic areas and sand volleyball courts. The other sits conveniently at the end of Eau Gallie Causeway in a residential neighborhood.
Over 83,000 call Melbourne home, a population that's doubled in size in the last half-century. Its downtown is in the southern portion of the city, on the north shore of the Crane Creek inlet. A bevy of bars, restaurants, galleries and cafés line East New Haven Street, in a surprisingly affordable downtown. Despite its beach access, Downtown Melbourne is one of the top 10 most affordable in the nation.
In 1969, the independent city of Eau Gallie merged with Melbourne, doubling the size of the city. Melbourne absorbed the land and culture, and a second downtown in the north end of the city. The Eau Gallie Arts District features parks, art galleries, a restaurant row and a microbrewery.
“Miami Vice" and “2 Fast 2 Furious." Cuban cigars and Cuba Libres. Beach bods and luxury yachts. There's an image of Miami that's for the rico and the suave. But despite the glitz and the glamor in pockets of Miami, the city is one of the best places to live in Florida for regular folks, too.
The first thing one needs to understand when considering a move to Miami is that “Miami" might not be the “Miami" you're picturing. The city of Miami has a population under half a million, making it just the 42nd largest city in the nation (compared to Jacksonville, the 13th). It's the surrounding area that makes the Greater Miami-Dade region so sprawling. With dozens of suburbs and satellite cities, the metro is the 12th biggest in the country.
Miami — the city — isn't Miami Beach or South Beach. The entirety of the city sits west of Biscayne Bay. So, while Miami has 13 miles of waterfront from Shorecrest to Coconut Grove, don't expect shimmering beaches. Nearly all of Miami along the Bay is residential, with expensive homes, condos and apartment buildings facing the water. Even the shorelines in Downtown Miami and upscale Brickell offer row after row of high-rises and hotels. In fact, Miami presents the nation's third-largest skyline with 60 skyscrapers.
But the further inland you go, the more affordable, diverse and workaday Miami becomes. This is where you'll find shopping centers, cafecito cafés, parks, open-air markets and cultural neighborhoods like Little Havana and Little Haiti.
Perhaps Miami Beach is everything you think the city of Miami might be. All the sparkling beaches, thumping clubs, bustling nightlife and tanned speed-boaters racing across the water. It's South Beach, North Beach and Mid-Beach. It's Miami Beach, one of the most expensive but best places to live in Florida. But man, what a good time you'll have while living there.
Miami Beach is a city of 89,000, Miami-Dade's 14th-biggest suburb. It sits on a barrier island along the Atlantic Ocean, across Biscayne Bay from Miami itself. The island is mostly bisected down the center by Indian Creek. Along the river are million-dollar resort homes, condos and apartment buildings. But along the ocean is nearly eight miles of some of the world's best beach. The sandy shore lies in the shadow of some of the most expensive real estate in Florida in popular high rises over the beach.
Miami Beach has long been a hotbed for both visual and entertainment arts. The predominant architecture of the collection of islands is art deco. In fact, the obviously named Art Deco District is the largest collection of such styled buildings in the world. It is also home to a number of historic theaters including the Fillmore Miami Beach, New World Center and Colony Theatre, plus The Bass museum of contemporary art.
Sure, Miami Beach is a resort town and home to both high-rolling big-money socialites and well-to-do snowbirds. But plenty of people just live in Miami Beach. The city is quite diverse with a populace that's over half Latino and 40 percent white. Miami Beach has a significant population of Hassidic Jews, and of course, is known as a major LGBTQ+ community hub.
Orlando may be the world's biggest amusement park mecca. But don't thank Disney. While Disney World may have been first, it's not in the city of Orlando. The Magic Kingdom is in nearby Bay Lake. The real king of Orlando proper is Universal Orlando. The resort that encompasses Universal Studios, CityWalk and more lies in Orlando's Florida Center district, the only theme park within the city limits.
Yes, tourism is the name of the game in Orlando. Along with the amusement, adventure and water park industries, Orlando is a major convention and large-scale event city. To that end, Orlando International Airport is one of the 30 busiest airports in the world, and the city books the second-most hotel rooms in the world.
But for many, Orlando is the happiest place on earth year-round. And growing. The city's population has more than doubled since as recently as 1990. That growth, combined with a large number of short-term units and seasonal rentals, has stretched the number of available apartments.
And don't forget students in need of rental housing. The largest university in the country? It's not Texas or Ohio State. It's Orlando's University of Central Florida, with the nation's biggest enrollment at nearly 72,000.
Pensacola is a different sort of town than others on this list. It's over 530 miles from Miami but just six from the Alabama border. While just across Pensacola Bay from Pensacola Beach, it's not a glimmering shore town. It's the westernmost city on the Florida Panhandle, central to the Florabama Shore. At over 460 years old, it's the nation's oldest city. It's the Deep Gulf South. And at its core, Pensacola is a military town.
Nicknamed “Cradle of Naval Aviation," Pensacola is home to Naval Air Station Pensacola. Dating back to 1914, it was the Navy's first air station. It's a major air training site, where John Glenn and Neil Armstrong got their training. And it's also home to the Blue Angels. And like most major military towns, rental housing, affordability and livability are key to a transient population.
The city of 53,000 lies on the north side of the three-mile-long Pensacola Bay Bridge. The bridge takes commuters onto Santa Rosa Island, the 40-mile-wide barrier island, home to beautiful Pensacola Beach and Gulf Islands National Seashore. But don't discount the livability of mainland Pensacola proper.
In recent years, Pensacola has established itself as one of the South's premier craft beer towns. Formerly a one-brewery city, several downtown craft breweries have joined legendary McGuire's Irish Pub, including Perfect Plain and Big Top Brewing. Further north, the Macky Bay region around the University of West Florida has become a secondary beer enclave. The area is home to breweries like A Little Madness Brewing and Goat Lips Chew & Brewhouse.
Tampa is too often conflated with the entire Tampa Bay region. You can probably blame sports. The term “Tampa Bay" as applied to the Buccaneers, Lightning and Rays covers the full Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area, leading to its share of confusion.
Tampa is the third-largest city in the state and St. Pete is fifth. The Florida twin cities are akin to Raleigh/Durham or San Francisco/Oakland. But they're saddled with the collective name involving one. Tampa, separate from St. Pete, Sarasota and Clearwater, is a wonderful, livable city on its own and one of the best places to live in Florida.
One of the most distinct and interesting regions of Tampa is the historic Cuban neighborhood of Ybor City. Just northeast of downtown, Ybor City was Tampa's first bustling economic district, home to several immigrant-owned cigar manufacturers. The neighborhood built up around it, filled with factory workers and their families.
Today, Ybor City is a cultural art studio and nightlife neighborhood. Office spaces and loft apartments replaced rolling galleries and social clubs. The district is home to Columbia Restaurant, Florida's oldest, and iconic clubs like The Castle.
Tampa offers a number of popular attractions like Busch Gardens, the Florida Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry. But it's not all culture and art. The city is home to an inordinate number of restaurant chain headquarters, including Outback Steakhouse, The Melting Pot and Bonefish Grill.
Florida is a lot of things, from the Deep South up north to sun-soaked beaches in the south. And the state offers something for every sort of resident from college students to retirees to full-time adventure-seekers. There are many diverse cities to consider a move to, and an intrastate move can feel like an entirely new culture.
When you're ready to move to the Sunshine State, or anywhere from the Panhandle to the Keys, check out all the apartments for rent in Florida on Apartment Guide.