., but we have a somewhat different employment history than most: We both work seasonal tourism jobs.We spend summers working as Expedition Guides (on boats) in Alaska, which pays fairly well but only lasts for 4-5 months of the year.

Our biggest issue is identifying a perfect town that will be affordable and have enough tourism.

As well, Greenville tries to be touristy, but it does compete in the same tourism market as the coastline, to which it looses pretty badly. 

I'd say there are primarily two things I've heard that drive demand: tourism and corporate job market.

Major tourism, land of 10,000 lakes baby.

Tourism is starting to rebound in and around Orlando and the word is that by next summer / fall things could be back to near normal capacity. 

I personally stay away from short term rentals in markets that aren’t tourism dependent.

We had looked at Galveston about 1.5 years ago but decided against it due to these reasons:1. lack of quality contractors to support our venture2. flood insurance and headaches of hurricanes and bookings that may be affected by it3. beach isn't the best or cleanest compared to other locations4. insufficient tertiary markets to fill in vacancies (i.e. conventions, communities events, etc) ; Austin has SXSW, ACL, COTA, etcSome things we liked about Galveston are its pro-tourism market, close to Houston, and rich history.

@Sumner Rabin I think the STR play on Oahu is about the future recovery to pre-COVID tourism numbers.

It seems like the refinery is a large source of jobs on the island, along with the tourism related jobs.