take the carp pill.

I'm only intimately familiar with western PA (passingly with central). Summers are hot and muggy but compared to dixieland and DC it's lovely; not sure humidity % but you're looking at a realfeel of 80-95 (high) all summer long. Winter is really variable. Usually highs in the 30s, you'll get some cold snaps in the 10s and 20s with the odd single digit or below 0 but they're rare. We had some 80s in January last year but that's FREAK.

The best description is that it has 4 very distinct seasons and if you don't HATE any season, you'll like them all. There's shoveling to do in the winter, raking to do in the fall, summer is hot, spring you'll have a lot of mud and depending on your flood zone maybe some water to cope with if you're r-slurred. But these are just the downsides. If you enjoy summer, you'll love PA summers. It has incredible fall leaves that rival (but fall just short of) New England and so you avoid the tourists, it has a very strong very gritty very SOVL winter culture and huge bonus points if you like hockey or the Pens, spring feels like spring in a way nowhere else I've lived does.

I've lived quite literally all over the country and nothing feels right except PA. Not just weather, but the people, the culture, the everything. Unless you have some strong aversion to a particular season, you won't regret the move. I'm really looking forward to moving back. Cost of living is dirt cheap, quality of living is sky high, there's more nature shit than you'll ever know what to do with, there's top tier hunting and fishing, there's history, Pittsburgh is quite literally the ONLY city in the country that isn't a hellscape, it's moral, it's beautiful.

I cannot stress enough how perfect Pennsylvania is and I dread the day decades down the line when Californians start flocking there too. No one really thinks about the place though and everyone is generally very happy with that while also being aware that it won't last forever. It's as close to Eden as you can get, provided you're a decent person and you don't want to be a hustle and bustlecel (though Southside allows for a partially ok approximation thereof, but I wouldn't recommend the place if you want the busy urban life).

This applies only to western PA. If you'd like specific recommendations for anything pertaining to the area please do shoot me a dm. I'll shill that region all day and I absolutely do have the experience everywhere else to back it up.

Central pa is pretty awesome if you enjoy suburban living. Very safe and nice place to raise a family.

Amish and Mennonites are mostly a Lancaster phenomena. You won't encounter them much otherwise.

The funny thing is "out of cities" is very easy besides Philly which is kind of its own megatropolis like NYC.

PA summer is pretty frickin humid, winters are somewhat milder than northern states.

I will say our government has pretty weird quirks, our gas tax is astronomical, we have state run liquor stores, the state's politics are always gridlocked between liberal soyboys of Pittsburgh and Philly with based aryan rednecks everywhere else.

That's like

An hour at most to see it all

Moraine is fricking HUGE and you can make day trips there every summer Saturday and not see it all

Even just a once in a while thing if you're used to like North Park it's night and day different

Enormous and gorgeous

The chop you get is cool as heck relative to Hampton too