There's a lot of hate in this thread but I can't argue all of it haha. If you noted my previous comment regarding moving to PEI and back to Alberta, we only lasted 2 years there.
I grew up on the island and moved to Alberta when I was 18, took yearly trips during summers generally to go visit friends/family for a week and when it came time to buy our first home we figured why not, move to PEI as we both work from home full time and have our dollar go further as far as property/home ownership goes.
Living there is much much different than visiting there, I have a strong hatred for the province and its people now. I haven't gone back to visit since we moved back to Alberta in 2019, partly due to Covid but I'm still not planning to go back any time soon.
I don't want to go full rant/hate session, but also don't want to see others go through my pain/mistake.
I definitely made the move with rose tinted glasses on, get to see friends and family regularly, more property for cheap, quieter/smaller province to raise kids, etc. Can come back to Alberta whenever I want, tour around the maritimes, and so on.
None of that really played out, I learned my family is dumb and I rarely ever hung out or saw most of them, my older sister lived 5 minutes away and I maybe saw her 1-2 times a month People have their own lives and are busy. Old friends who I saw once a year were fine in small doses but seeing them regularly I quickly found out I didn't want to be friends with some and missed my Albertan friend base that had more aligned interests.
HST fucking sucks, I began to hate buying anything, set of tires for a grand? extra 100 bucks goes out the window. Higher income tax fucking sucks, and where do the tax dollars go? Might as well be right into the ocean. Roads and infrastructure, trash. Furnace oil/wood/electricity to heat your home fucking sucks, not having natural gas fucking sucks.
I have never actually been to NFLD but if folks there are similar to PEI, the mindset of locals is brutal. The sentient way of "that's just how it is here" life is brutal to me, everyone just stomached basic grievances brought on by the province or gov. Terrible problem, do something about it? Nah, that's just how it is here. Terrible lazy folks, people who don't want to work and collect pogey, everyone blindly Liberal, it's a much much different mindset than what Albertans have.
Healthcare system is beyond bad, people shit on Alberta and Canada's healthcare system, some of it being warranted, but we were told to expect a 6+ year wait for a family doctor alongside any major services you'd have to go off island for.
We also ended up hating the time change with our work schedules, I worked off Central time and my wife off Mountain, we'd both end up working until 6, 7, 8pm and would make dinner and go to bed. That may not apply to you but it actually really sucks.
After a year and a half or so we sat down and talked about the quality of life we had, our bills and cost of living there compared to Alberta, and if we were going to full commit to living there or rip the band-aid and move back......we moved back.
All that being said, I could go on about other factors and experiences but I do also know that some people make the move to islands and absolutely love it....I actually don't have a problem with island life but for what we got out of living there, it made no sense to stay.
If you're actually serious about making such a move then really take into account cost of living, expectations and what is important to your lifestyle.