Reviews & Comments
Hilton Head Island, SC
Nice Place to Visit, But You Don't Want to Live He -
2/8/2011Expensive, racist, rude, extremely high crime rates, terrible schools ... honestly, I've never been so disappointed in a place I've lived. There are WAY too many grumpy old people, but at least they're smart enough to stay within the comfy confines of their retirement communities. All the really wealthy people live in gated communities and leave their compounds in their Escalades to mingle with the common man only when forced to. Then you have extreme poverty -- lots of dilapidated mobile homes everywhere you look. Now, the place is gorgeous -- love the history, love the culture, love the surroundings. But you can get your fill of that in about a week -- then it's time to get back to reality. The locals who work in the stores are very poorly educated, so service is really bad and they're really, really lazy. Walk through the aisles of Target, Wal-Mart, Kroger and you smell pot on a lot of them. Not a ton of ambition in these parts, but hey, that's the south and they don't pretend to be anything different, so you gotta at least appreciate that. But there are WAY too many pushy northeasterners who have relocated here and they're just rude. Savannah is a nice escape, but try not to find yourself there after dark. Charleston is wonderful, but it's a 90-minute drive. Hilton Head's chamber of commerce works FEVERISHLY to hide the poverty, the shark attacks, the crime rates -- give them credit, they're very, very good at painting a certain picture of this place. But I've had my fill after only 3 years -- time to move back to civility.