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?

Nay lass
Don't thee take any notice of 'em
Them's just jealous t's all

Up north is grand
foods a bit strange tho'...does tha' like tripe luv?

Don't do it OP.

In my small market town, only an hour from London by train (as long as there are no strikes, signal failures, leaves on the line, floods or landslips) we have had 3 MURDERS in just 30 years.

And we've had a local crime wave, too. Someone in the next road had a bike nicked from their garage in approx 1992. (True - the plods tried to set up a neighbourhood watch here but got no takers, because there's nothing to watch).

We really lack culture too, just a cinema with 2 screens set up as a community asset by a few public spirited locals, live music in several pubs, an amateur but excellent theatre, classical and chamber music concerts in several churches and an operatic society. And the library is closed on Wednesdays - closed, I tell you!

And if that isn't enough to put you off, I discovered today that our branch of White Stuff doesn't sell shoes - we have to go to the big town for White Stuff shoes!

Yeah the car thing is weird. I'm in small town just outside of Glasgowland and barely half of households here have access to a car. We somehow manage to get to work, shops, cinemas, leisure facilities, restaurants, Loch Lomond, various islands, the city centre, the airport all without using cars.

Yup, the public transport system in the old Strathclyde area is the envy of the east coast, what with the underground and the train network. Glasgow has all of the advantages of a big city yet not as grimy, crowded and crime-ridden as London, and you can be out of town and into the hills and countryside in less than 1/2 hour. Dance, music, theatre, galleries and museums, just as the other cities and towns. I used to commute to Glasgow by train in 50 minutes straight in yet am less than that from the capital city with more culture than you can shake a stick at.

I find a trip to London exhausting, crowded, dirty and rude by comparison. Just miles and miles of roads and millions of people surrounding some nice places.

Argh, I hate these threads it always descends into London/North/South schisms and insults being thrown on all sides. It's all so bloody tribal and parochial.

I love London and have lived there, I also love Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol, the Brecon Beacons and the Peak District and have lived in in those places too! Edinburgh and Glasgow and Durham and Northumberland and The Lakes and Pembrokeshire and the Llyn Peninsula and Leeds and Belfast and St Ives and Dorset and Wiltshire, the Yorkshire Dales and Moors, the Forest of Bowland, the Costwolds, Cheltenham, York, Bath, Oxford, Chester, the Scottish Borders, the Highlands, Inverness, Cardiff, Brighton, Norwich, Skye, Anglesey, Richmond and Scarborough. I've been to all these places and many more and they all have their charms.

The UK is full of great places with their own particular character, there's no need to pit ourselves against each other. Find somewhere you love and enjoy your life there for the reasons you chose. No need to break out into bickering and mad localist nonsense.

It's ghastly, all of it. The only conceivable advantage to moving is that your kids might one day be able to afford to live within say an hour or so of you without being city hotshots or whatever.

Cambridge is a big enough city with good transport links back to London to visit family/friends especially if you're currently in East or central London.

Transport isn't as good as you'll be used to though, buses tend to be less frequent than you'll find in London and more expensive. House prices are still fairly high, probably because it is easy to commute to London.

I grew up in West London and love living in my rural home but I do enjoy visiting London now and then. I wouldn't want to move back as I've got used to the views over the countryside! I do miss 24/7 shops that are only a few minutes walk though, especially after 6pm which is when everything winds down here - and being able to walk to a pub or call a taxi after. Here you need to drive everywhere and taxi from town to home is £20!

I live in Glasgow - big city with lots and lots to do, but I don’t have a car because public transport is very good (mostly). Housing affordable too. Half an hour on the train from the Highlands - wonderful.

Dont do it OP. I moved to commuter outside london and hated it. What appeared like a quaint Tudor market town was actually full of xenophobic bigots and there was absolutely no culture.

London itself is a big place. Hackney has a different vibe than Ealing for example, so you could just move to a different part of london if you fancy a change but don't want to lose your connections.

That said, there are some commuter belt towns in Hertfordshire that require less time travelling to Kings Cross than some parts of London. Agree with @Rhodadendra, if you are hoping to stay connected to London, Herts/Essex commuter town might be your best bet (or Kent/Sussex etc, depending on which side of London your family lives, where you work etc) Stevenage, Harpenden, Welwyn, Cheshunt, Harlow etc are under 30 minutes to London and lots of green spaces, good schools and fresh air and if you are selling up a property, you can get a 4 bed house for the price of most london bedsits.

Life outside London?

What about life inside London?

I've never understood why people talk about living in London as if it's one big place. London is like a lot of small towns all on top of one another; all different.

If you were living in Hampstead, I'd think you were mad to leave and say that you'll probably never find something you prefer.

If however, you're living in somewhere like Edmonton I'd suggest that anything would be an improvement.

Brighton might suit you.

It's become very similar to many parts of London unfortunately. It's got all the homeless people, the dirt, the pollution and like London the house prices are way over priced.

But on the plus side it's got a very lively young vibe, lots to do, is busy and buzzy and you most definitely don't want to have a car there as parking is a nightmare, which doesn't matter as public transport is very good.

And an added bonus, as your children grow up they'll love living there.

I moved from London to Epsom . I
loved it-truly the best of both worlds but it is definitely a different place and not a suburb.

Friends who live outside London mainly complain about transport, driving their kids around until they get their license. Crime isn’t any lower in many places and drugs seem to be more prolific.

I've never understood why people talk about living in London as if it's one big place. London is like a lot of small towns all on top of one another; all different.

This with bells on. My hometown is Wimbledon. VERY different to say Catford.

And if we moved back I'd want to be in the Wimbledon/Parsons Green/Fulham areas as those are my favourite and I'm a south Londoner. But we can't afford them, so we wouldn't even consider it.

Besides, it's where you make your home. We're in a market town near Bath these days. It's not somewhere that we consciously chose, we just sort of migrated this way. I was looking at properties in our budget in Bath tonight. Somewhere that I love, and that has my heart. Then I realised that I don't want to leave this market town. We've made our life here. It's got everything we need and anything more is just 10 to 30 minutes away by train or car.

Londoner here who moved west. Not a lot of difference really. Buses are a different colour and there's no tube (but there wasn't much of one in South London either come to that). All-in-all not much difference really.

God knows how many thousands of people move from London to other places in the UK every year. I'm one of them. So is DH. It's just normal.

Even pre-Google, we knew that other cities exist and that they - you know - are cities. With trains and buses and schools and stuff.

I just don't understand why people post things like...to wonder what life outside of London is really like. I do understand why it invites ridicule!

Have a look at Norwich. A vibrant university city with a fair bit going on and just up the A11

Unless you live in a seriously dodgy part of London, you are no more likely to be impacted by crime than you are anywhere else. I feel safer in London; public transport is good and people are out and about late at night. Visiting family outside London, I'm struck by lonely streets (bugger all to go out for!), busy roads with no pavements, and poor transport. Yes, I'd be living in a big detached house for the same price - but you can only twiddle your thumbs in one room at a time and I doubt I'd be any keener on housework than I am now.

So if you are moving for crime, pollution, living costs. Why are you looking for something similar? Odd. Surely you don't want something similar?

Why would anyone ever want to llive in London? 🤮

Reading. Car unnecessary as there are fantastic rail links as well as 24/7 bus service in town. Several theatres and a thriving Arts scene. Multicultural. River and canal. Abbey ruins. Only 25 minutes from Paddington.

Crime, pollution, living costs and expenses all being reasons to wonder what life outside of London is really like.

No running water or electricity and we heat by log fire. Public transport is a steam train and what's this ere thing called the internet??

Have you really never set foot outside of that place?

You say about moving out, but want pretty much the same, which would be, ummm let me see, oh London!! or another large city.

Anywhere else, learn to drive.

Our dc can barely read or write, there are no jobs and there’s no culture either

Worst of all though is no sushi.

If you intend to move to somewhere not far from London I wouldn't, Traffic is awful and there are few decent shops/ cinemas/ anything as it is assumed you will travel to London for entertainment.
Edinburgh is fun . Probably has more on than many cities but you would need a car to get to the real countryside

I lived in London for a long time when l was younger and enjoyed it at the time but moved away and haven’t looked back. Apart from the weather being a bit colder outside London then my life has been better and easier. Do you have any friends of family members you wish to be closer to? Are you certain to certain areas by the jobs that you intend to get? If you can’t drive and won’t learn to drive then you are more limited to where you will be able to live. I would research it in-depth and go visit a fair few places as any move is a shock to the system and moving house is obviously so costly.

Oh and OP lm afraid you original post did set you up a bit for the teasing / joking answers. My Mum is a bit like this and lives in a large northern city. She expressed surprise at the shops and their diversity where l now live, l live at the coast in the south east. It is hardly in the middle of nowhere with no people?! I have been too polite enough not to tell her that where l live, a lot of people think the north is backwards with nothing in it.

Maybe Essex- end of central line (Loughton) or anywhere that's about to be connected to cross rail? I lived in London and loved it-but moved out when dd1 was on the way and I'm glad I did. But I can still go in when I want-it's only half an hour on the train.
I do have a car but that needn't be a huge issue-it's not super hard to learn to drive.