Life outside of London

[Neitherherenortheir]

Crime, pollution, living costs and expenses all being reasons to wonder what life outside of London is really like. Nearly all our friends and family are here so we have huge ties. But as DC grow older I wonder about leaving. Looking for recommendations for places that aren’t too dissimilar, do not require a driving licence (DH plans to learn but I’ve no want to drive), good secondary schools without moving a million miles away. AIBU?

Edinburgh has great public transport, millions of tourists, lots to see and do etc. I'm happy to confirm there is also running water and even electricity.

We prefer Londoners to stay in London, makes the rest of us feel better cos we're so inferior and don't want reminding

@Somanysocks

God you and lots of other posters are insanely defensive. OP said she wants to move out of London and lists the reasons why - she asks for recommendations of where she could move and you somehow manage to take it as a personal insult. Some of you people are massive snowflakes!

I don't even live in London and this thread gives me the impression that everyone outside of the capital is a massive snowflake with an inferiority complex.

This is just one of those random AIBU thread where a few posters make randomly bitchy posts in response to a normal OP and the rest just jump on the band wagon.

If you don't want to drive then Cambridge is small enough to travel around on foot or like a lot of people - by bike. 50 mins fast train to kings cross if you need to get into London . Has lots going on for a smallish city. Not sure what part of London you're in but property is not much cheaper there than some parts of London.

Looking for recommendations for places that aren’t too dissimilar

Well, there’s nowhere really like LONDON. So don’t try to look for that.

There are loads of great cities elsewhere in the UK, but honestly if your friends and family are in London I’d want to stay close to family.

Or just buy a second home, bedt of both worlds and highly recommended

To be honest, OP, if you’re going to leave London, you might as well go abroad.

Do you have any other languages?

There is nowhere that it like London, but not. Really.
Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester are all fabulous cities though.

Bristol. I moved from London to Bristol and I LOVE it

I'm in a Herts commuter town and can recommend it! Dh works in central london and can get to work door to door in an hour.

We dont drive, and dont feel like we need to either. Transport links are excellent.

Oh and I should add, I've lived in london and in the sticks, a commuter town is the best of both worlds for us.

Wait hang on, there's life outside of London? Don't be so ridiculous!

Milton Keynes?

OP has clearly buggered off laughing. How about us Londoners and everyone from the vast expanse of great country that isn't London stop fighting over the OP's shit grenade.

Similar in what way? Pollution? A tube network? Harrods?
What specifically are your concerns about the big wide world?

Sounds like you want to move to Brighton

Whatever you do.. don’t move up North. I moved up 3 years ago from near London and it’s like I’m stuck in the 1980s.

There isn't any, OP. Better stay where you are.

There is life outside London, but it’s a different kind of life and if you’re not used to it, it can be a massive shock, especially in winter.
Driving through the rest of England is one thing, living there is another.
Friends who moved to the suburbs have found it very sterile and some become quite ill with depression and / or anxiety.
The countryside is bloody hard work and not for everyone, let’s face it. Especially in the rain,
Not many people actually live in villages and it can be extremely claustrophobic and limiting.
Most smallish towns in the UK are the same blueprint of high streets with chain stores closing down, etc. Most people are trying to get out of these places.

@MiniEggAddiction see my my comment was lighthearted, this is aibu after all.

And for what it's worth I was born in London and have lived there. Snowflake I ain't.

OP has clearly buggered off laughing. How about us Londoners and everyone from the vast expanse of great country that isn't London stop fighting over the OP's shit grenade

Agreed. Fighting and generating mass generalisations.

We live in a fabulous collection of islands with a brilliant selection of cities and a huge variety of landscapes. No other country has such a wide range of distinct accents in such a small area.
Let's make the best of where we live and enjoy exploring the places we don't.

Many of us struggle, whether we live in a rural village or the Capital, we struggle with living costs, employment, health, all sorts of things.

Let's not succumb to goady fuckery and pointless scrapping

Zebedee, have I missed the Zombie Apocalypse?

There are some unbelievably wanky comment on this thread. I wonder if some people can even read. At no point has the OP said ‘Is there such a thing as life outside of London?’ or similar. She’s asking for advice about that exact thing. But the moronic ‘London is shit, dirty and expensive and I know because I went on a day trip in 1998’ brigade are trotting out the insults - with apparently no sense of irony when they call the OP ‘insular’ or ‘blinkered’, yet are happy to present their opinion on a city of eight million people as fact.

OP - ignore the nonsense. Ask yourself what you really want. Do you want to be near to London, but not paying out London property prices? Or do you want a city vibe, but cheaper?

If you’re not bothered about being near London and your priority is city life, look at Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds etc. However, be careful when picking an area to live given you don’t drive. The big difference transport-wise (for me at least) between London and other cities is that, in London, the suburbs are still really well connected. In other cities, the supposedly nice suburbs are not always easy to commute from. I grew up in a big city and later lived there as an adult. As an adult I lived just outside the city centre and never needed a car. Where I lived when I was growing up, there was a bus every half an hour that stopped at 6.30pm. Eventually cuts kicked in and it started terminating in a not so nice part of town, on the basis that people could make connections there. Make sure you do your research.