Canterbury and the rush hour commute, is Whitstable any better?

[Spencellor]

Firstly, thank you to everyone who’s ever contributed to a mumsnet thread about relocating from London to Canterbury. I think I must have read through all of them and they've given me tons of information!

Currently we’re living in north London but we can’t wait to get out, neither me or my partner have really settled here and we want to move before the kids start school. My partner has just got a job in Bexleyheath, south London, and we decided now was the time to make our escape! We both immediately fell in love with Canterbury and it’s vibe and plan to move there in September 2015.

My partner needs the car for work and we have done a test run, (on a Sunday) and we can get between Bexleyheath and Canterbury in 45 minutes. However, I am reliably informed by mumsnet that the traffic is terrible at peaks times.

1. Does anyone do a commute in the morning that takes them out of Canterbury towards London and how bad are we talking?

1. Also we’re looked at maps of Canterbury and had a walk round, we can see where we think the obvious places to live would be, in relation to speed of getting on the A2, but I wondered if anyone had any other tips?

1. Finally, I keep hearing people talk about Whitstable! We like Canterbury because it felt vibrant. How does Whitstable compare, both in terms of vibe and rush hour traffic?

Thank you!

I live in Canterbury, but commute the other way, to Ashford. To avoid queues on the ring road, I leave by 7am, so would advise you to live closer to London Rd to avoid the ring road in the mornings and evenings. It depends what you want, and what sort of things you're interested in - Canterbury is younger, due to the vast student population, Whitstable a bit more sedate. Good luck!

I don't drive it (I drive the other way down the M2) - it's pretty busy in the morning, and there's invariably at least a couple of accidents. The earlier you can leave the better, but you will miss the worst of it turning off the A2 at Bexley.

As Villanova said, Canterbury tends to be more buzzy with more going on, it has theatre, cinema etc. But Whitstable is on the beach, lots of lovely restaurants and only 15 mins to Canterbury - it depends what you want really.

We would have picked Canterbury but the trains didn't work for DH into London, and couldn't find the type of house we wanted in Whitstable for the right price so we ended up in Faversham which we're really enjoying!