Okay ex Londoners - where did you go?

[cerealmilk]

We live in a very desirable part of london. But this whole situation has made me crave more green and a stronger community (to be honest, I’ve been craving more green for a long time!) and starting to wonder (again) if I should quit london.

So where did you go?

I want to live somewhere liberal, arty and cultured, but very community-minded and beautiful.

I would love to know where you went!

Bloody hell I thought you all came to St Albans

Hopefully (COVID has slowed things down a bit!) we're leaving London for Wivenhoe in the summer - commutable distance into London, have snuck onto the local FB groups and pleased to see they seem a lovely community, 10/15mins out of Colchester but feels like proper countryside.
Have been daydreaming about being there already!

Cambridge.

Sheffield is liberal, arty and cultured but on the edge of the peaks. Fabulous theatres and some really cool areas. The friendliest place too - people chat to randoms at bus stops and big blokes call each other love. Pick the right bit though.

I left altogether and moved to the west of Ireland. Galway fits your bill perfectly.

Reversible can you advise a bit more, what are the 'cool areas' of Sheffield? I liked the Ecclestone rd bit, but I ddn't really look around when I visited as got bery confused with the bus system and not eay to just walk with all the hills! But there is something about Sheffield.

OP, I'd say Bristol unless you specifically crave a small town feel. I lived there for 2yrs after London. Shoreham / Essex/ St.Albans etc may feel very limiting after London.

I do like Hove/Brighton but it does get very busy in the summer. Would rather visit. And you have to adore the sea, otherwise you may get annoyed by the strong winds on/off.

Agree with the poster who moved from Bath, that it is quite snobby and too many tourists, some people move to Frome instead - that's distinctly boho/quirky and again, quite small, but it's not stuffy for sure.

The Stroud Valleys. Laurie Lee country, arty, liberal and only 20-30 mins to Bristol. Absolutely lush. 😁

Canada

Looks like a grimace, meant to be a grin!

Crouch End (left when it was really a seedy area but I loved it. Felt at home there) to Northamptonshire/Oxfordshire borders and a detached cottage in a village for Dps job.

A little uncertain before we actually moved Uncertainty turned into full blown hatred of the place

Came back to London and swore I wouldn’t live outside the M25 again unless we moved to LA.

Australia!
My best friend has been in Broadstairs for five yrs now and loves it there after about 3 yrs of culture shock ;)

LA is my least favourite place in the world and I've been to more than 40 countries.

Bristol via London and Chester. Agree Bath is stuffy and snobby and not in the least bit liberal.

I think Bath must be a little bit liberal with its remain vote, Libdem MP and lots of students.
Oliversmums: Oh wow I'm feeling exactly what you felt then except I'm stuck here and God knows when the house will sell.

Oliversmumsarmy - curious to know where in London you landed after coming back!

My big fear about a move is that I’ll want to come back

We moved to Oxford and I love it - beautiful, great community, loads going on, pretty liberal, friendly people, easy journey back to London to see friends etc.

Downsides - air pollution, lots of tourists, v expensive. Quite a transient population as lots of people come for a couple of years to study etc, then move on. Traffic can be a problem but we cycle most of the time & live within walking distance of the High Street. I wouldn't want to be any further out from town as there's nowhere to park. Public transport is pretty good though.

LA is my least favourite place in the world and I've been to more than 40 countries

To me it is where I should live.

To the extent that I had planned to (before Corona set on) set up a business and potentially buy a place over there.

Would have been over there already looking at and getting the business started.

cerealmilk we are in a tiny area, too identifying as there are only a few houses on the London/Herts borders

romatheroamer

When we sold and moved house we didn’t view the place we moved to.
We couldn’t get to view when we were in the area and as it ticked the box of not being on a main road (we have cats) and didn’t look like it was falling down we drove passed it once, phoned the EA to view and stood by the pub phone (pre mobiles) to find that they couldn’t get through to the owner so we bid what we thought straight away.

We were desperate. We had sold months before.
We were living in holiday cottage accommodation, furniture was in storage and dcats were in a cattery and there was very little to nothing on the market.

Edinburgh. Small city, arty but easy to get out and plenty of green.

Cambridgeshire. The fast train to Kings X takes 50 minutes.

missfliss I run along the boardwalk too so we may see each other one day. I also love the river path and the Real Patisserie.

cerealmilk It took me a year to feel fully settled here but I would never move back now. In normal times I do visit London as I commuted three days a week and also visited friends and family once a month or so at the weekend. The trains are pretty good. I would recommend that you choose somewhere which has good transport links to London so that you can get your fix of all that London has to offer from time-to-time. I still visit art galleries and go to the theatre occasionally, and love eating out in London, although there are very good restaurants in Brighton (and a few in Shoreham by Sea too).

From SE London to Milton Keynes and now in a little village just north of Cambridge. I love it here!

Bristol then South Manchester to be near my mum. I think Bristol would tick your boxes.