Would you choose to move to Scotland or Canada?

[Darlingyouvegottoletmeknow]

Would you move to Canada or Scotland? To a rural area in both. Eldest child in Y1, youngest a baby, we are in mid 30s.

Scotland

• Highlands village
• can both work part time
• buy a house outright with chunk of savings left over
• grandparent can visit every 2 months
• can move as soon as lockdown lifted
• keeps option of having another child open

Canada

• likely British Columbia, the island
• I would need to work full-time for the work visa, once Permanent Residency achieved could work part time (would take 1-3 years depending on factors largely outside our control)
• could buy a house outright once settled somewhere
• would take around a year to get documentation and visas sorted before we could actually move, and cost quite a few thousand, so only want to start this process if we are likely to actually move
• would see grandparents 1-2 times per year only (no relatives in Canada)
• would be harder to have another child as if still on work visa I couldn't take a full year of maternity leave

One option is moving to Scotland now and considering Canada in future when kids older, when I'd be happier to consider full-time work. Although maybe we wouldn't want to move then if children settled.

I like having access to family so Scotland would win for me.

It’s less complicated.

Also happen to be in Scotland so happy to give any info if I can help.

Scotland is my favourite place.
You would be living the dream a lot sooner here given the details regarding the move to Canada above...

We plan to move to Scotland in 3 years (dd finishing high school, DS finishing primary school) so that gets my vote!

Both county’s are both lovely, but for you Scotland seems better as you can have more family.

Why don’t you move to Scotland and instead of buying a house rent one for a year to see if it’s the right place for you.

I have family in the rural highlands of Scotland.

Top of my list would be: are you making an informed decision? (Don't get me wrong - I adore the highlands, incredibly beautiful).

Are you sure that temperamentally, rural living is for you? (have you ever tried it before? Did you grow up in the countryside? Is your experience occasional visits to the country for holidays whilst largely being based in a town?)

It can be very lonely. And yet at the same time a big downside of rural living is small communities mean EVERYONE knows everyone else's business. There's no privacy or anonymity the way there is in a town. The internet speeds are sometimes crap. Amenities are few and far between. (When a close relative went into a diabetic coma - this meant getting the RAF to fly her across Scotland to the only fully-equipped A&E in the highlands, in Inverness. There are cottage hospitals, but for the serious stuff, it's a helicopter ride.) Your kids may need to travel enormous distances to secondary school (the schools are good, but of necessity geographically spread out). Can you cope with the darkness in the middle of winter? Can you handle being house bound by bad weather? And (biggest consideration of all ) can you handle the midges?

If you're from an urban background, I would really, really strongly advise a 6 month "taster" - rent on a short-term let while maintaining your current house. Don't just leap into it with no way of reversing the decision if it doesn't suit you.

All these things apply times 100 for moving to Canada. Rural there is an even more extreme experience than in the north of Scotland.

As someone who lives in Scotland I would love to move to Canada given the chance.

Can you actually get work in Canada? I ask because Canada is no longer easy to move to; and my friends in Canada say that their own families are struggling to get work.

And I am not being funny but are you cut out for the kind of rural isolation you will face? I ask because I live in rural Scotland, and it sounds lovely, but unless you are very sure about this your dream will very possibly become a nightmare. Pretty places are not always easy to live in - and to be honest the only rationale that you have mentioned in your post is the fact that housing is cheap. You do realise that there is a reason for it being cheap? It's isolated in so many ways and nobody really wants to live there!

Canada would be my number one choice.
It's the place I've always dreamed about moving to.

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.

You would be living the dream a lot sooner here given the details regarding the move to Canada above...
This is true, this is basically what we are thinking.

I would really, really strongly advise a 6 month "taster" - rent on a short-term let while maintaining your current house. Don't just leap into it with no way of reversing the decision if it doesn't suit you.
We would prefer to rent first, if we can find something as few rental options. We rent current home and if it didn't work out we would be happy to move on again.

Are you sure that temperamentally, rural living is for you? (have you ever tried it before? Did you grow up in the countryside? Is your experience occasional visits to the country for holidays whilst largely being based in a town?)
Not sure - I did grow up in the countryside but didn't like it at the time so it is a bit of a gamble. It's something we've thought about for years, tried some holidays, and we really want to give it a go. If it doesn't work for us we wouldn't consider it a mistake try it for a year and move on again.

What are your reasons for wanting to move @Teacaketotty?

I live in Scotland. I'd move to Canada like a shot.

Re. availability of rental options - you might be able to do 6 months over the winter. (It's a problem that's dogged my younger relatives - holiday lets are much more lucrative for landlords than having full-time tenants, so frequently they could only rent for 9 months of the year and then had to move in with their parents over the summer.)

If you took a short let starting in, say, October, you could at least say at the end of it that you'd tried out the hardest time of the year, namely winter when it's cold, dark and wet a lot of the time.

Personally I don’t feel Scotland has great opportunities for our careers or for the kids growing up. I don’t think the quality of life, housing etc can be compared. My cousins grew up in Canada and we grew up here - as teenagers they all had hobbies, activities etc and all we did was hang around as there’s nothing to do. Just one example though.

Hard call. Both amazing. Good luck choosing! I couldn’t! (And will just stay in my dreary London house dreaming of both!)

I agree with Moondust (we are also rural). It sucks. No services, need to run two cars, NO services, surcharges on many deliveries or no option for delivery at all (you get the 'Does not deliver to Highlands and Islands' message), healthcare is a nightmare, education at secondary level often grim, lack of activities for children (unless you drive miles and miles).

My chief reason for wanting to move is secondary level education, or lack thereof, lack of opportunities and activities for older children.

Can you actually get work in Canada? I ask because Canada is no longer easy to move to;
Yes they are actively recruiting my profession

Pretty places are not always easy to live in - and to be honest the only rationale that you have mentioned in your post is the fact that housing is cheap. You do realise that there is a reason for it being cheap? It's isolated in so many ways and nobody really wants to live there!
we do have reasons for wanting to live rurally in terms of lifestyle, hobbies, scenery, personal reasons and ambitions, I just didn't list them all the post as the current decision is more about choosing between these two areas. If we tried it for a year and it wasn't for us we would not consider it a waste of a year or a waste of money.
If we did move to Canada we would go less rural than we would in Scotland, due to the extra challenges of immigrating to a new continent and the sheer distances involved.
I think/ hope that a lot of people can't live in rural areas due to the limited work options (you can't eat a view), and it's not that these places are so terrible that nobody wants to live there.....

Having met a wonderful Canadian couple on holiday from Vancouver Island it clearly has a lot to recommend it. Having met them when we travelled into the wilderness of BC, you do have to accept that is very different from VI. There is simply nothing there!

VI has good links to Vancouver and very much suits outdoors/wildlife types. I would recommend there from what I heard about it but you won’t find it cheap in the more connected areas. They were from Port Alberni if you want to look it up.

I’d move to Scotland ASAP, rent to see if you like rural living. Move before schools start back on 11 August . Small village schools will find it easier to social distance.

For me, seeing family, working part time and being able to afford another child would be the deciding factors.

If you post on Scotsnet and say which area you are considering people will be able to advise on location and schools.

I think/ hope that a lot of people can't live in rural areas due to the limited work options (you can't eat a view), and it's not that these places are so terrible that nobody wants to live there.....

I'm not sure it's possible to neatly separate out the two. You may have a fabulous job doable by internet - but if all the people around you are struggling, if (by the time they reach their teens) your children's peer group are struggling with lack of activities/lack of aspirations/counting down the days till they're old enough to move to Glasgow, then this will impact you. You can't live in a bubble, unaffected by the socio-economic circumstances of your neighbours.

Sorry, this may sound unduly negative - it's just that I've seen people move from cities to small communities and had it not work, and been really miserable, so it's important to really get a handle on what you can and can't cope with before you move.

And also realise that not all highland locations are the same - I'd not consider one for instance that didn't have two-way traffic roads, and a maximum of 20 miles to the nearest "sizeable" town. So for instance, a lot of the far flung bits of the west coast (some of the most beautiful scenery) would be out just because of the difficulty of getting anywhere else.

Is the weather a factor? From what I gather, BC weather is likely more "continental", i.e. colder winters, warmer summers.

Scotland is basically damp 4/5ths of the year, and chilly and damp for half, with the odd bit of sun :-)

I live in Scotland after spending 12 years away.

learned the hard way that the most important thing in my life is family after both my IL's died suddenly within a short space of time. The only regret we have is not spending as much time with them as we could have because of living in 2 different countries for 12 years combined. We moved back home and have never regretted it. I had a great relationship with my Grandparents and I want my children and my parents to have that too which they can now we're closer. That would be the clincher for me.

From living away my experience is that life anywhere is what you make it. You still have to deal with the daily grind, frustrating politics, and all the same stuff that can get you down living here. I don't feel we have fewer opportunities here in Scotland than we did elsewhere. In fact, having family nearer means we can do more as the GP's can come to babysit! We live rural-ish in a small countryside village that's close enough to the local town to not be isolated - best of both worlds.

Good luck with your decision x

You can't live in a bubble, unaffected by the socio-economic circumstances of your neighbours
This is a very good point, thank you. We have been discussing this and looking at things like the SIMD data (although may be skewed by wealthier retirees moving in), the leavers destinations of schools (although I can't find any school specific data for this beyond 2015), the demographics by age for different areas.

I'd not consider one for instance that didn't have two-way traffic roads, and a maximum of 20 miles to the nearest "sizeable" town. So for instance, a lot of the far flung bits of the west coast (some of the most beautiful scenery) would be out just because of the difficulty of getting anywhere else.
I agree with this and in many ways I'd prefer a pretty semi-rural lowland area, dh is quite fixed on Highlands but it's still under discussion.

I have family in both Scotland and Canada, and I have friends who emigrated to Vancouver Island and I've visited there.

I'd go for Canada, personally, especially if it's a reasonable income. I adore BC.

No contest - Canada.

Why can’t you do both, move to Scotland whilst you wait for your visas etc the highlands aren’t just rural areas, there are towns and Inverness is much better than it was in 80’s/90’s when I grew up. I lived near the beach but also an hour or so from mountains and forests and all sorts of fun things to do. We were never indoors much even in rubbish weather. Depends where you fancy living really

I moved to Canada nearly 2 years ago (Alberta). It was just me, no kids. I'm sponsored by a Canadian citizen and I was able to get a work permit within about 9 months of applying for sponsorship from within Canada.

I love it here but there are downsides - the cost of living is very high. Food in particular is 2-4x what you'd pay in the UK, especially fruit, vegetables and cheese. A cauliflower in my local supermarket was $6.99 the other day, that's £4.11. The supermarkets don't have the same selection of stuff either - I miss M&S more than I can put into words! There's a lot of processed American crap and the chocolate is dire. Petrol is cheap but cars aren't and car insurance is very expensive. Mobile phones, internet and cable TV packages are all also very expensive, far more than the UK. There are also extra sales taxes added at the till to pretty much everything you buy - in B.C. you have to add a total of 12% to the shelf price.

You need to check the entry requirements carefully, it has been made more difficult in recent years to gain entry and be able to stay. Moving and setting up here would be a very expensive process so you need to factor that in as well unless you get a relocation package with a job offer. It cost me nearly £4000 to get my dogs over here, but to me that was essential.

It's a long way from home, I do miss my family and friends. Canadians are by and large lovely but they tend to keep themselves to themselves in my experience and do lots of socialising with family and small groups of 'old friends'.

Here in Alberta we have "7 months of winter and 5 months of construction" 😄 but on a more serious note in many areas it's 7 months of winter and 5 months of severe wildfire risk. It snows here pretty much from beginning October to mid-May, and gets extremely cold, regularly below -30. 7 months of snow and frigid temperatures does get wearing. Vancouver Island isn't generally as cold but gets a lot of rain and can be very stormy and very grey in winter. There is also a high and very serious risk of fires in the summer in many areas. There's also monstrous mosquitoes, bears, wolves, cougars and some poor 21 year old died of rabies last year, contracted from a bat on Vancouver Island which he didn't even realise had bitten him (obviously that's extremely rare and newsworthy but still..!).

V.I. is huge, I'm assuming you've been if you're considering relocating there. It's not particularly cheap in the nicer parts and Vancouver itself is insanely expensive. It's not all rural at all, but when it is Canadian rural is not like UK rural. The distances here are on another scale and in many (most) remote areas saying that there really is not a lot to do is an understatement. I'm in Calgary so have all the amenities of the city but can be in the mountains in an hour from our neighbourhood (Banff is 1h 20 away) which gives the best of all worlds for me. I'm a very outdoorsy person and we spend most of the summer camping and hiking in the mountains and national/provincial parks but I still wouldn't want to actually live anywhere very rural/remote here. It's a very long winter!

All that said, it's a beautiful, friendly country and I love it here. There are only a few places within Canada where I'd actually want to live, and I don't think I'm going to stay forever, but I do love where I am.