What are some “shocks” when moving to South Carolina?

When moving to a new area, we often find things that we may have not expected. Here is a list of things that people have found “shocking” when moving to South Carolina!

1. Humidity: This is likely the biggest one! Everyone expects it coming in but they don’t really understand it until they experience it for themselves. As one facebook user stated “It will make your eyeballs sweat” haha
2. It can get Cold: A lot of people think that it doesn’t get Cold here but that is not true. We can get some very cold days here. It does rarely snow but we can have some nights that get below freezing!
3. Cost of hair/nails: They can be more expensive here than other areas.
4. Cost of Groceries: This one I’m not 100% sure of because I’ve grocery shopped in many different states and I find groceries to be similar in price. I think this one has a lot to do with moving here pre-covid when prices were lower everywhere so they remember prices being lower where they were from originally. I don’t know that to be accurate but in my experience, grocery prices seem similar in most areas.
5. Pine Straw as mulch: This one is a little funny. I am asked all the time why we use pine straw as mulch and the answer is that it is cheap and readily available. haha
6. Southern Sayings: We call a “shopping cart” a buggy, we do not “turn off/on lights” we say “cut off the lights”
7. Bugs: No matter how much I prepare people, we have a LOT of bugs. Mosquitoes are jokingly called our state bird. Palmetto bugs are another one because they are very large cockroaches that fly and they will freak people out. Highly recommend having a local pest control company come out to keep the bugs at bay!
8. Our Seasons: We have 6 seasons here. haha We have your typical 4 seasons. Fall, Summer, Spring, and Fall but we also have pollen season. Pollen gets EVERYWHERE. It turns everything yellow. Get your allergy medicine ready! We also have football season! Southern people take their college football very very seriously.

I hope this helps prepare you for South Carolina! Feel free to watch the video above for a more indepth prospective!