US or U.K. or Europe? Where to live

[Polestarsim]

We've been trying to buy a house in this insane market for over 2 years. This along with the U.K. seeming more and more unstable we've started to rethink if here is the best place for us to live. The government seems to simply not care and people are turning on each other for trying to access basics like healthcare and fuel rather than look at the central failings of the government. There seems to be no ability to forward plan.

So we've started to wonder if maybe we ought to move completely and start over. We can legally reside anywhere in the EU, U.K. or U.S. Where would you choose?

@Puppalicious It doesn't rain as much as I thought it would and the wonderful long light western summer evenings when it is light to nearly midnight are a joy (and we barbecued and hot-tubbed every single night of the summer bar three, except for the month we were away on holiday. We do have an umbrella of course!).

I actually don't really mind rain anyway. I moved in the 1980s from Johannesburg, where the weather is famously fabulous and the rain usually lasts for a maximum thirty-minute thunderstorm, to London.The big thing that everyone in SA said to me when I left was "oh the weather! The weather! How will you manage?". I lived for over thirty years in London and I was fine with the weather because it was London, which I loved then and always will. But that grey permacloud (we called it the "grey blanket") of winter started to bug me more and more as I got older.

Here is Galway it is very different. We rarely get a day in which the weather does not change several times. It's the wind off the Atlantic, the weather all blows over rapidly to give way to something else. This morning it was sunny and raining at the same time for over an hour. Then I was at an outdoor event at school at lunchtime and we all had to rush under shelter for three minutes of absolute downpour, then there was an hour of glorious sunshine and no wind. Now it is sunny and rather windy. I am happy with this! It doesn't get as cold as London nor as warm as London.

They do tell a joke here "oh, how well I remember the summe of 1986, it was on a Wednesday". That is not really fair! Of course it never gets hot, but a lovely spring, sumer or even autumn day out here on the rural wild west coast takes some beating.

If I was younger, and had a more transferable job, I'd be looking at Finland. I have visited a few times and have been quite impressed. It sent me down various rabbit holes to find out so much more about the country and my various impressions were largely vindicated.

We’re in north Cork, it’s handy for transport links. We can easily get to Dublin, Cork city and Limerick yet it’s rural and peaceful. If I could live anywhere in Ireland I would actually move to Galway. My daughter is at uni there and it’s such a vibrant, cosmopolitan little city.

@Polestarsim
I have sent you a PM, as it has some outing info . Hopefully you will be able to see it