To ask where I can move that won't have depressing random nutcases and law-exempt criminal youth around every corner

[Fragmentedbrain]

I know it's nice to have a social safety net and I want that but we don't have it now it's just unfunded chaos and the press moaning about public sector workers.

So, Switzerland? Singapore? Where is feasible (in my forties so recognise that I'd need to make a damn good case for myself). Somewhere boring and hardworking with rules and clean streets and a health service you can access and no toleration for the stuff that's everywhere in the UK now.

I am prepared for the answer to be hard cheese you left it too late and now just need to stay indoors as much as poss until the sweet release of death.

Xanadu is also very beautiful apparently.

Dartmouth/South Hams area? Supposed to be very nice.

We moved from London to rural Ireland 2 years ago with our then 8 year old DS and it took a bit of getting used to but is far safer, cleaner and (compared to London) cheaper. I’m also very impressed with the HSC which is like the NHS here and have no complaints so far!

I have none of these problems in London 🤷‍♀️ I’m not saying they don’t exist but since I don’t wander about in the evening, I don’t get my phone out in public and I don’t live in a ghetto (and by ghetto I mean a really posh or really poor area). Instead I live in a really diverse and vibrant area - south east London.

I just have none of these problems. I’ve lived here 8 years and I’ve seen nothing apart from a guy smoking crack on the tube once.

I don't either @LaurieFairyCake .

I also live in SE London. I wander about alone at night quite happily.

Nothing's happened, except once got squirted with water by a group of teens. Shoplifting has definitely increased. As has the number of homeless and junkies. They don't bother me though.

Can you even relocate to Switzerland or Singapore? Do you meet the criteria to emigrate?

Personally speaking, I believe there are bad aspects to every place. Switzerland is great but there is an underbelly lurking. Sweden seems to be waking up from their multicultural experiment (taken long enough) and working to improve the social fabric once again but I wouldn’t move there just yet. Especially if you’re looking for a health service that works.

Poland is pretty good (on all fronts). Likewise the Baltics. Not corrupted just yet. Although with the Baltics, I’m seeing more and more unruly influence from non-natives which isn’t being stamped out quick enough. The health service is confusing, and paid for. But also free (seems pot luck). And don’t get me started on Latvian roads. Estonian and Lithuanian roads are better. Generally services are better in Estonia and Lithuania too.

Not at all. I still live here. Lived in the uk for 7 years and was miserable. I just wouldn’t trade the lifestyle here for anywhere else. That being said, you do need to have a good income to avoid any govt provided service and a thick skin to put up with a lot of stuff that most Brits would find alien. There is no social safety net that would compare to the UK for sure. Africa has a certain beat and rhythm that you wouldn’t find anywhere else on this planet.

Not all of the UK is the same.

I live in rural Northumberland. We have more sheep than people here. No traffic jams and I can leave my door unlocked.

I don't want to derail the thread but I've read that many South Africans leave South Africa because they are terrified about their own physical safety.

Where are you based? Cape Town, Joburg, Durban?

Small town in the Kwazulu Natal midlands about an hour in land from Durban.
This place isn’t for everyone and safety is a concern but mostly depending on where you live. I think things have gotten better over the last few years but it really is not as bad as it’s made out to be (certainly not genocide like Trump says).
It’s a complicated country, with a complicated past and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. It lives in my blood and I feel alive here. The Uk made me feel dead inside and the weather is just salt in a wound. Hard to describe in a single post.
I think everyone should visit Cape Town at least once in their life (but bear in mind that it’s not representative of the rest of the country.

Plenty of UK retirees in the Cape.

I live in south east London and see a fair amount of what the OP describes. I’ve been in this house for 21 years and the local town centre has got worse.
It’s not awful but it’s definitely there. The fact that you say you don’t go out in the evening demonstrates you know it’s there. But there are places in the world where you can be safe in the evening, where you’re phone won’t get snatched, as the OP says.

Iceland? Northern Canada? New Zealand?

I get what you mean. The UK has become a deeply unpleasant place to live. For a start there are just too many people crammed onto this little island. I'm in Colchester. I never liked the place much, but in the last ten years it has really gone downhill. The traffic is horrendous, and I'm constantly woken at night by the screeching of souped up cars with noisy exhausts. The police do nothing about it, needless to say (they never do anything about anti-social behaviour). My local woods have been hacked down to build a giant new estate, and now the fields in the centre of the village are going to be built on as well. A lady I sometimes meet when I'm out walking my dog told me she no longer goes into town because she doesn't feel safe.

We have a benefit system that encourages the worst people to have lots of kids, who of course they then raise to be violent, ignorant and anti-social like themselves. And we seem to have virtually open borders. The politicians have made it perfectly clear they are not going to do anything about mass immigration. Everywhere I look I see groups of young immigrant men wandering around in the middle of the day – many of them, I suspect, here illegally. I'd say at least half the people who've moved onto the estates being built around me were not born in the UK. It isn't just Colchester. I had to work in Stevenage last year. I stayed in the Holiday Inn in the centre of town and hated it so much I was nearly suicidal by the end of the week.

If I was young, and didn't have an elderly father to care for, I'd be on the first plane out of here. Yes, I know other countries have their problems, but at least somewhere like Australia you have space. You can move around. If you have horrible people near you, you can escape. In the UK, we're all squeezed into rabbit hutch new builds that are then jammed on top of one another. And even if you save up to buy your own home, all new estates have to include social housing. So you only need one 'problem family' to move on the estate and they'll ruin everything.

Obvs.

Cape Town is one of the least safest cities in the world. No.

It's probably easier if you just stop believing everything you read in the newspapers.

Your picture of the UK bears no relation to the one I live in.

@Ontheedgeofit my friend came back 3 years ago from exactly that area- and she’s South African - one too many frightening riots at the gates of the development , black colleagues killed by their own , constant power outages and an inability to go out in an evening without all windows up in a car etc -she misses the weather and the pool , having ‘help’ , the biggish house and the safaris ( although they never seemed to go anywhere else) - she doesn’t miss being constantly on edge/alert . As you say life’s a balance and on balance she decided the upsides were really not worth the downsides.

You don’t go out in the evening?

I've seen threads on here saying "Cape Town is amazing. Just take sensible precautions".

I've seen other threads where people have fled and left cape town due to fear of murder

I've realised that a lot of people who think certain places are fine are actually not going out in the evening. A lot of places really "turn" in the evening.

also a different perspective from people who drive or always take cabs.

Everyone’s idea of what they are prepared to tolerate for the lifestyle they want is different.

I am fortunate and privileged and I am grateful for it. I live in an estate and we don’t often lock our home. Our little town is lovely and whilst I’m not sure I’d walk around at night, there are not really any reasons to do so and given the space we have things are pretty far apart anyway. I’ve experienced crime here and in the UK. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that the risk of violent crime here is bigger, much like parts of South America I would imagine. But I have too felt the most threatened on a London tube with a bunch of local social delinquents drunk and intimidating fellow passengers.

We farm here and have other businesses. We travel overseas a few times a year and into Africa. My husband is fully fluent in the local language having come from a farming background and we very much understand the cultural differences amongst us all. Most days in winter are 20 degrees or so with colder mornings. Snow a couple times a year that only lasts for a day or two. Outdoor lifestyle. And space! Lots of it!

But absolutely no social net here. Do not use govt hospitals, police or public transport. You have to have the income to enjoy the benefits of living here.

I have lived here most of my life and we are a part of it, warts and all!

DS2 lives in about the poshest part of Switzerland and I often visit.

True, men don't lunge at me and there's no dog shit but oh lord I would die of utter boredom if I relocated there!

I'm staying in inner London... random nutcases and all.

I don’t go out in the evening as I’m older. There’s nothing I want to do in the evening as I’m ready for bed by 8.30. All my activities are daytime and I do LOADS.

I have popped out to the shops 2 minutes away in the evening in winter as it’s dark at 5 and there’s no problems.

there are obviously more problems with younger people being out, hanging around the street, crime etc thrives in the dark. It’s easier for drug dealing.

im not avoiding going out, i just don’t do evening activities

Like a number of others, I think there are many places like this in England (and no doubt in the rest of the UK and Ireland too).

I live in a small town in Surrey which is safe, clean and in which I (in my 60s) feel safe walking around at night. I have friends and family living in a variety of locations around the country who are similarly happy with where they live

Move out of your city, OP!

I live in the U.K. and don’t have this. In fact I’ve never had it anywhere I’ve visited in the U.K. Lots of lovely places here.