I am thinking of moving to North Carolina. What is the best place to raise a family?

I am looking at the following areas. Can anyone please tell me the main differences? I would like to know where the best schools are, if the area is friendly, which is the most expensive, if any of them have dangerous area etc. Thank you!! Myrtle Beach North Myrtle Beach Surfside/Garden City/Murrells Inlet Litchfield Beach & Pawley's Island North Carolina's Brunswick Islands

Public Comments

1. Myrtle Beach is in South Carolina. It is right on the Border of NC and SC, so I'm not sure if North Myrtle Beach would be considered NC. I would go ahead and say the Brunswick Islands. I did a website for my E-Comm class in high school on the Brunswick Islands and fell in love with it. Any beach that you go and live near is going to be a little bit more expensive than living in a regular city. Another place you might want to look out is the Outer Banks (OBX) I LOVE the Outer Banks. It's beuatiful there, probably not too reasonably priced and it just seems like a good place to raise a family.
2. Well the main difference would be those aren't NC. Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, SUrfside/Murrels Inlet, and Pawley's Island are all SC so if you want to live in NC I guess there is only one choice. Those are all beach towns so really it seems like you've never been there. I mean Bald Head Island is accessable only by ferry and cars are not allowed. Calabash, while the home of the best seafood restaurants, has a population of 700 (230 families). Caswell Beach is nearly half that. It has 466 residents. Holden Beach has almost 800. Oak Island is what Caswell Beach is in. Shalotte would be your first actual town in those Brunswick Islands b/c it has 500 houses but it's not a beach town like all the others you named. It is quite a ways from the beach. Southport is your biggest town as it has 2,300 residents. It sounds like you took a vacation to the beach and since you had a great time you think you'd like to move there. Be aware how the economy works in beach towns. We own rental property in North Myrtle, my sister lives in Myrtle, and I live in Morehead City, NC so I know a lot of beach towns. There is usually only one road to drive on and in the summer that means it can often take you 45 minutes to come back home after work. Tourism runs everything. Your population will go from 1,000 to 30,000 for a couple months and you have just that time to make money. In Jan-March, a lot of restaurants will be closed as that's when the owners take their vacation. So if you work there, you are out of a job throughout the winter. Even other places lay off substantial parts of their work force for that time period, like Walmart and grocery stores. They only need a skeleton staff so as a local down there, The good side is being such a small town in the winter, the locals all know each other. You also get local perks (discounts at restaurants, free drinks, that kind of stuff). Even in Myrtle Beach which is large it is the same way. One thing about SC laws- liquor is quite expensive there as liquor is sold by the small mini bottle. So any drink that takes a splash of this liquor and a splash of this one, can easily cost you $12-15. My best friend is a teacher there so if you are into that, be aware that NC and SC have some of the worst school systems in the nation and are the lowest in teacher pay. If this is what you think you want to do, research it well before you up and move. Especially if you aren't doing it right now, it's not worth moving there in September so you out to wait til next spring. Though actually the cost of living in beach towns is lower than most other areas.
3. don't go, we don't allow crazy people here