Great small towns for families in Netherlands or Germany?

[edeluna]

We're seriously looking at leaving the UK as soon as it's safe to do so (maybe by the spring). We've narrowed our likely destinations down to Germany and the Netherlands (Denmark and Norway are also temping, but they seem so much more remote).

We'd like a small town - not at sea level - with excellent transport connections (no car needed) and within 1-1.5 hours of a good airport.

We definitely want good language support for immigrant children in primary school (newcomer class).

Some ideas include:
Venlo
Apeldoorn
Amersfoort

Bonn area
Limburg an der Lahn
Bremen area
Hannover area
Karlsruhe

We've lived in southern Germany before; not sure we'd want to go to Bavaria again though.

We don't know the Netherlands very well but only hear good things about life there.

We've no visa issues to consider and no worries about learning a new language.

Hit me with your top choices!

Thanks!

I'm Dutch and live in NL but wouldn't want to live in any of those places but I'm a big city type. I wouldn't classify those as small towns either, they're considered cities and have city-like character, albeit more provincial than cosmopolitan. There are quite a few nice towns around Amersfoort and Utrecht (Utrechtse Heuvelrug) like Doorn, Zeist, etc. it's an area of beautiful nature and still within reach of the Randstad but it's not the cheapest area but has good rail connections for national and international train travel and not far from Schiphol. Alternatively look at the Hanzesteden, which are South of Apeldoorn officially cities but have very town like characters, Doesburg, Hattem, etc. with beautiful nature surrounding it as well.

It entirely depends on what you're looking for though, how much money you have and what type of work you're looking for. Reality is that outside of the Randstad jobs are going to be more challenging, especially if you don't speak the language. School attitudes tend to be jump in the deep end and that does typify the general attitude outside of the Randstad that you're expected to assimilate and just join in.

I don't want to put you off too much because it's a great country to live especially to bring up kids but unless you have EU citizenship through another nationality I'd head to Germany as I expect it will be quite difficult for those settling from the UK post Brexit (no dual nationality allowed, for one). It's also substantially more expensive to the UK and Germany, housing is expensive and so are everyday things like groceries and petrol. The border areas are generally cheaper because they're not as economically thriving and also because you can get groceries and petrol cheaper over the border.

Almere in the Netherlands, bigger houses more land, good public transport gas an Internazional school, Hilversum also in the Netherlands. If you didnt want a place wuth good public transport biut a fantastic place to live Wipperfürth in Germany, people are so friendly it is a beautiful place, the arwa is fantastic, Marienheide, Hückeswagen, Gummersbach all nice towns Gummersbach probably best for public transport, happiest I have been for years living in this area, my children
picked up German very quickly they were 7 and 4 when we moved here.

Thanks for the ideas. I realise that I probably should have said small city or big town, and preferably not too provincial. We've been in London for a long time, so in my mind, downsizing to anything under a million people would feel small.

@scoobiedoobiedoo Sounds lovely. We've always heard that the area around Cologne has the friendliest people in Germany and I see the area you mentioned is not that far away.

@botemp That's all super insightful, thanks. We're both self-employed, so would be working from home, therefore not tied to a local job market. We're prioritising space, nature, greenery, and quality of life. From the research I've done so far, I think the cost of living compared to London will be lower too.

We have EU and UK passports, so lots of flexibility there. We'll definitely make an effort learn the language wherever we land (or improve our German). We also want our children to learn the local language, so would want them in a local state school.

Good transport is key because we don't want to have to have a car.

Have you considered Luxembourg? Highly diverse population and this means great accommodation in schools for children arriving without the core languages. Cost of living is relatively high but childcare highly subsidised and public transport is free throughout the country. Lots of green spaces and, when border restrictions aren’t in place, well connected in Europe.

Oosterbeek is lovely. It’s definitely a small town not a city though. Utrecht and Arnhem? Easy access to Amsterdam.

Just read, “We're prioritising space, nature, greenery, and quality of life.”
Do look at Oosterbeek!

@Wavesandsmilesencore Yes, we've looked a little into Luxembourg. I read something, though, about there being such a strong focus on the learning French, German and Luxembourgish in schools, that immigrant children without those languages tend to get lost and perform less well overall in school. Maybe I need to look into it again. I like that dual citizenship is allowed after just 5 years, which would allow us to vote -- a plus if we're there very long-term.

If no car is a priority than definitely focus on the Amersfoort/Utrecht region. I suspect you'll find a lot of like minded people there around the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. Fairly relaxed, eco conscious and more nature focused, let kids be kids mentality away from city life but not disconnected from it entirely in terms of distance but it still feels a world away and still lots of culture. It has a history of being a space where artists escaped to and hung out together. Wide choice of different types of education (Steiner, Montessori and others). Venlo and Apeldoorn region would definitely feel provincial and tend to be more traditional in their views (generally speaking obviously).

I second the area south of Bonn (eifel and koblenz), very scenic, not too expensive and close enough to bug cities like Dusseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt. (Plenty of cheap flights)

Also there are good job prospects in germany and housing is generally better than Netherlands.

Luxembourg has opened state run English schools. Good airport and very cosmopolitan. Fantastic health care (on spar with US without the cost).

@BlauVogel We considered the Siebengebirge and Eifel areas for a holiday a few years ago (but I was too slow and couldn't book). It looked beautiful -- I can imagine my kids loving it; and being so close to a city would be a plus.

@LockdownLove Very interesting about state-run international schools. Off to look them up now!

Mainz
Darmstadt
Frankfurt
Wiesbaden
Heidelberg
are all larger towns/cities with good infrastructure and public transport.
Friends live south of Mainz, in the vineyards of Rheinhessen, which is wonderful but definitely requires a car for convenience.
On the other side of the Rhein-Main area, Seiligenstadt is pretty.
Trier (near Luxembourg) is also lovely but "challenging" to get to.

If this is a long term move don't forget that although you and your husband are self employed, the day will come (sooner than it feels like now) when your children will want to live somewhere with a thriving, well paid job market/ low unemployment/ lots of study, training and internship options...

We live just outside of Bad Homburg, so there's lots of nature and outdoorsy stuff to do. We have an annual pass for the local theme park, which DS adores. It's quite small and has lots of farm animals, bbq spaces, a water playground and soft play...so perfect for DS.
DH works in Frankfurt, which is easily accessible by public transport. Bad Homburg has a bilingual school and there are several in the local area. DS attends the one I work at. (Fees are income-based and much lower than in the UK. It means he'll get the German input to get him up to an appropriate level to get into the local state grammar school, as well as the input in English to keep up should we move back to the UK at some point.)
Wiesbaden is also lovely but didn't work for our commute. :)
Limburg an der Lahn is nice but feels very much "out in the sticks".

I'm in Utrecht which is a wonderful smallish (by London standards) buzzing international city. It's crazy expensive for housing though. It has an international school and a few bilingual state schools, and lots of foreign kids of all sorts.

Apeldoorn and Venlo are provincial and boring and your kids will leave instantly at 18. Amersfoort is nice, but a bit of a dormitory for Utrecht and Amsterdam. The villages on the east side of Utrecht are posh and very nice, if a bit dull, and the countryside is pretty. Houten and Zeist have a bit more going for them, are easy to get to by train or bike from Utrecht (important when the kids are teens). Houten is quite British style - decent quality 80s box houses with front and back gardens round a central shopping area, but fully designed for bicycle priority. Leidsche Rijn is a similar new garden city on the other side of Utrecht. It's still gleaming new, but there are loads of young families moving out of Utrecht and my friends with kids find it great. You'll be able to grow with the community.

Around Eindhoven might also be worth a look. It's a bit cheaper than Utrecht province, but still has a university and loads of internationals working for Philips so will be less conservative than the small cities.

Don't under estimate how dull Dutch towns will be after London. They're normally more affluent than small British towns, but away from the cities they're white, sometimes extremely religious, conservative and the food would make 80s Britain look gourmand. You've only reliably been able to buy halloumi in an average Utrecht supermarket for 2-3 years, so forget it in the sticks!

I'm in a small town just outside of Essen, 20mins from Düsseldorf airport, DH (outing myself, completely here!) weekly commutes to Rotterdam. We've been here 12 yrs now and don't see moving any time soon, I find it very friendly and the DCs all at Gymnasium locally, though we have played with international schools too - how old are DC? There was extra language support for mine in Grundschule.

The transport links here are excellent, train, road and air - also is only a 4hr drive to Calais to drive back to UK if needed.

Possibly my town a bit smaller than your looking for, but for us it has best of both worlds, super quick to city lights, yet nature and countryside on the doorstep!