- Derek Edwards, 28, moved from Denver to Miami to be closer to the Caribbean.
- He says life in the mountains didn't suit him, and the community wasn't as diverse as he'd wanted.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Derek Edwards, a 28-year-old theology teacher and soccer coach who moved from Denver to Miami this month. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.
I ended up enjoying Denver a lot more than I thought I would. I had planned to stay there for a year or two and ended up staying for three years.
I went in with not a lot of expectations other than that it's close to the mountains and that there's lots of outdoor stuff to do.
What was interesting was this dream of always going out to the mountains and traveling around — I didn't actually go to the mountains that often. I ended up just sticking mostly to the city of Denver and getting to know what Denver was like.
It's such a job to plan and drive out into the mountains — young people who move to Denver realize they won't be able to do it as often as they wish. There's traffic, and life gets crazy and busy.
Personally, I kind of forced that personality on myself. I'm not really that. But I do know that a lot of people who are super-adventurous explorers probably make more time than I did to get out to the mountains during the weekend.
I grew up in a rural town in central Wisconsin — the closest big city would be Wausau.
When COVID hit, I ended up teaching in Wisconsin and loving it. A friend of mine moved out to Colorado for a nursing job, and I knew that I didn't want to stay in Wisconsin.
I ended up moving to Colorado in 2021 and found a teaching job out there, but I also just needed space to recollect myself and figure out what my next steps and goals were.
I wanted to be closer to big Caribbean communities
I went to college at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and I took a few courses about international relationships. I particularly had an interest in the situation in Haiti and what was going on there.
I ended up going on a service trip in college for a week, and during the summers I would continue to go back to Haiti. The organization I worked with, Missionaries of the Poor, was based out of Jamaica, so I ended up going to Jamaica as well. I lived in Jamaica for a year doing missionary service.
Miami was my layover spot every time I went to Haiti or Jamaica. I probably ended up going about 12 times or so. A lot of them were long layovers, so I would get out and explore the city a bit — and got lost a couple of times on the transit system.
It was during those times that I encountered the Haitian community in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I also really loved the soccer culture that exists here — especially with Messi in town now.
I went to an Inter Miami soccer game with a friend last July, and we explored the city for 48 hours.
I had this deep desire to figure out what I was supposed to do with the time I spent in Haiti and Jamaica and how could I get connected more intentionally in those communities here in the US.
Denver does have a very small Caribbean community, but it didn't really influence the culture, and it was really hard to get connected there.
So I decided that Miami was the perfect place to explore that because it has the highest population, besides New York City, of Caribbean migrants. So that was a major factor.
Colorado was just this transition phase.
I'm almost in my 30s, I'm not getting younger. Now is the time to make a change if I'm going to do it again.
I ended up landing this job at a mostly Haitian-American school, and I decided, "If I'm going to explore this, I'm going to do it now and give it a shot."
Florida's warm weather is a plus, but things are more expensive
Part of the reason I moved away from Wisconsin was because I couldn't handle the cold. Twenty-something years was enough for me.
I lived in Jamaica through a winter and thought, "Wow, this is crazy." I love the tropical weather and being close to the beach. It's been in the 80s and really nice here in Miami, and the beach is close by. It's just beautiful.
The day I moved into my apartment, it was a super crazy day of rain, and I was in the thick of it. I was walking through the parking lot with water up to my shins, carrying boxes that were just drenched. My apartment was soaked.
Those videos on the news about what was going on in Miami, I was moving in during that — it was kind of discouraging at first and it made the move really difficult. But now it's a week later, and I'm walking outside in 85 degrees Fahrenheit and sun.
Another guy I knew was moving from Philadelphia around the same time that I was, and we ended up looking mostly online with a price range of ideally no more than $1,300 per person.
We found an apartment complex in Miami Gardens that was pretty much about that price. It's a pretty decent apartment complex. It's probably not the ideal place, but it's within our budget and close to our jobs so we went with what worked for us.
It's pretty over my comfort zone, coming from paying $800 a month for a room in an entire house in Denver.
Everything is kind of expensive everywhere, but I have noticed that groceries are more expensive here. I have a lot of allergies, so when I go grocery shopping, sometimes I go to Whole Foods. A lot of those foods that I need are quite a bit more expensive here than what I was used to in Denver, so that's been a little annoying thing, too.
Gas is pretty comparable, except in Miami Beach. I've been a couple of times, and it's crazy to see how gas is an entire dollar more at the beach than it is in Miami — so I just won't get gas in Miami Beach.
I already feel welcome in Miami
I'm still in the middle of figuring out switching over my car and insurance and title and all that. It's more complicated here than it was in Colorado because there are a lot of Florida-specific laws and things to navigate.
I really love the diversity. It's interesting because I kind of feel like the minority sometimes, which I probably am, at least in the neighborhood I live in, but it doesn't make me feel out of place. I actually really appreciate that.
People have been really warm and welcoming. I don't know if that's everyone's experience here, but at least it was for me, even more so than in Denver.
The first week here was kind of chaotic with the weather. But now it's settled down, I've really come to enjoy the last few days.
I'm about 10 miles from the beach. Just in case I don't stay in Florida forever, I'm going to go to the beach as much as I can.