What do you mean by rural, as ‘access to hill walking’ varies from ‘up Arthur’s Seat in the middle of Edinburgh’ to ‘Knoydart’, and everything in between. Scotland has 60% of England’s land mass and 10% of its population so everywhere you go has far far fewer people than down south, and even within that the vast majority of people live in Scottish cities. So wherever you are outside the cities will likely feel pretty rural.
Some questions I have thought about in relation to moving within Scotland in case they’re helpful:
- what’s the broadband like? Is a good question because in quite big chunks (and small pockets) of rural Scotland the answer is ‘shit’, although it varies hugely
- how far away from secondary school are you happy with your kids being? (And how comfortable are you with them going from a primary with 20 kids in total to a secondary with 1200+? I know a few people who’ve done that and it can be really tough) What time in the morning will they have to get the bus?
- how far away from a children’s hospital are you comfortable being? I have been on holiday to places where if my child was ill it would mean a ferry and then a 3-4 hour drive, or helicopters in emergency.
- what’s the travel like? Is there a road that always floods? (See the Rest & Be Thankful). Does it get cut off in snow? Do you need two cars? Do you need snow chains?
- do you want pretty or rugged? I always think the Borders and Dumfries and Galloway are lovely and quite ‘human’, whilst there are much wilder places further north
- how community building do you want to be? Very remote communities are desperate for families to move in to help save schools which will otherwise close and to keep communities doing. Other areas are full of retired people. Look at local press for ideas
- how dark will it be in the winter? Pick a place on a weather app and look at the sunrise and sunset times vs where you are now. It’s amazing in summer but less so in December and again, that affects how early you want to be up and about for school, work etc. The difference really does make a difference (Aberdonian speaking)
- do you want a commuter town or a rural market town? (The latter are sadly not as pretty as their English counterparts, generally speaking). You get quite a lot of rural still being close to Edinburgh or Glasgow for eg and there will be a lot of families living there.
Lots of places have a single website for property eg
//www.bspc.co.uk or
//www.espc.co.uk so you can see what you can afford. Unless that’s no object in which case Country Life’s Scottish edition is out now