What's a really great UK seaside city or large town to live in?

[LAHallucinations]

As the title says really. I've lived in a small town in the Home Counties all my life and I'd like to move to the coast within the next year. The trouble is I have very few restrictions/criteria for where I could move, so I'm struggling with very bad choice paralysis. Whenever I do find somewhere I think would suit me, I search for threads about the place on here, and inevitably they'll be a handful of comments saying what a shithole that place is, which just sends me back to square one (even if most other comments are very positive).

So no negativity please, just places that you think are really good to live in.

The only essentials are:

• Must be by the coast (doesn't need to have a sandy beach, just some good coastal walks)


• Must be a big town or a city (I don't drive so I want everything nearby and plenty of things to do/opportunities to meet new people)


• Mustn't be somewhere really 'rough' or rundown

I work from home, I don't have children, and I have a large budget, so none of those things are an issue.

Where would you recommend?

Good to see the love for NE Scotland! I agree the summer is amazing. Pre DC we would regularly go hiking, kayaking etc after work - it’s incredible to be out in the light at 10pm.

No it doesn’t get the heat of the southern UK but for some of us that’s a good thing. And it’s still warm enough to swim in the rivers, lochs and seas in summer - all of which the DC and I have been doing this summer holiday already.

Im an oddball though and also love the winters here - I like a proper, cold winter and gladly accept a bit of darkness for snow and skiing. And the winter light is also incredible in its own way.

Enough now @BlackandBlueBird you have made me jealous enough, in fact far too much so. I said earlier in this thread about how happy I was living in Poole, and bringing my young children up there, and then elsewhere in Dorset when they were a bit older, as we had to move away from Poole for practical reasons.

What I didn't say then, and maybe I shouldn't be admitting to it now, is that Scotland is my Heaven. Everything you describe is what my Heaven would look and feel like. When we manage to go to Scotland I like to go in the winter, for all the reasons you mention and more, so much more. I have been in the summer, but never yet managed the Autumn. But I would love the chance to hear the stags rutting, see an Eagle soaring if (I am very lucky), and see the deciduous forests changing colour, then becoming naked against the skyline, while the Conifers stay enrobed in beautiful shades of green and bluey greens.

Because of family commitments I can't move to Scotland while alive, and I am not sure that when we die Heaven can be just what we want it to be, the logistics seem rather challenging! As I want to be reunited with my loved ones who went before - both humans and canine - but what if their idea of Heaven includes warm turquoise seas, gentle spicy scented breezes, and turtles laying their eggs in the sand, then swimming, apparently lazily, all around us. Maybe Heaven has an entertainment room like on the Starship Enterprise, where you enter through the door and into your ideal place, where all of your most precious desires are met, your wishes granted - but I think I would still prefer the real thing rather than computer generated immersion...

Oops sorry, I think a might have drifted off into a daydream just then 😍💤

Norwich

Oh @TheLadyofShalott1 what a lovely post, I hope you can make it up here in autumn soon. Funnily enough I find autumn this far north starts in August when the leaves of our blueberry bushes turn bright red, and whenever I see it I get such a sense of excitement about the turning of the year… the mists and the birch forests turning golden and the scent of wood smoke…

Oh WoW, thank you @BlackandBlueBird, that is good to know! So maybe the end of September or the first couple of weeks of October should be a good time to go, or maybe even earlier - the middle two weeks of September?

My husband will be worried though if we go back, we went there for our honeymoon circa 30 years ago, and I think the only way he got me to go home was because I had young children at home, but of course they are all grown up now, so...❤️💐

A good tip I read once was to read the local papers online now join a few groups on FB locally. To give you a flavour of an area

@TheLadyofShalott1 I would go for October for the best colours. Although autumn starts early, I always feel like it lasts all through to mid November. I was just looking at photos from last year to check - the final fortnight of October had the best leaves.

Thank you so much @BlackandBlueBird October it will be then 😊 Unfortunately I will have to wait until 2023, but I am already looking forward to it! xx

This is something I'm interested in doing. Always wonder looking back on old posts what the person ended up doing and where they ended up going?

Edinburgh