36 Pros and Cons of Living in New Hampshire in 2024: By a Born & Bred Granite Stater

When I first meet someone and they ask where I’m from, I always make it a point to emphasize that, first and foremost, I’m from New Hampshire, and an American second. I’m an impassioned flannel and Columbia fleece wearer, a reformed Hampton Beach “beach bum” who would poach his Powerade to mix with gin from the now-closed down McDonald’s on Ocean Boulevard, a Las Olas die-hard (extra guac and still trying to figure out why the lines are so inefficient), and someone who has been thrown out of the now desolate, anachronistic Fox Run Mall for loitering more than I’d care to admit.

I may be considered “simple folk” by the (self-anointed) big city socialites of New York, Los Angeles, and Miami (I’m the proud owner of the ‘White Trash Cookbook”) but I rest easy at the end of the day knowing where I’m from and who I am because of it. Also, if I’m talking to a Brit, I always place a heavy emphasis on the term ‘New’ and inevitably throw in a barb or two about our defection to the New World to establish the ‘New’ England. It never lands as well as I think it will. 

As you can tell, I’m proud to be from New Hampshire and I couldn’t imagine having grown up anywhere else.