Moving out of London

A few of my mates and my dad have all lost their fishing boats because of quotas enforced on them making it not financially viable to fish; and the harbor I grew up in is a shell of what it was with the few remaining boats surviving by taking rich Londoners out for a days angling. They all voted to leave because that's what the fisheries say when they slap more quotas on them: "ahh it's that EU malarky making us stop you fishing". You are correct, most of the fish is sent up to London for the restaurants and what not.

I lived in Warwick gardens in Worthing for a while years ago. It's a v strange place.

I'm finding this thread very useful and enjoyable to read.

We're considering a move out of London at the moment. Well, beyond considering, it's what we plan to do.

We're not set on any one area as yet but it would ideally be between our respective parent's houses so somewhere between Northamptonshire and the Suffolk Coast.

We went to a friend's wedding in a rural setting near Bury St Edmunds recently. The bride is Sri Lankan and whilst walking down a lane on her big day had a car slow down and shout "fuck you ni**er!" at her.

I don't for a second think that sort of behaviour is widespread or normal outside of London but it certainly has pushed us to think about the social changes in more depth.

Jesus christ. What an awful thing to say to someone. I can't imagine what that would feel like, especially on such a special day like that.

Yup, pretty sickening. It will be a bad memory that she has for the rest of her life I guess.

We lived in Barnes/Putney for a while and found that to be uncomfortably white. Not sure if that is something that we would get used to or find miserable over time. Rural Essex/suffolk/Cambridgeshire is a world away from Putney.

We are planning a move to Madrid (Mrs is from there) in the next couple of years. Interesting thread for me.

Question: What does DFL mean?

Down From London.

Down From London (I think)

Unless you relocate up North. Then you're generally referred to by four letter words.

Dead Fucking Last

More or less exactly as above for us but with the destination more likely to be Winchester way.

Even my card carrying diehard urbanite wife has fallen out of love with the place. Still love London - just don't love living here.

Also planning to move out of London, but to New York, not the country side. Interesting to read about long winters in Toronto... That is my one great concern about New York. The weather for half the year seems to be absolutely savage. Fucking cold, or boiling fucking hot...

In the office too with heating and air conditioning.

Interesting to read about long winters in Toronto...

It's less about the length, more about the absolute savagery. Here you can do the same things all year round, like ride a bike, swim in an outdoor pool, go for a run in just a t-shirt...only under exceptional circumstances do those things get ruled out by the winter.

In Toronto that's not the case - the weather changes what you can do.

Also Ice Storms are fun until people start dying from using their BBQs indoors to warm their houses.

Both Toronto and New York strike me as 'other Londons' but with more bonkers weather and less green space. Get to the West coast for something completely different.

Madrid is cool. got a bunch of former Londoner mates living there. Fit in well, as it's supposed to be active but not insanely expensive.

What maynardeames said. Pretty sure CR to London will be similar journey time as Cornwall to London ;)

My vote would be CR. Nice people/culture, good weather, relatively low corruption. Although it's a lot more expensive than it used to be, which could be a pro or a con depending on your pov. Tonnes of ecotourism infrastructure tho.

Nicaragua could also be worth a look as it's cheaper and seems to be on the up. They used to have pretty good import tax breaks for foreigners - so things like cars, which can be expensive to buy in that part of the world.

Summer is doable, although obvs hot the US have aircon sorted. Winter was a real shock though - much more debilitating than I ever expected. It was fucking long this year too and there's fuck all to do compared to the rest of the year. One thing people don't mention though is that it's warm through most of Oct - I was out in the evening in shorts and a long shirt. So by UK standards your summer goes on for ages.

I'd say the biggest shocks for me were cost, culture and ropeyness. People by enlarge are astoundingly selfish and rude by English standards, this becomes even more evident when you come back from other US cities/states. The rundown/backwards nature of the City, but the country in general still surprises me. Maybe it was growing up with an image of the US being rich and developed, but sometimes it seems more like the late '90s here and has more in common with a developing country than Europe.

@JB I'd say go for it. It doesn't have to be for ever, and you're at the right age now.

I've been in New York when it's been -20 and 35 degrees. At least in the winter it doesn't smell as bad as it does in the summer.

+1 about the savagery.

Imo the problem with the West Coast, if you have family / friends you want to keep in touch with, is its a really long way.

NYC is 5hrs time difference and is a short inexpensive flight away. Plus there are lots of easily reachable cool parts of the country.

I haven't been to Toronto, but imo NYC is pretty different from London. The vibe and the pace is next level and as shit as the bad weather is, the good weather is soooo much better. There are other things that smash it, snowboarding within a few hours in winter, a proper sandy beach a subway ride away (nicer beaches if you travel a bit). Cities like Boston, Philly and Washington a cheap bus ride away.

I'd love to live here longer, but honestly it's not somewhere I could live long term. Cost is a pretty big factor in that though... imo its not an exaggeration to say you probably need a combined household income of +$200k to have a good quality of life over the long term (by good I literally mean good, not especially high).

You lucky bastard, great city...

This past winter was the longest I'd encountered since I'd been here. It seemed to start pretty early in December and then didn't fully get better until April and, unlike other years, there was no let up in the early part of the year.

Toronto is a bit like London in some ways. It definitely feels smaller in the downtown core. It's nice though as there are little pockets of communities all over the center of the city. It also has the largest urban park system in North America. We have tonnes of urban green spaces and then trails & pathways. Theres a park that runs north/south to the west of the city that contains about 90km of mtb trails that I can ride to in 20 minutes. And then you have the lake and the Toronto Islands that feel like a country park within the city limits.

So we are moving to Ash which is in between Aldershot and Guildford. I've heard there are great mountain bike tracks in surrey so ecstatic about the fact I get to look for another bike that I absolutely need. Also, I guess general fields and countryside and that.

Yorkshire. It's ace. I've been here most of my life but my job mainly involves london clients so i'm down your way several times a month as it's less than 2 hours for York to London KK by rail. I've considered living in London several times but always come back to 'lovely place to visit but not to live' I think it very much depends on the industry you work in though, some jobs just don't translate out of the city.

Two of my colleagues are in the process of fleeing Nicaragua due to safety reasons.