Moving more rural - did you regret it?

[BoysRule]

We currently live in a commuter town - around 1.5 miles from the town centre. Our house is on a busy cut through road, semi detached and we would really like a quieter road and more space.

We are looking at a house that is around 4 miles from town, very rural, on its own down a country track. It's in a hamlet with no pub and no shops.

We are weighing up the pros and cons - most are obvious, i.e. longer drive to station/work/school run, no shops within walking distance etc. But did anyone make a move like this and really regret it? Is there anything we might not be thinking of?

Thanks.

I moved back because:

You have to drive everywhere and that is very expensive
You can't drink when you go out on your own (see above)
If you go out with partner one of you is sober when the other one isn't (massive downer at parties)
Your kids can't get part-time jobs (because there aren't any)
Your kids have to be driven everywhere so even if you are at home you can't have a drink( gets really boring not being able to have one after a hard day)
You have to get on with a very 'white' and 'couply' demographic
Your children don't come home once they've left for uni because there are no graduate level jobs in their field and no summer jobs for them either
I could go on and on but you see the issue. The country is lovely, but unless you are a farmer/teacher/doctor/nurse there are no jobs. That's why people live in towns until they retire. Sorry

We're fairly rural - it's a 1hour round trip to the nearest supermarket and I'm the only one that drives. There is a train station here but only 2 trains a day going each way. DD2 gets the train to school and gets there an over hour early (she leaves at 7am).

There's no mains gas or sewerage, internet is patchy and we've got a generator for when we get cut off by flooding BUT I wouldn't change it for the world.

It's peaceful without feeling isolated - you could lie in the road outside our house for 4+ hours before you had to move because a car was coming.

I get through approx 80l of fuel a week in the car (big 4x4) and that's with being organised.

The downsides pale into insignificance when this is my view whenever I sit outside for a smoke.

we have no idea where our children will go but it won't be one in our local town

But if you lived in a town with public transport links they could get to and from school, could go to after-school activities, could go see their friends, without being driven.

I grew up in a village with a pub and sometimes a shop, but no public transport, and I would never choose to live somewhere like that.

I moved from London to a tiny village and don't regret it, this is my first time living in the countryside. Kids are still small and primary school is in the village, but there is a free bus from the Secondary school which is in nearest town, about 8 miles away.

There is no shop in the village and sometimes we run out of things, but never anything essential. You just have to be organised. We do meticulous online shopping every week. And you can generally make do, just stock up the freezer. But it's amazing how much you don't 'need'. And waking up to greenery is amazing, even in the rain & snow. The kids love the freedom and space to play, and seeing all the wildlife. There's lots of clubs and activities in the area when they are older, and parents seem to share lifts duties.

So no, absolutely don't regret it

I absolutely love the quiet and the darkness. I sleep so well here instead of London. Darkness doesn't worry me as much as when I was in London and people were shouting and fighting outside my windows at 2am on a Sunday night!

DH is a city dweller who has a hankering for living somewhere rural and isolated. I have done it before , he hasn't. I cannot get him to grasp how isolating it really is.

You cannot go for a drink after work because your car is waiting for you in a car park several miles from home. A car park which costs upwards of £7 per day plus your season ticket cost. Also take into account the time to drive to the car park, so say you live in a village 8 miles from your commuter town. You have to leave home early enough to get a space in the car park. I used to get leave home at 5.15am to get to work for about 8am.

If you get home and realise you need milk/wine/teabags, get back in your car and drive 10 miles to a petrol station.

There is nowhere to eat or drink except the pub in the nearest village where everyone else has known each other for 500 years. And they don't serve food after 5pm.

You will have to drive literally everywhere because there is nothing living apart from squirrels within a five mile radius.

You will get snowed in in winter.

Some definite exaggeration on here.
Our kids are home frequently. They work in one of several pubs, do beating or harvesting or work in village shop during teenage years and through university.
We have several good places to eat out and sometimes we don't get back until gone 11pm. In fairness, we do nearly always see people we know and are served by youngsters we've watched grow up.
My husband has parking at a local social club at a much cheaper rate than station car park. We use local older teenagers as ad hoc taxi service if we both want to drink - or stay overnight at friends houses. Entertainment does tend to be self arranged rather than the Odeon but we do have a film club and plenty of people have home cinemas for smaller groups. We also have book club, yoga, wine tasting evenings and safari suppers, tennis league, dog walking groups, Carol service, Easter egg hunts, village picnics, supper parties, disco fundraisers, pool parties, BBQs, coffee mornings, harvest suppers, and lots of other things going on. Definitely not boring but yes, tends to stable married couples.

We haven't regretted moving more rurally. However, it can be a pain driving everywhere. There have been a couple of hairy times when the car has broken down and it has been a worry about collecting DS from school. One thing we hadn't realised is that how hard it can be to walk the dog at certain times of the year. The country roads aren't safe to do this (speeding cars) and sometimes we can't walk the dog in the surrounding fields as the grass is too long (small dog!).

This all outweighed though by the more magical elements such as stargazing in absolute silence and no light pollution or wildlife zooming across the countryside and sky. There is a wonderful sense of community in the nearby village too.

We live in a hamlet with 10 houses - nearest pubs are 1 mile walk and nearest town 4 miles away. Moved from a city to be here.

Love, love, love it after 13 years. Kids are only 10 and 9 so may be more problematic as teenagers but I was brought up in a village and had a fab chikdhood.

We're semi rural - village with fairly good bus service (though it was shite when we moved here) 6 miles from the nearest town and city. It's been great, lovely primary school, clean air etc etc. The boys are in and approaching their teens though and we want DS1 in particular to have the scope for more independence, so we're in the process of buying a house in our nearby city. Only one of the houses we're viewing is on a remotely busy road. The rest are in quiet cul de sacs or in the back of quiet estates.

Living somewhere totally cut off has limited appeal. You become dependent on the car, you can't just pop to the shop around the corner for stuff, internet and mobile signal may both be dire. The birds are noisy fuckers.

Sometimes, it can be hard to be "different" in a very small community, particularly for children.

No, I love it.

But, I grew up in a rural village much more rural than the one I live in now, I had no car so it was difficult, I was very eager to live in a big city at 19, I've regretted it ever since and moved back to the country as soon as I bought my own home.

I lived rurally only briefly, but I wouldn't do it again. I'd consider living remotely some day for a fixed period of time, off the grid style, but not rurally. The parts I didn't like were:

• neighbours who constantly knew everything you were up to, way too nosy, I felt suffocated
• the local norms were also suffocating, if you did anything differently you'd hear about it because so and so told so and so
• everything needing to be planned, especially if you'd like to only have one car
• the driving. I hated the cognitive dissonance of living in nature but having a much bigger environmental footprint than city living. I disliked driving that much as well, and I disliked that I couldn't just walk out my door and do something (other than take a walk in nature - and the best walks/trails were a car ride away anyway)

I can't speak to doing it with kids, but I did spend a lot of summers in a rural area as a teenager and I noticed that my peers in the rural area got up to "no good" much more than my friends in the city. They also drove after drinking regularly. I often turned down invites because I didn't have a safe way to get home, they all knew they'd be drinking and driving. And they had nothing to do, they'd hang out and drink and that was it, whereas in the city, the world was our oyster and we could get most places without the help of a parent.

Why does it have to be such a huge change - is it because living in a shopless, churchless hamlet is all you can afford rurally?

I absolutely loved growing up very close to a small village and fairly close to a large village; the small village had a shop, pub, school, church; the large village had three shops, two pubs, bigger school, very active church. It was fab with things constantly happening, good teachers at the school, active social life for all of us.

when I was older? Much less fun. The small village shop closed, the large village shops closed one by one and the pubs since then are long gone. The church was split by a big row after a new vicar came. The new vicar was much more evangelical and his children even more so, and I drifted away from church activities. It was obvious with hindsight that an element of the village social life was swinging, resulting in more feuds. There was a lot of drug use - I guess that will happen anywhere.

I'm always a bit by posters saying 'We have lived in a city for X years and have always enjoyed it but now plan to move to a house ten miles from the nearest neighbour.' Or thereabouts. What do you enjoy about your current life/place? If the only problems really are the rat-run road and feeling a bit cramped, what about looking for other options?

My nephews, as teenagers, spent a lot of time smoking cannabis in the bus shelter because there was nothing else to do that didn't require parental involvement.

I have lived in a small rural settlement for 30
Years. Great for dog walks but children were not keen. Couldn't walk round to friends houses so got left out of friendship groups and casual meet ups. There are not enough holiday jobs to go round for young people. Most I know couldn't get one because the local secondary school is large, a high percentage go to university, and they all want jobs in a very small town. It's who you know that matters.

The community here is very divided. Very Conservative and some people are just not pleasant and very judgemental. If you don't get on board with the latest campaign you are ostracised. Think HS2. This community thinks of nothing else.

At one time, children here went to 14 different schools. A tiny handful to the local ones. They are not good enough for the chattering types. So the children don't really know each other let alone play with each other. I thought having children here would be wonderful. I was wrong.

I do have a large house and lots of land. Internet is crap and mobile phone signal has to be boosted. I have been out picking my own blackberries today and can walk the dog totally on my own land if I wish but I wish I hadn't been here all these years. I now spend lots of time with my children in London. Sometimes having that big house, lots of acres and peace and quiet isn't all it's cracked up to be. We have a totally shitty neighbour. No shop, no bus, no gas, no mains sewerage, no street lights, no pub, no pavements but - lots of cyclists dangerously charging along at 30 mph all over the narrow roads and bridleways so these days even basic driving in and out of my house is a hazard.

Oh I nearly forgot. The local "saint" who is a perfect parent had a son who smoked dope in my summerhouse (which I could not see from the house). The friend of another child then burnt it down. Don't expect the police to care about rural crime either. You are on your own.

My family moved us frum sub-urban to VERY rural when I was 9 years old, and I couldn't imagine a happier, more idyllic childhood.

We are in the midst of moving from sub-urban back to VERY rural (have just found the property, just waiting for this anchor house to sell - fingers crossed!), as it's what we've always dreamt of.

The only problem I foresee is that I am the only person here who has ever lived way out in the middle of nowhere, where EVERYTHING (the post office, the grocery, gas, food, etc.) is quite a drive away. I feel I'm still quite used to that even though I've been in a city for ten years, because I spent 30 years of my life out there. It may be a difficult adjustment to become totally self-sufficient (or at least prepare to be temporarily) in case of emergencies, but we have discussed these possibilities at length and feel we are ready.

I don't think I'll regret it at all, but I can revisit in 5-10 years and let you know!

I might move further out of town but only if the house were less than five minutes walk from a station. 6 miles out of a village sounds way way too isolated.

I want a bigger house though! But i don't want to be in the middle of nowhere. I have been thinking about this pay off lately though. There's a middle ground. Two or three 8 mile round trips a day would be too much.

Nope dont regret it at all. We moved from london to very rural (6 houses spead apart 20 min drive to nearest shop) and loved it. Had to move after 3 and a bit years and could only find something in a large village. We lasted 8 months! Back to very rural again kids love it, Dh and i love it, the cat loves it. Not a sausage in sight. And i got my 4x4.

@annandale how did you work out the swinging bit???

Well, you could say I had it all. A dream home in the country with roaring log fires and views to die for.
I lived very rurally, not near family, for 15 years. I've lived in cities, towns, villages and the middle of nowhere.
It all looks idyllic on TV and such, but I found having to plan every trip to town (80 minute round trip) tedious. Not to mention my vast petrol costs. Very frustrating to forget something knowing I wouldn't be back in town for several days.
If you have land and animals to tend then life can be just as routine and mundane as any everyday job. Winter in muddy fields is not fun.
My DS loved living country life until several friends moved away (which felt like half the population in the area) and his social life died. He also couldn't get anywhere alone as there were no pavements or regular buses to town. After school clubs also proved difficult as the bus home left before the clubs finished and most of his/my friends lived too far in the opposite direction to offer lifts.
He also felt really sick on the school bus as it wound it's way along country lanes.
I worked out that I averaged about 60 miles per day if I dropped off and picked up from school.
A babysitter was difficult because no one wanted to come miles out of town for us.
The nail in the coffin for me was when my husband started to work away regularly. I became very lonely and uncomfortable living in such an isolated place. I had the flu once and didn't see another soul for 5 days. My house was also down a long driveway, so no one would just happen to be passing by.
I became anxious and worried about how long it would take help to arrive if something went wrong. Finding a new job was very difficult for me as I had to factor in travel time/costs as well as pick ups from school that was miles in the opposite direction.
It wasn't all bad, though I personally find small town living the easiest.
I'm not trying to put you off, just pointing out some of the pitfalls I experienced.

4 miles is not far. Depending on traffic it is probably a 5 or 10 minute drive. We are 5 miles from a large town on a country road with no traffic. It takes about 7 minutes. Plenty of people live in towns and sit in traffic jams for more than 7 minutes to get into the centre. I would check out the bus service and think about how long it will take you to get to where you need to go.

I agree with PickAChew.
Wildlife is noisy. Neighbours rooster gave us the dawn chorus every day.
The bats scratching away in the eaves and the owl which perched on our roof was distracting. The stream at the bottom of our field made a rushing, white noise that made falling asleep hard. When I first heard the screech of a Banshee right outside my front door, it scared the bejesus out of me. Turned out to be a fox.

Lived in rural area with pub, no shop, had to drive. Participated in some of the local events and groups Enjoyed the lovely countryside, wildlife and low crime rate. Have moved to a town, still enjoying 5 minute walk to shops, chemist, doctor, social club. However I can drive 10 minutes to countryside. Both places have their pros and cons. I have moved a few times, I like the variety. Currently much reduced commute which means I am less stressed and less money spent

I guess you have to think about your lifestyle. What do you like to do in your free time? If you like reading books at home or watching DVD box-sets then that would be okay, but if you like going to the cinema or having meals out regularly then I think you will get bored pretty easily. Bear in mind rural locations don't always get great Wi-Fi signal so you may struggle to do use some services that you do now.

Also country roads in winter are often not gritted and getting out in a car becomes impossible to do safely, which is an utter nightmare if you have to get to work / school etc. I know a family who in the winter of 2010 (which if you remember had very long periods of heavy snow and ice) were basically trapped in their house for nearly 3 weeks, apart from one expedition which they were forced to make about halfway through where they walked 5 miles to the nearest shop in foot-high snow, stock up on groceries, and then had to carry said groceries about 5 miles back again. Obviously that's an extreme example, but you do have to think about how you will get around in winter if it's not safe to drive.

On balance to be honest, I probably wouldn't do it with a 5 and 7 year old to be honest. If they can't get out to see their friends easily or get into town they're going to get bored, and so you are probably going to spend a good chunk of the next decade just driving around everywhere.