Moving more rural with kids

[Whichpad]

We’ve seen a house that is in a rural village. I love it but wondering if I’ll be a permanent taxi service in years to come and my children will be bored (7and9 currently).

Has anyone moved rural and regretted it?

The nearest town is 20-25mins away. Limited bus service.

Where will the kids go to secondary school and how will they get there?

Yes, you will be the taxi service. Moved to a rural location and spent many hours collecting children and waiting on them turning up. No other children around either which meant we had to taxi them everywhere. Beautiful location for us though.

@nightmarepickle2025 probably get there me driving them (20mins). I’ve not looked into bus services yet but can’t imagine there’s one near and the stop is a good 25min walk from house too. So will be all done to us.

My sister and her family live somewhere like this. Luckily my parents live nearby as it seems to take all 4 of them to coordinate driving around only 2 children!

If my parents weren’t retired, it would be impossible.

I will start by saying I have no real idea how school buses work here, but I live in a rural village and there is some kind of bus service that takes kids to and from school. I drive past several “stops” during a 5 minute nursery run with my toddler. As far as I’m aware they’re not regular bus stops, and the bus doesn’t look like a local bus either, so it must just be a school bus. Your village might have something like that.

I live in a semi rural village - it was fine when the kids were small as they went to the village school. When they got to secondary school they ended up in a different town. I had ten years of driving the kids to school and general taxi service. So nice place to live but constant driving around. Mine are now adults who went on to Uni and liked everything on tap and none would live in rural location. The bus services around here were poor when they were young. Now they are just really bad and for that reason I putting the house on the market as not viable if you can't drive for any reason.

Yes you will be a taxi service. I live in rural Scotland, my kids are 7, 6 & 3. They get the bus to/from school from the end of our drive (not little one obviously). My car does 10,000 miles per year which is 95% children related. (I don't use it to get to work ever). It is only going to get worse.

Not enough just to love the house, you need to love the benefits of a rural area to make the sacrifices worthwhile!

And to a PPs point, when we were looking for a rural house, everyone that was selling was older and looking to relocate for health/driving reasons.

I've lived rurally almost all my life. There will normally be a bus provided to the nearest school,by the local authority,however,this may not be the school that you'd necessarily choose. If you don't want your kids going to that school,you will need to get them there and back yourself. I spent a few years doing this,but luckily,our secondary school of choice put a mini bus on our to the villages,however,when the Dds went to college for 6th form,there was no bus provided and no public transport to get them there,so it was down to me again.
Rural kids learn to drive early,mine did and I'd forgotten about the driving about until this week,when both of their cars were in for repair at the same time! Luckily they both work within a mile or two of home,but I'd forgotten how limiting it can be.
Incidentally,neither of mine (19 and 21) want to move to a town or city,I was regarded with horror when I asked the question.