I'll tell you this - You have never seen so many old people in your entire life. They have entire apartment communities dedicated to 55+. Boca is one of the largest cities down here, one of the most (but not THE most) affluent cities - with the largest population of older folks.
Weather is amazing. I don't own but a single pair of pants, only one sweater and a single long sleeved shirt. It never gets below freezing. On the other side of things - It gets so hot and muggy here that you really can't stand it. You seriously cannot walk down the street to the store here. It's too hot. You end up sweating like a pig just taking trash to the dumpsters. And its a totally different level of summer heat than you get in IL. I spent a summer at Great Mistakes navy base - (Waukegan?) - and here it's a LOT worse. In August we don't go outside, unless its to your car - and then you gotta open your car for like 5 minutes to let the 180 degree blistering heat out of it, turn your air on and maybe a couple minutes after that is the inside of your car cool enough to actually get inside and drive.
It's sort of far down in the state - if you like road trips its not the best because it takes a good 8 hours to get from here - to anywhere else. Florida is LOOOOOONG!
There are no more spring breakers here. Well there are, but its nothing like what you saw on Revenge of the Nerds 2 or porkys or anything else. They pretty much ended it in the 80's and the college kids moved on.
Hiking exists, but its more like a gentle stroll. More space is given to the everglades and various protected regions than exists for people, thus every square inch of land has already been bought and developed - it gets to a point out west, then it just stops and the everglades begin.
It's a concrete jungle, pretty much solid suburbs/urbs from SOuth of Miami - all the way up north past boca into west palm beach. Thats a good 100 miles of solidly developed land. On the plus side of that - it's not hard to find a job here, compared to anywhere in the Auto belt, or whatever you guys call industrialized midwest anymore. (I grew up just outside detroit and my family is a victim of the big 3 pullout).
Housing is terrible though - I haven't looked too deep into prices recently but just as an aside - when I did look - a 3br 2 bath Condo - (i.e. glorified apartment) - typically go for 170k. Houses start at 250k for a 3/2 also, and run the gamut all the way up past 16M. Decent neighborhood - decent house - figure 300k.
Oh. Hurricanes.
Every year we get at least one scare - Some storm spins up near africa or in the carribean and points generally in our direction. When the storms about 5 days out we start looking for it on the news. If its still there 4 days out we start paying attention to the updates every few hours and wipe out the grocery stores of jugs and bottles of water. At 3 days out all work stops everywhere - you go home and board up your house - enact your emergency plan, gas up the generator, etc, finish wiping out the grocery store of canned food, candles, batteries, and any trace of beverages. If you haven't gotten your supplies at 72 ours out you are stuck. Giant gas lines starting now - expect an hour wait to get gas. At 48 hours out you sit and watch the 24/7 coverage on TV. 24 hours out the wind starts to blow and zero hour is upon you. Granted most of the time the storm turns at day 3 or 4, but sometimes it doesn't - which brings us to:
IMPACT:
Hurricane Wilma in 2006 came ashore as a CAT2 - most areas experienced CAT1 or borderline hurricane force winds. She brought down EVERY single traffic light. She knocked out power to every single customer in the county. She destroyed several skyscrapers in downtown fort lauderdale, and because of the power loss - most businesses were out of work and closed for about 2-4 weeks. I don't think anybody died. Gas lines were terrific, on day 4 my gf's mom needed to get ice to keep her medicine cold - the water and ice lines only took about an hour to get through. The gas line took almost 4 to get 5 gallons, enough to keep my car on the road so I could go drive down to work and check it out whether I had to be at work or not. I had power back in about 10 days, my gfs mom shortly thereafter.
Thats probably the worst thing about living here. Granted nobody really remembers what a real big nasty storm can do - lost of folks left after andrew - and it hasn't been since the 50's that one has really impacted palm beach, broward or dade counties (yes I know francis and jeanne, but they didn't really do much damage compared to a 3).
All in all - we have a ton of walmarts (there are 9 within quick driving distance - all superwalmarts), a billion places to eat, a bazillion places to get your hair done, or your cosmetic surgery, not quite so many industrial places. Most folks are rude, cannot speak english, and are belligerent because of the heat.
Oh you should pick up spanish for dummies in case you get stuck in dade county one day, no kidding - its a different world down there and spanish is the language, english gets you dumb looks.
Oh I almost forgot about the bugs - We get crazy alien bugs that don't die when you step on them. You can shoot them with a 45 and they still don't die. Just leave them be, they don't bite. Oh and lizards everywhere. Don't come if you hate lizards. And the mosquitos don't say bzzz. They go BUZZ MOTHERFUCKA! before they impale you. If you kill a mosquito the cops come because nobody can be drenched with that much blood and not have killed someone, till they see the dead mosquito - and understand.
Yes it rains every...single...day for about 20 minutes/half hour about 4pm. Its way hotter afterwards. Its a torrential downpour the likes of which you have never seen, then just as quick as it starts its over with. Rain doesn't stick around. WHile we aren't the "lightning capital of the world" - that distinction goes to the region between tampa/st. pete, and orlando - we get our fair share of daily thunderstorms that are pretty bad-ass.
You WILL have something destroyed by lightning the first year you are here.
Traffic is absolutely mind-bending. If you ever have to do anything in Miami - count on an hour to move 15 miles. Broward not so bad, and Palm Beach - unless its in West Palm, you should generally be all right.