I live in Virginia, but I've also lived in Philadelphia and a couple places in New Jersey.
If I had to choose, I'd pick Virginia in a heart beat.
Everything is typically a lot more laid back, people are happier/friendlier. Yes, I would say there are more religious people in Virginia, but its NEVER been a source of issues - churchs here try to help out the communities and that's about as visible as they get, no damning others for differing beliefs. There are still plenty of other faiths, atheists and where I live is a melting pot (hispanic, indian, middle-eastern, african american, asian). People around here love their cookouts, hiking, hopping on their boats and speeding down the rivers. There's lots of hunters and fishing, horse back riding, dirt biking, etc, though none of it is as all-encompassing as you'd imagine. It's pretty diversified. I've never ridden a horse, hunted, rode a dirt bike or stepped foot on a farm (outside of a elementary school field trip).
Slavery only comes up, like another poster said, when people from the north bring it up. It's really amusing to see northerners sit atop a high chair and feel great about damning southerners for slavery, even though slavery and racism existed north of the mason-dixon line as well. Northerners act like some sort of hero, even though NONE of them had ANYTHING to do with ending slavery, just like none of us Southerners had ANYTHING to do with those who did have slaves 150 odd years ago. I'd also like to point out that I've witnessed far more racism in northern towns than here in VA. (And history lesson: it's not like all southern states had slaves because they wanted to or where evil people - at the time, it was deemed "necessary" - there just weren't enough people to grow all the crops that supported the nation.
You'd be surprised at the amount of documentation of slave-owners who hated slavery, even freed them when they died, but whose hands were tied behind their backs due to the circumstances of the times (high demand for food stuffs, not enough hands to actually make it happen). That's no excuse for slavery by ANY means, but it does undermine the "white southern devil bigot" image ignorant people try to pass as fact.
If southerns wanted to play the blame game like northerners like to do, we could simply state that northern states were far too lazy to grow their own food or move to better climate for farming and demanded the southern states take care of it for everyone...the demand far outweighed the ability of the supplier to supply it on their own, which is why slavery lasted for as long as it did, despite there being a well documented disdain for it by slave owners. But again, slavery was a terrible, terrible institution no matter how many slave owners hated it, and anyone who says otherwise is psychotic.
All in all, the South is a lot like the North, you be in a town full of nice, sane, respectable people and drive ten miles to another town and hate it (though if I were honest, I would say that the ratio of good to bad falls heavily on the bad side in the northern states I've lived).
t: I don't know what kind of sweet tea you've been drinking, but come down to Alabama and have some Milo's sweet tea and just try and tell me you don't like it.
