Have grown to dislike the Lake District..

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Lived there for 6 years, in Ambleside then close to Kirkby Lonsdale. Absolutely breathtaking scenery and perfect for a wilderness lover such as myself, but I have only just realised recently that I don't want to go back...

I left to tie up some family estate issues and planned to move back over after covid calmed down (ahem, will it ever!), and since I prefer to rent, this is easy enough to do. There are some exquisite properties and those that I lived in were gorgeous, so it made sense to plan going back.

I have located a new place in the South Lakes and have been offered a moving date for September but I am not so sure at all now and want to have a good long think.

However! Something has been niggling at me for the past year, for such a wild and lovely place, it feels so overly commercialised that I haven't missed the insanity one bit. At first I thought I needed to get my head checked, but recently whenever I consider going back I feel stressed and weary about it. It is very different to live there than to visit as a tourist. The roads, etc are fucking crazy!

But AIBU to not want to live there anymore? It seems so odd to have 'gone off' it like this, and I have really enjoyed the pace of life being less frantic and tourist thronged since ive been in another area, I have no idea how visitors can find it 'relaxing'.

Anyone else feel similarly? For all it's beauty, the hordes (which are increasing by a few million per year) and pollution are depressing. The central areas all contain the exact same shops and any authentic remnants have been gutted.

We’re an hour or so from South Lakes but avoid the area in the summer. It’s too busy in “normal” times, goodness knows what it’s like this summer.

@2reefsin30knots

I sometimes have to go to Cheddar Gorge because DS's sport use a venue near there. I hate even driving through the village and up the gorge because of the throngs of tourists. I would never dream of living there.

However, you can live half an hour away, still in AONB, and be completely off the tourist map. I would have thought maybe the Lake District is the same?

Our first house was near there and before that we used to go on hols and camp at a farm at one end of the village, right by the Butchers Arms pub which seems to no longer exist. Yes it was a holiday place and busy but never unpleasantly so.

I was going to suggest Peak district then saw you are already considering it. There are areas near Penrith that are stunning but nowhere near as touristy as places like Ambleside. I find the best walks in the lakes are the hills if that makes sense, so the wilderness of the peaks could be perfect.

I understand your feelings. Half my family life in a beautiful tourist area and I hate visiting. Just hate it. It's so stressful. You can;t move in the streets for the shuffling crowds.

Yes YABU!! One of my fav places!!

Eden is not quieter. It took me three hours to get to Kendal yesterday. It's normally a 45 minute journey.

Everywhere is heaving because of school holidays and people can't /won't go abroad.

For 3 days last week traffic has been queuing for hours on M6 and A66 for hours. Partially due to accidents and then road closures. Also due to large volume of cars.

We live near the Lake District and never go because I can't cope with the traffic. If you want a place to park need to set off super early etc etc. We do go shopping to Kendal and the other twice we tried to do something outdoorsy were a failure 🤣

I suppose I should make the effort to take DH over the quiet months as he's never been.

I do have a view of it from my house so I enjoy it everyday that way!

I would say its not a good idea to make long term plans re holiday locations this summer. The numbers holidaying in the UK compared to normal is insane. Traditional holiday locations are heaving.

Plus properties that would normally be offered for rent long term (in places like the Peaks) are being rented out to the tourist market. I mean, why would you rent a property for £1k a month starting in July/August/September, when you can get £1-2k a week over the summer, then put your property to long term rent come autumn?

The Lakes are lovely, but just not set up for the sheer numbers there at the moment.

I think Scotland is your answer. There are lots of wild and beautiful places that aren't that far from cities. Where I am near the Trossachs we have lochs and gorgeous scenary on our doorstep, but Glasgow is less than 1 hour away.

We love visiting the Lakes but tend to avoid Bowness / Windermere (we won't go any further up than Fell Foot usually!) and Ambleside.

I often fantasise about moving up there but I think if I did I'd move to the other side of the M6 - the Eden Valley is lovely, or Brampton. You get one hell of a lot more bounce for your ounce round there too - the house prices in Cumbria are like two extremes.

Funnily enough I wish to thank the hoardes who descend on a favourite remote beach. This year finally I and local friend I was staying with went to another we’d known about for 30 years (people on beach A would say ‘this is too busy I’m off to beach B you should come’). Well we have finally and despite a truly scary climb down have spent days on it this summer. If A was the Caribbean, this is the Maldives type feel. Welcomed by other beach A regulars and A and B hybrids. So it took a bit of doing but I’m glad it did.

I love Kendal but it’s not exactly Lake District

A lot of the most beautiful places are uncomfortably busy this year. I live in such a place. It may settle down a little as the people who normally holiday abroad go back to that pattern, but holidays in ones home country are a trend that is not going away as people change their behavior in response to the climate emergency. I would personally try somewhere new.

I hear you OP. I used to love it, but the last couple of years not as much. Having to make a 60 mile trip to get school shoes is beginning to drive me a little bit crazy, and the sheer volume of traffic on our main road (A66) now makes what should be a 10 minute drive into an hour plus most days.
I don't feel the benefits outweigh the inconveniences any more.

I know what you mean OP. I've been to the Lake District enough times to have seen it from the perspective of an outsider, & it's gorgeous, but I wouldn't want to love there. We went on a day out to York yesterday & were asked where we live - a tourist town in Yorkshire (actually someone has mentioned it upthread), several people commented that it's posh/very nice. I'm sure it must be, for a day trip. If you live here, it's heaving with tourists, the high street is mostly cafe's, charity shops & gift shops, & parking is quite expensive. Public transport isn't great & it's quite expensive, & there is very little work that isn't seasonal or minimum wage, which means mortgages are basically unaffordable even if you have 2 incomes & a 25% deposit. Villages on the outskirts (a mile or 4 out of town) have house prices on a par with the outskirts of London. We have 1 A&E that serves a massive area & no OOH minor injuries unit, & many villages further out have lost their schools /post offices /village shop in the last couple of decades. Many have no winter residents as they are all holiday homes or holiday lets.

I grew up in Carnforth, have you thought about trying around there? My Nanna was born in Milnthorpe and her family were originally from Barrow. There's nice spots round that area and Carnforth has the railway station, a6 and close to the m6.

You can't be far from me @RandomMess. Looking at it right now!

My OH is from Keswick, we go down once a year for a week in a cottage and that's enough for us.

I totally feel you. I live in Newquay in Cornwall and its bloody mental at the moment.

However summer will be over soon, I find things less stressful the less driving I do so try to walk as many places as possible.

Are you able to cut down your driving especially into the heaving places

My in laws live on the outskirts of a very popular seaside town and although I live visiting them and feel very fortunate to have family living in a place that others pay to go on holiday to, I would never want to live there. They can enjoy it off-season but in peak holiday times they don't actually go into their own town as it's too busy, no parking, supermarket shelves stripped bare. YANBU - I can see your point entirely.

Thank you to everyone who has shared info on this thread, it is very interesting and helpful!

I agree with the poster who said they didnt mind the tourism so much but they'd just kinda 'gone off' it. After 6 years of living and working there, I could honestly feel some odd depression forming in me, and it really does have a very chocolate-box feel to it, a little too overly commercialised for me.

I spent many years there as a working artist and have been involved with voluntary groups across the South Lakes. Enjoyed every moment, and loved the people, both locals and visitors. I always found the visitors to be very nice and respectful. I do not resent any of that but do feel the towns are too small to accommodate the commercial element. So this is structural rather than personal. The councils in these areas are struggling for solutions to many of the infrastructure issues, which clash with the needs of local business.

I loved windermere and kendal, but mostly in winter. Kendal is mercilessly hostile weather-wise though! I also find that the rental properties in Kendal are a bit overpriced for what you get. Some rather shabby apartments with dated interiors for over £850 pcm.

I am probably going to hold on a while and research some new places.

I also never liked to visit there for a holiday, prior to living there.

Our first trip to windermere, many moons ago, we struggled to find a cafe (it is such a small little town) and ended up sat outside a grotty old hotel with two ice creams and got blasted by a lorry belching out black smoke!

However, we did enjoy Bowness as tourists. But this was years ago now.

Ambleside gave me the fear. I can't put my finger on it, but the narrow streets with cars tearing through them set me on edge. it felt far too small for what was happening in it, and everyone seemed stressed and angry. We were often pressured into walking in the road in full traffic because too many people took up the tiny pavements.
any locals were great with me once they realised I worked and rented there, and I was told by a few that they loathed what had become of the town. Without the tourism though, I highly doubt there's be 3 supermarkets within a few yards of each other in windermere!

OP, my parents were born in Barrow-in-Furness, as was I, and my Dad loved the Lake District and walking the fells. We moved away when I was a toddler and lived in various other places, but the longest was in Hertfordshire. We travelled to see the relatives and for family occasions, and my parents moved back for their last years of life to be close to their siblings.

I never once felt that I wanted to go back for a holiday, I went to see relatives after parents died but never to stay at the lakes. 4.5 hrs of driving on M1/M6 and that’s on a good day. I felt slightly guilty about not liking it.

If you feel that you want a change, do it. I personally wouldn’t choose to holiday in the UK, I like going abroad and have really missed it during Covid. Having spent my childhood hols in the UK (I’d never flown until my mid 20’s) I’m a bit over that.

It's interesting really. In London the tourists aren't the problem. They are welcome. They enjoy the city and respect locals. The problem for London is everyone else. All the people from all over the UK who treat London differently from anywhere else. It's not allowed to have locals or a community. They get priced out and or feel forced out because of too much traffic, crowds, pollution, destruction of local communities and shops etc, no-one cares. No media handwringing unlike the reports on 'beauty spots'. London is seen by everywhere and everyone else as a place to use and then to fuck off from (and fuck the locals). London is overpriced and overcrowded - with infrastructure not coping (the recent floods are due to overcrowding and overbuilding), but more than anywhere else in the UK, there's also the lack of one of life's basic essentials - housing. London is the capital of homelessness. Perhaps tourists (so apparently unwelcome elsewhere) could all come to London....but in return, all the 'plunderers' could move to places like the Lakes, Cornwall, etc.

Ok, who blabbed about the St Bees side of Cumbria? . Ssshhhhhhhh! Don’t tell everyone or they’ll all be there!

I have 45 years of memories around the southern end of the Lakes but these past couple of years I’ve started to think they need to be left in the past, as every time I go it’s a little more flashy, a little more theme park and it doesn’t seem valued by people, if that makes sense? So much litter, landowners like Lowther Estates trying to squeeze more money out of places like the shores of Grasmere and Rydal, zipwires proposed across valleys ffs
I don’t expect time to stand still and I realise the irony of complaining somewhere is busy while I’m there myself! But I know exactly what you mean, OP. I would no longer like to live in that part of it.