Area recommendations near London

[Lem87]

Hiya all,

Myself & the other half are needing to move near to London due to his work & we would really appreciate some area recommendations to move to. We are from the North East, so very clueless! It needs to be within 1 hour train commute (hopefully less), no rough council estate areas, family friendly & we are renting.

We have been looking at Kent, maybe Ashford?

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)!

You can walk to Covent Garden in 10 min from Waterloo. I'd look in SE London or the central line towards Essex. Surrey and Kent are overpriced and inconvenient IMO, unless you want small-town feel and large gardens.

How often will you be heading back North? You may want to consider how long it takes to drive across London or to ge to KX for trains.

Do you want a small town with countryside around? If so I'd look at Sevenoaks, Tunbridg wells, it's nice around West Malling too. Knockholt Is nice or chislehurst if you want to be a bit more central but still feel like you're not in a city, just a nice town

Thanks very much for all the suggestions! I'm looking into Tonbridge & Reigate at the moment as they look lovely.

Has anyone got any recommendations for North, East, West of London? We are open to any location as long as it's nice & within the hour commute.

Virginia water, aScott,
Egham,

I have a colleague who commutes from St Albans and loves it there. It's 20 mins to King's Cross and then 3 stops on the Piccadilly Line to Covent Gdn. Takes him 45 mins door to door. Much quicker than my journey from SW London suburbs!!

Are you making a conscious decision NOT to live centrally but commute in, perhaps because you want to be in the countryside?
With your budget, and a possible £4K you are willing to spend on travel costs (some of which could be diverted to rent if you lived closer in), if you have never lived in London, would you not want to spend perhaps the first year having easy access to the museums, parks, shopping etc?
I live in Ashford and yes, for your budget you will get a decent place, but you're talking at least 3 hours a day commuting. You either pay £6k for the high speed into St Pancras then tube across to Covent Garden, or get the Charing X or Victoria trains both of which are cheaper but take at least an hour and a quarter.
I moved here after 45 years in London, I was all London'd out by then! My DSis moved here and commuted for 2 years before she could bear it no longer.