Coastal areas are generally mild year-round and flat, flat, flat. Four seasons, but rarely any bitter cold or snow. I lived in the piedmont (Winston-Salem) where summers were unpleasant (although, honestly, not as humid and hot as Baltimore), fall and spring were heavenly and lasted forever--none of these two weeks of pleasant weather stuck between months of heat on one side and cold on the other. Winters were dreary, drizzly, and icky. We got snow once in the couple of years I was there. The mountains are gorgeous--beautiful fall colors, cool summers, and lots of snow in the winter.

In some of the towns, people are pretty cool about different lifestyles--Raleigh Durham in particular since the major employers are the universities and tech companies. There are a lot of transplants from the rest of the country in Raleigh Durham and Charlotte. Other areas, not so much--lots of small town mentality and intolerant of outsiders. Politics are largely dominated by the Christian right, although remember that this is also the home state of John Edwards (make whatever jokes you want, but he got elected there with a liberal populist platform). I suspect as more people move to the state from outside of the state, politics will become more mixed--it was an entirely Republican state when I lived there, but Obama barely won the state in 2008, something I never would have imagined was possible.

The warmer parts of the state--south and east--are pretty rural. Small towns, poultry processing, pine forests. I think it's probably the ugliest part of the state except when you're actually on the coast, but I LIKE trees and hills and snow, so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask!