Texas Is America's Top Destination for Migration Beating Florida, While California Loses Out Most, Even Runs Out of U-Haul Trucks: U-Haul Report

Texas is the top destination for one-way U-Haul rental trips in 2021, while California topped the list for outward migration and even ran out of U-Haul trucks for people wanting to leave the state, a new report from U-Haul shows.

The moving and storage rental company has a “U-Haul Growth Index,” which calculates the net gain or loss of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a state versus leaving that state in a calendar year.

The southern states took the lead in the U-Haul Growth Index report, with Texas narrowly beating Florida as the top growth state of 2021. The Lone Star state notably garnered more than half (50.2 percent) of all one-way U-Haul traffic in 2021.

Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arizona came third, fourth, and fifth in seeing the top net gains of one-way U-Haul trucks.

While Texas and Florida had widespread growth statewide, the company noted that Texas had the highest one-way trips toward the suburbs around the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex, while Florida saw “considerable growth” south of Orlando and along both of its coastlines.

The data encompasses more than 2 million yearly one-way U-Haul truck trips, according to the company.

California came last—50th—on the list of net gains, with Illinois just ahead at 49th place for the second consecutive year, meaning these states saw the largest net losses of one-way U-Haul trucks in 2021.

California topped U-Haul’s list for one-way outbound migration. The net loss of trucks wasn’t as drastic as in 2020—but this might be “partially attributed to the fact that U-Haul simply ran out of inventory to meet customer demand for outbound equipment,” the company stated.

Matt Merrill, U-Haul area district vice president of the DFW Metroplex and West Texas, said Texas is seeing “a lot of growth” from the East and West Coast, with “a lot of people moving here from California [and] New York.”

“We also see a lot of people coming in from the Chicago markets,” he added. “I think that’s a lot due to the job growth—a lot of opportunity here. The cost of living here is much lower than those areas. Texas is open for business.”

Kristina Ramos, U-Haul Company of South Austin president, said that Texas’s economy is growing fast. “With a strong job market and low cost of living, it’s a no brainer,” she added. “Texas doesn’t have an income tax, so families get more for their money.”

The company points out that U-Haul migration trends “do not correlate directly to population or economic growth” but its U-Haul Growth Index makes for “an effective gauge of how well cities are both attracting and maintaining residents.”

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But I we Texans are better characerized as Texicans, ‘cause we one parochial bunch. I don’t think any other state, save CA, is as entrenched in it’s culture. Texas is international, it is coastal, it is monotheistic and multicultural (but not in that effeminate way the “intellectual” class is always raving on about). Except Austin, which is a remnant of the current effete ruling class structure. I think, if we Texans concentrate on changing that (doable! Totes), we can throw more weight around federally. Win TX, OK, LA, MS, and the rest of ya can fight amongst yourselves.

And God bless Ragweed! <—— A Yankee is someone that doesn’t know what that means.

If you embrace any of these ideas and actively vote for them, you are a Yankee:

Guns are evil and should be banned.

Conservative voices should be banned from the public square.

The white patriarchy needs to be destroyed systematically.

Criminals are victims and victims are perpetrators.

If our lunatic approach to fixing a social ill doesn’t work, it’s because we didn’t fund it enough. We need to spend more.

People should give the government half their salary because socialism is a perfectly acceptable form of government.

Free everything, regardless of the actual cost.

We can tax our way to prosperity.

Only certain lives matter...not the inconvenient unborn, the elderly, the frail.

Everything bad in my life is someone else’s fault and they should fix it.

There is more, but you should get the drift.

Yankee is not a locale but a mindset. You can come from anywhere and be a Yankee.

As someone born and raised in NY, I didn’t understand the queasy looks I would get when I first arrived in Texas. Having lived here for almost 30 years, now I’m the one looking at people the same way.

You’re probably better off just saying, “I know one when I hear ‘em.”

The problem you refer to is happening everywhere.

I was in Idaho in the mid-1980’s and liked it.
They’d JUST got to a million Statewide population; Boise had rural farm communities just a few miles out of the city.

By 2005 those rural communities were striving to be more like California suburbs. The farm-fringe town of Eagle was running full-page color real estate ads touting itself as “The Napa Valley of Idaho” complete with photos of gated community entrances with manicured lawns, fresh-planted annual flowers, river-rock walls, and chrome script lettering.

My friends who still live locally have come to hate, Hate, HATE Californians with a raging, purple passion; they shat in the nest out West, felt compelled to flee, and immediately needed to “be involved” in all the local boards and committees. “Getting involved” is what liberals call it. “Being invasive busybodies” is what normal, well-adjusted people call it.

So, they “got involved,” to the detriment of all, fouling the new nest just like they ruined the old one.

Lather.
Rinse.
Repeat.

It’s not all Californians; lotta good Conservative folks just can’t afford to bail outta this State until they retire, or they’ve got family ties keeping them anchored (guilty on all counts, here). But it’d be a matter of self-preservation for destination States to bar transplants from any local political involvement for at least five years; no school board, city council, county board, PTA — nothing for five years.

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