What’s your escapist fantasy?

[DDoOneRon]

Mine is me and DP selling up, buying a motor home and driving away from our lives to a new one adventure.
(I have never actually been in a motor home or caravan).

I own a nice little shop selling plants and flowers. In reality, I know sod all about plants!

Lately, it’s buying and doing up a beachfront property in or near Valencia, running the dog on the beach daily, cycling everywhere, my younger kids dive into their new and improved lifestyle and everyone’s great and happy and healthy. My novel gets published (of course it does because everything happens in Fantasyland).

Right now, living in Alaska with an extensive library

I'm just an everyday baker. (Victoria sponge, Scones , Fruit Cake ) no elaborate fancy iced decorations.
I'd love to have a tradition style tea shop, but in my dreams it would never run me off my feet , lovely customers I'd chat to , yet it would make me heaps of money !

Mine s a bit like yours OP just buying a motor home and buggering off wherever I wanted picking up work along the way with my cat.

Also want to go and spend big chunks of the year in Finland so am learning the language. My son is marrying a lovely Finnish woman and they plan to settle in the countryside there. I m welcome anytime.

In my teens my father bought a motor van and we toured the coast of Scotland one summer. I loved it.

In reality I m middle aged, work a steady job in a school in Hertfordshire and only escape in the holidays back to Scotland (and soon Finland).

Oh, I have so many! Top three:

1. A combination healing/therapy centre, vintage dress shop, cafe, and bookstore in the Somerset countryside (but easy to get to by public transport).
2. Sticking all my STUFF in storage somewhere and taking off round the world, picking up work as I go and getting to really experience places rather than just go on holiday there.
3. Live by the sea and write (probably bad) romantic novels and cosy crime. With cats.

Small cottage in the Scottish Highlands, with a dog, a library and a roaring fire. And no phone signal.

A little place in Iceland with Internet access and a computer and wine so I can write the book I want to write.

My father is from a beautiful, smallish city in northern Italy. I’m a teacher and there is a very good, large international school there.

I often imagine getting a job there, moving there with the family, drinking espresso every morning in the gorgeous local cafe, attending the opera every week (the opera house is stunning), wearing chic clothing, buying fresh pasta and vegetables at the market, driving out to the wine country to fill the boot with wine… Skiing in the winter, swimming in summer…

I know the reality would be so so so different. We’d never fit in, there is no expat community and my husband doesn’t speak Italian (my Italian is also not as good as it should be). We’d have no friends and be lonely and isolated. Family is everything there and we aren’t very close to my millions of second cousins.

But I often dream about this scenario!!

In my escapist fantasy, I’m happily married to a gorgeous German architect and we split our time between our home in the RhineValley and our summer home in Portugal. I have a metallic bottle green coloured sports car, and I make a very good salary as a data analyst for a Formula 1 team. My husband made millions in his architect business so he retired at the age of 36 and now dedicates his time to charity work and raising our children.

In reality, I live in a poverty stricken northern mining village, in a shite admin job a smidge above minimum wage.

Living in Shetland away from everyone

Basically anything where I don't have to work anymore

I have a crush on a particularly lovely, charismatic, tall, handsome man (who's a few years younger so a bit of a toyboy though I'm not keen on the phrase) and he up-sticks to my east midlands town from his home in the south so that I can keep my support network of female friends. He buys a lovely house in a neighbouring village for us to share and we enjoy a long-lasting and happy marriage. He is kind, passionate and romantic.

In reality I've been widowed for several years and have reverted to being the commitment-phobe that I was before I met my lovely late husband and am rather too arthritic for passion. Ah, but I can dream.

Mine doesn’t involve DH or DCs 😂

I have a lovely snug little terrace or cottage, either in a small but perfectly formed market town in England, a vine-covered hillside in France, or on a Greek island, where I have 3 dresses (wear one wash one hang one) and a wicker basket for my fresh cheeses and vegetables (soil still attached) that I buy from the market daily. I have a small glass of pastis and watch the sunset alone. Maybe go down to the sea for a swim on balmy evenings (market town notwithstanding, this is a fantasy) and meet my dark and sexy hunk man for a shag before returning to my little place alone.

It’s a fantasy? Oh no! I thought it was just a really slow moving long term plan.

Well anyway it involves me as a famous film Director finally getting recognition and huge piles of cash.

It could still happen 👀

I also have a small cottage, re-start one (North East coast of England) and a post-apocalyptic one (Last Man On Earth style).

The common thread is simplicity and relative isolation, with a hint of struggle.

Get on a yacht - this one preferably. And go sailing for a year. Not around the world, there is some gorgeous places in the UK and maybe a trip to Norway.

Oh and the weather would always be perfect, enough wind to clip along, not too hot not too cold, no horizontal rain…

I am LOVING this thread.

@ItsCalledAConversation , that made me laugh so much - soil, still attached 🤣

I'd like to fly somewhere hot and live on a beach.
Or, buy a cottage in Wales and live there with my dog. I'd let dh visit every other weekend .

Suddenly get money. Learn how to make violins and be incredible at, while owning a horse and exploring the place. Yet spend my days outside.

I will live somewhere that is simultaneously in the middle of nowhere with amazing countryside and silence apart from wildlife (and have amazing views) and somewhere busy where I have lots of interactions with people.

I don’t need a big house, but it will be so easy to keep clean.

A beautiful cottage on the Welsh borders, nestled in rolling countryside with far-reaching views. I can potter about growing a fabulous flowers in my garden. I've already mentally planned some Indian architecture-inspired fruit cages for my raspberries etc. I shall also have a large glasshouse and pond. I'll have a cat or two and an Italian greyhound. I'll also have a large studio to host sewing days and a workshop with space for my upholstery work and a separate area with a kiln for my hot-glasswork. I also need a small orchard set in a meadow.. Ahhh bliss... Oh, and it will have a stream that never floods the house..

Having enough money to be fully independent and not have to work, buy a domer bungalow with potential for a fully accessible conjoned doling for wheelchair user son so he's OK for life, running a fandom shop/ seco d hand shop that's fully accessible and employ those who normally get overlooked for work. Buy my sisters a home each so they are secure and give my dad enough money so he can retire and enjoy his life.

I work 3 days a week in a little cafe in a Yorkshire village, which is popular with walkers. Dh work 4 days a week (2 from home, 2 in the office) There's a few shops in the village with a hotel/pub. It's a commutable distance from a big town. There's a great community spirit with the summer fayre and carols around the Christmas tree. My ds is grown up and happy with whatever he had chosen to.

I think my fantasy ultimately is to have enough money not to have to work, To be able to own my own how without a mortgage while still young enough to enjoy life and to have a go at lots of different hobbies.

To be able to enjoy life away from the treadmill of work.

A beautiful eco cottage, lots of animals esp. horses, naturalised swimming pool/hot lagoon/waterfall with a slide that takes me down to the beach where yet more horses are waiting for beach gallops. Long distance relationship with Joaquin Phoenix but no men allowed in the house!

Not sure where poor DC fit in 🤔😆