To be a bit envious of this lifestyle? (USA)

[ThePinkPonyClub]

I've just watched School Swap: UK to USA on Channel 4 and have ended up feeling a teensy bit jealous of the kind of lifestyle that's possible over there.

Even normal, non wealthy families seemed to be able to live really outdoorsy lifestyles where they can hike and hunt and boat amongst the gorgeous scenery. I feel like in the UK, even rurally it isn't possible as everywhere is so densely populated especially when the weather is nice. The weather is also a limiting factor!

I'm obviously not jealous of the MAGA/Trump craziness or the crappy healthcare and all the rest of the political stuff but purely the lifestyle side of things, it seems so much more possible to live in that free, outdoorsy kind of way.

And the schools seemed to have a much more positive, enthusiastic culture with things like school sports and dances, compared to the UK teens in their drab uniforms staring at their phones the whole time in their miserable, run down secondary school.

aibu? Anyone live this kind of life in the UK? If so, where?!

I think like anything else it depends on your habits.

I spent a lot of time outside when I had a toddler in residential Zone 2 London, with daily walks to all sorts of parks, playgrounds and brilliant low cost activities. We had a car but barely used it. My DH cycled to work.

Now, living semi rurally, I can access wonderful walks outdoors from my house but on an ordinary day I spend far more time driving than I do walking. In fact, I have started consciously ‘exercising’, which I never really needed to do in London.

You can be a car-bound couch potato in any developed country.

Yeah I love it, obviously it's a big country and some parts are shit but where it's good it's good.

Love how massive the average American house is and the outdoorsy lifestyle, baseball games and American football. Plus generally more sunny weather than here.

Do the people who always bring up school shootings not realise their kids are just as likely to get stabbed here in the UK?

You can have a good life in America then literally lose everything in a matter of months. No safety net. There's a reason Breaking Bad was set there.

The thing is that is not the whole
of the UK. Zero stabbing where I live and somebody set on stabbing ( it’s normally somebody they know) will take out one person. A shooter takes out many more. Somebody set on stabbing in the uk would use guns if they could but they can’t.

None of the family we have in the US drive without a gun in their glove compartment. They do that for a reason and I’d hate it. I don’t need to travel anywhere with a knife for protection.

Likewise there are parts of America where there is practically no crime. They have Detroit we have croyden. You realise there are also small quiet towns there too right?

This!

Nowhere is perfect. Looking around the world it’s easy to see we have an awful lot to be very grateful for in the UK. Life is about appreciating what you have and making the most of it. The list of things to be grateful for and freedoms we have in the UK is massive. The US has beautiful parts but so does the rest of the world. I have lived abroad and visited the US many time. We have family there. I can visit the US ( and the rest of the world) but re somewhere to live the UK is hard to beat.

Like I said every country has its risks, in the UK knife crime is a big issue, in the USA gun crime.

The fact that there is knife crime in the UK would be a point to consider if someone wanted to emigrate to the UK thinking they would have a better lifestyle. The OP in this situation felt envious of the outdoor lifestyle of the USA, people have rightly pointed out that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows over their either.

Excuse my typos - hurt my finger and autocorrect is not my friend today!

Really? I went to school there for 7 years and never experienced this at all.

There are always some very odd views on the US on here, no doubt many by people who have never stepped foot into the country themselves!

Generally the standard of living in a comparable career is higher there than here, but there are pockets of extreme poverty- as with every country. If you can afford healthcare then it is superior in every way to the NHS- easier to access, preventative rather than purely reactive, better facilities, the list goes on. It is shocking that anyone should go bankrupt accessing healthcare, but it's not as prevelant as some on here claim. Same with gun crime, the homicide rate per capita is substantially higher than here, but it's not like you walk around seeing people murdered day to day, thankfully plenty of people will never experience it.

Like anywhere i think there's positives and negatives, so much depends on other factors too such as income, where you live, what resources you have, what you enjoy and want from life.

And how lucky you are. I think that’s still why I felt safer settling into life in the uk to raise my family. If something goes wrong or luck goes against you there’s so many safety nets. There’s no scenario where my daughter won’t have her inhalers or my son won’t have any lunch to eat at school. My friends and family in the states manage a level of stress that is unimaginable to me.

I also don’t recognise the version of America with endless outdoor opportunities but I know there are plenty of places I’ve never seen. I lived in the suburb and then a city and there was no sort of freedom of the outdoors there. Shops and houses and fences everywhere.

There was a 15 year old stabbed to death a couple of years ago around the corner from me whiist it was an awful senseless crime it happened at about 4am he had left his house to meet up for a fight
My 18 year old just wouldnt do that
Also he was the the only one killed a shooter can kill many kids
There was a discussion on the facebook group im on for severly autistic kids( American group) about mainstream parents not wanting disabled kids in the same school becsuse they sometimes make loud involuntry noises and if there was a school shooter,the noises might enrage them
Rather than looking at the much bigger picture of the gun laws!

Totally easy to do in the UK. Depends on your priorities. I live in North East Scotland, sea very close, mountains very close. Forests, beaches, countryside all very accessible. Was in Yorkshire and Northumbria last week…..loads of space, no crowds. We used to take our children all over uk, to let them get a taste of their own country. Lots of hidden treasures. We love hearing the birds, seeing deer every day, badgers, buzzards and red kites, sometimes eagles. Even in the city we can see dolphins, otters, kingfishers, kestrels, foxes. It’s all waiting to be discovered 🙂

Hence I acknowledged your experience will differ depending on various factors; but for someone like me, a nurse, my lifestyle would be much better and a higher standard than it is here. Because it would, and it was for the period i lived there. its not all people going bankrupt and getting shot as some people like to suggest it is on here, and it's true that healthcare is far superior to the NHS which is declining rapidly and leaving people to needlessly suffer and die.

Reading OPs post seems to suggest living with that on your doorstep and it being such an ingrained way of life is the difference. There are some (expensive) areas here where it's also the case.

For sure. And my husband and I would make better money too. Until we didn’t. What if you got hurt and couldn’t work for a while? I guess for me having a secure life is worth it to avoid the gamble of assuming me and my entire family would always stay healthy.

of course plenty of people have very nice lives. Outside the inner cities and the very disadvantaged countryside living, there are millions and millions of people living totally lovely lives with massive houses and bbqs and cheerleading - much like how my husband grew up. But I’d always know there was a chance it could all disappear overnight. I actually had no idea how stressful that feeling was until I stopped feeling it. It’s exhausting and I really hope one day America finds a better way.

living in America as a British citizen is probably the best of all worlds - you can enjoy what the states has to offer but always know you could come back here if something goes wrong.

Okay and? I'm not saying the US is perfect, why so defensive? I am just pushing back on the narrative that its shit for everyone because it most certainly isn't.

Sure and it a good point. Also some of the reason so many Americans don’t have passports.

My family member is a nurse now in her seventies and still working. Why? Because their American dream was shattered when her husband got cancer. They lost their home to fund his treatment, he died and she is still working as a nurse. There's no plan B.

I don't really understand this, you realise you can go outside in the UK right? I go hiking all the time and I live in a city (I can get to various countryside and sea via public transport). There's public footpaths all over the UK. If you mean it's less densely populated and more wilderness in parts of the US then yes that's true.

Not all expensive. Most of the SW has masses on it’s doorstep and so many other areas have too,pretty much everywhere has bar the SE as regards outdoors on doorstep and affordability.

Crazy to work as a nurse as not have health insurance to be fair, the regulator stipulates cancer needs to be covered- why didn't they have it? It's affordable on a nurses salary even in low paid states. The country does expect people to take more responsibility for themselves than rely on others taxes I suppose.

@Everystripesays that’s the thing. We are not rolling in dosh…..far from it! It is accessible to all here, the outdoors, the massive empty beaches and the forests, the nature. Obviously every type of formal education exists here; housing is cheaper here than any part of the U.K. at the moment. And yes, the sun does shine quite a bit 😂
Sure, there’s drugs, crime, etc but only in isolated pockets.
I’ve lived in the US….eastern Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire many moons ago. I loved the people, the countryside and so many places to visit. But the US is on a slippery slope with lack of employment rights, crazy expensive healthcare, but you can ignore the ‘Orange One’ easily enough. Found it strange that when taking your dog out for a walk, you had to put high vis on your pooch. But there’s a lot of huntin/shootin/fishin’ goin on 😬. As per OP’s original post, I loved the programme about swapping schools. I loved all of the young people. But if our only window on the world is TV or social media, we are very poor indeed.

Maybe they moved jobs and the new insurance wouldn’t cover it.

I'm a single mum living in a house in rural Hampshire. DS & I have immediate access to woods, fields, quiet lanes, a river. We cycle, walk, run from our front gate. Other villages are within cycling distance (5 miles). Our local pub is 2 miles away so makes a nice evening stroll.

I have a 10 minute rural commute. I'm on a very middling salary but I bought a scruffy cottage which needed work, rather than wanting a new house which was already sorted.

It's perfectly possible to have all of that in the UK. We had it at our last house too. We don't have takeaways though or shops, and the nearest supermarket is 5 miles.