The pandemic unmoored some employees from their fixed workplace – and freed them from working 'in commuting distance.' Many are thinking hard about where their home and family will be safest from the ravages of climate change: in one Forbes Home survey, 30% “cited climate change as a reason to move in 2022.” It’s a collective moment of reappraisal.
Much of that reappraisal remains tentative. Home-moving figures have wobbled upward since March 2020, but search data shows that interest in moving abroad has soared by as much as 29%. And just over half of America's moves in the past two years were unexpected, according to that same Forbes survey.
Americans have always moved around, but today, our horizons are wider. So, home warranty company American Home Shield decided to find out which cities, states, and overseas destinations Americans are thinking of moving to and which cities and states they most want to leave.
What We Did
American Home Shield analyzed the number of Google searches for “moving to x,” swapping x for every American state, the 100 most populated cities, and every country worldwide. We used these figures to identify the places residents of each city and state would most like to relocate to and visualized our results in the maps and charts below.
Key Findings
- The most commonly searched relocation destination in 22 states is Florida, making it America’s most desirable state to move to.
- In Alaska, 474.5 searches out of every 100,000 are relocation-themed – making it the state that residents most want to leave.
- On a city and state level, the country most Americans consider living in is Canada.
- Residents in 52 of the 100 largest U.S. cities search for information on relocating to New York City, making it America’s most desirable city.
Americans Dream of Moving to Florida, Hawaii, and Alaska – But Alaskans Dream of Leaving
The average American moves 11.4 times in their lifetime. The culture of economic migration has been ingrained since before the Gold Rush, but motivations are two-pronged. Some move in aspiration of the American Dream, and some move by necessity. And then, there are those who are displaced when others arrive.
Americans want to move south. Or north. Florida is the most southern state in the contiguous U.S., and Hawaii is the most southern of all. They are the first- and third-most desirable relocation spots for U.S. residents. Sandwiched in second place is America’s north spot, Alaska, where residents of 14 other states most commonly dream of moving within the U.S. One in eight interstate relocations lands in Florida, where there is no state income tax (Alaska, too), and an affordable cost of living, making it an appealing climate for remote workers.
The lure of Alaska is ambiguous. Not only do our figures prove it a popular dream destination, but it is the state that locals are most actively searching to move out from, with a whopping 474.5 searches per 100,000 (compared to just 247.9 for second-placed Wyoming). Those who dream of Alaska are lured by low taxes, an 'authentic' lifestyle and landscape (think: hunting and fishing), and cooler weather. But the flipside includes a high cost of living and the fast-developing effects of climate change in a front-line region that’s warming faster than any of the Lower 48.
