AIBU to consider moving to Scotland because I cannot cope with heat?

It’s lovely isn’t it. I know midge clouds are a thing in boggy peaty areas but they certainly don’t affect my everyday life

As a household with an income of multiple hundreds of thousands, I reckon they can afford the extra few grand in tax.

OPP, realistically, wherever you moved away to, you are not going to know
until you are there whether you can or will settle, or if you have made a terrible
mistake
homesickness is real
as is the possibility this was an exceptional unusually heated summer

We're free from midges here in Edinburgh. Never seen one!

It's 21 here but cloudy. I love it, I can go for walks comfortably without getting too hot.

This is absolute nonsense, do you actually live here ?! I’m sitting out in 21 degrees right now, it’s lovely!

It’s gorgeous here today ! I’m rural, north of Glasgow. 21 degrees, light breeze, I’m having lunch in the garden. It’s been a lovely summer for me, upper 20’s at the most. Barely a midge to be seen , unless you visit boggy peaty areas. I notice the evenings getting a bit darker now, autumn to look forward to. My only complaint is that there’s not enough cold frosty days, or snow 🤣 we only had one day of skimpy snow last winter !
All the preconceived ideas of Scotland being in the dark 6 months of the year and knee deep in midges the rest are quite funny.

Winters are lonnnnnnnng. It does feel a bit like an endurance test.

Nooooooooo. We don't want everyone moving up here and making our property prices higher. Stay down there please.

Just kidding. 😁

It's great here, we had a really nice summer with 27 degrees at some points and the rest a nice 22 ish. I hate the heat so it's perfect for me.

Rest of the year though - bloody Baltic. Come, but don't moan about how cold it is the rest of year. We know!

I was born in the lake District I miss it sooo much perfect weather for me.

Trust me , it will be less appealing when you realise you haven't seen a clear sky of temperature above 16 degrees for years on end. You'll envy seeing the news and actual summers and not having the heating on year round. Plus they skin you for income tax and stamp duty.

Well, move out of Scotland if you don't like paying high taxes. No one is forcing a gun to your head to stay.

We used to joke about people moving up to escape the heat and pollution but now it is genuinely a reality. People are also taking "coolcations" literally short breaks to escape the unrelenting heat at home.
I know that this year was exceptionally hot but soon enough these temperatures will be the norm.
If you can't comfortably live with the heat where you are then I would think about moving sooner rather than later (to wherever) because it's not going to get any better.

Hi 👋 I live near Edinburgh and while we did get spells of hot weather it’s been nothing like some parts of the SE , London , the Midlands etc .
I think the hottest we got was the odd day here and there with “ feels like “ temperatures of 30c ( BBC weather app was showing the temperature as mid 20s but Netweather and some other sites were more accurate)
Bear in mind that some places in the Scottish Borders can get really very hot on those days eg Melrose , Innerleithen, Peebles.
But if you live in Edinburgh and the Lothians you’ll find the coast feels nice and cool and is very accessible.

Scandinavia is a lot hotter than Scotland in the summer!

And people were thinking the anti English bigotry had ended. Nope! Alive and kicking sadly. Why do you think the SNP keep getting voted in despite being truly terrible at governing?

The English are more reserved, and less direct. Scots beat around the bush a lot less, yet are more welcoming and warm. Also, just look at how Scotland has voted in comparison to England over the last 80 years - this in itself shows how Scotland is much less individualistic than England. Of course there is conservatism, but not to the same extent as in England.

I think there will be a new type of 'climate migration' in the next ten years or so. Not necessarily people moving to Scotland or Scandinavia permanently, but people buying holiday homes in those regions. People from Southern England will stop going to Mediterranean countries in summer - 'for some sun.' What is the point when it's in the 30s here for weeks / months on end? We're in London and I think today is the first morning since about April that the sky looks overcast. It may have even rained a little overnight! The grass is like straw and the parks look like mini deserts.

When I was younger in the 70s, 25 degrees was a hot summer. Now I'd say that is a quite cool summer day when you can actually walk about and breathe. Even 30 degrees feels just about manageable now, but above that and particularly when it hits 38 degrees? You become so unproductive and feel exhausted all the time. People in Southern England are going to have to adapt and get air con. With these summers, I think lots more people will definitely be heading north for holidays rather than south and tourism is going to change a lot. Get ready Inverness, Tromso Oslo and Stockholm!

Where are these stats from?
Nothing I've online matches this.
(Interested as I live very close to one of these places and don't think it's particularly wet)

@scotlandundersiege

Nothing says ‘we welcome diversity’ quite like then stereotyping people according to their nationality, race and age and explaining which ones you try to avoid. And then blaming an entire country for Brexit rather than the people who actually voted for it. Quite the commitment to avoiding sweeping generalisations 😀

Also do one with "English settlers". - she's moving from one part of the uk to another!!!!!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

I’d be interested to know if it is an old stereotype or if it’s still quite prevalent…when I was growing up in Scotland in the 90s/early 2000s there was a lot of anti-English sentiment and this was in a big city. The few English kids in my school always got teased for their accent and some properly bullied just cos they were English. If England were playing in the World Cup there would be pubs full of people passionately cheering for whoever the other team was. I agree the Scottish mindset is pretty different to southern English, the humour is different, the whole culture is pretty different

I spent a few days in the Highlands this summer for work and it was such a relief from the relentless heat in SE England. I appreciate it would be very different in the depths of winter though.

I thought it was a beautiful area and couldn’t get over how friendly everyone was having been led to believe Scottish people were generally grumpy and hated the English!

Edinburgh was still unbearably hot this summer. Inverness is markedly cooler with train/air links to London etc.

I’ve been thinking that house prices in Scotland are going to skyrocket in the next few years cos people down south are going to get sick of the heat. I’d move if I were you, especially if your parents move too. You’ll make new friends and find a new community. I grew up in Scotland (not the beautiful, peaceful part unfortunately!) but be warned, the winters can be brutal, especially up north, constant rain and feels like it never really gets properly light outside, always overcast and winter goes on for a really long time. I personally don’t mind this but I know a lot of people do. Also the midges in the north of Scotland shouldn’t be underestimated, when it’s warm and not windy you literally cannot sit outside they’re so bad sometimes. I don’t know how old your daughter is but if she’s still primary age, I’d move while she’s still young, integrating as a kid with an English accent into a Scottish school can be difficult and the older she gets the more difficult it might be

Ha ha, yes. My dad's from Walker so we often visit family back there. I couldn't get over how biting the wind was in winter - it seemed to cut right into my cheeks.

Agreed. Looking at it politically, in the 2026 regional ballot, Reform came second to the SNP, replacing the Scottish Conservatives as the largest right-wing party.

Scottish National Party (SNP): 625,949 votes (27.2%)
Reform UK: 383,425 votes (16.6%)
Scottish Labour: 368,785 votes (16.0%)
Scottish Greens: ~322,000 votes (14.0%)

That breakdown doesn't speak strongly to me of a massive difference in political or social attitudes between England and Scotland. The main difference is the Scottish pro-independence dynamic versus England's multi-party gridlock.

Anyway, I've lived in both countries, there are pros and cons of both. Although, rather than uprooting my whole family, I'd probably try getting an air-con unit fitted first. It's a tab cheaper than moving house nowadays!