What’s it like to live in Kent?

Oh dear, my house is over your budget in a "grim" town. Sorry OP, I don't mean to piss in your chips. With your budget I'd consider heading up. Dsis lives near Stamford, very rural thereabouts and fast trains from Peterborough to KC.

All depends on your budget @almostautumn and what you hope to achieve for it?

East Sussex has got a very different vibe to Kent and trains into London are generally much slower. It's very pretty though. It's our go to nearby day out place as Kent residents. But we go by car!!

I think you need to visit a lot of places in a structured way, by public transport, in November. You don't seem to know anywhere outside London very well - have you not ever been for day trips or weekends to any of these places?

The Medway towns and Sittingbourne are grim but most people I know from those areas live in pleasant outlying large villages and just use the railway station because the train line is decent. House prices are much more reasonable than Sevenoaks/Tunbridge Wells

Yes East Sussex/Kent border would be nice

Yes! Do it. Do you want village or town

Consider renting first. Get to know places

There a lovely villages in the Weald, not far from stations for your DH but where you can be out walking in the country within minutes and barely see anyone.

DH and I used to go from London for 8-12 mile walks in the Kent countryside and barely saw a soul. You just need to visit and do your research.

Don’t live near Ebbsfleet or Medway- far too busy.

The area around Sissinghurst is lovely, and the train station in the next village takes you to Charing Cross. There are nice places further in around Otford if Sissinghurst is too far out.

Depends on where you go. Some areas are nicer than others.

Tonbridge is quite nice.
Maidstone also quite nice.

Medway is mid scale.

I saw a man walking along with a bong at 11am on a Thursday morning last week in Margate and that's pretty common place.

If your fleeing the stabbings etc in London, which I don't blame you for but it is getting worse in Medway

I grew up in Kent, concrete Kent though , not countryside, although it’s always referrred to as South London if I see it mentioned on TV. 40 mins into London. There are some really beautiful parts though.

[quote Floralnomad]@MazyontheDipper , some bits of Rochester are ok , the rest of Medway would not be to my taste .[/quote]
I grew up around the Medway towns, last time I was there it was all quite run down and rough.

I grew up in Kent.
I lived in London as a young adult then moved to Hampshire for the countryside. We can get to London Waterloo in an hour on the train. It's lovely countryside down here, I fine Kent quite built up when we return home. All my family love visiting us "out in the country" down here and I'm right by the coast. I don't have to fight on M2 and then M25 to get anywhere down here, we can bypass the M25 and go up M3, M4 instead. In Kent to each rest of the country it's sensible to always go via M25.

So it depends on where your DH and you work if still working in London. If its East side maybe think about Essex but further out. Or south side think about West Sussex and Surrey - Guildford is lovely as is Worthing. They have nice villages outside.

But my vote is Hampshire, Or if he works North London - Herts or Berks

OP probably should avoid Faversham if not having massive developments springing up all around is important. Although it would tick a few boxes in the straight forward commute/rural areas around/close to coast area.

The Isle of Sheppey was knocked in an earlier post BUT it has coast all round it, you can walk for miles without seeing anybody. You are 1.5 hours from London, we do Hackney in an hour on a good day. There is a lot of new housing going up and where I live in Sheerness is run down and scruffy with lots of poverty BUT I am 2 mins from an almost deserted beach and there are some nice undiscovered places dotted about...

Try Sevenoaks or the villages around it. It's stratospherically expensive because it's a very easy and quick commute to London and because it has Knole Park which gives a genuine sense of space. No sea or even river though.

I think it's a bit unrealistic to expect to move to a quiet rural location, an hour from London with much cheaper house prices.

Exactly - you can be really quiet and isolated and it will be cheap, or handy for London and it won't.

We moved from London to Wadhurst three years ago (technically East Sussex, right on the Kent border). One hour into London Bridge / Waterloo. I love where we live.

I find it interesting when people talk of areas being demographically composed mainly of indigenous people with lack of diversity as if it’s a negative and wonder if other nations do this as well. Do people in Greece for example eschew areas populated by mainly Greek people of Greek heritage?

Penshurst?