There was a moment of disbelief last fall when John Fox, a retired financial planner and a political progressive, realized he was driving to Baldwin County from Minnesota with the intent to live there.

“I’m actually moving to Alabama,” he recalled thinking to The Wall Street Journal.

Fox and Louise Turkula, a retired plastic surgeon, bought a $955,000 home on Ono Island. The two said they feel welcomed by their neighbors.

But they aren’t the only ones.

The paper is reporting that Floridians and others are migrating to Alabama’s Gulf Coast, prompted by high prices in the Sunshine State and its transient lifestyle. That’s one of the reasons why Baldwin County grew faster than any other Alabama county from 2010 to 2020.

“It’s more affordable,” Lawanna Sharpless, a real-estate agent with Bellator Real Estate and Development told the paper. “You just get a bigger bang for your buck here.”

While the average salary in Baldwin County is lower than Broward County or Fort Myers, Fla., home, insurance and food costs are also lower in Alabama.

Jim Cavanaugh, 70, a retired ATF special agent-in-charge, lives in a $788,000 Orange Beach home. His home probably would have cost three times as much in Florida, a real estate agent said.

“It’s the same shore,” Cavanaugh said. “The same sun and the same sunset. It’s probably the same seagull flying back and forth.”