Should I move off-grid to rural Wales?

[charmao]

Property in Wales often comes with land at relatively affordable prices, which can be difficult to find in other parts of the UK.

I'm considering selling my current home and relocating to the Welsh countryside, but I'm unsure if it's the right decision.

I've come across remote properties with stunning landscapes in Snowdonia, which seem incredibly romantic and appealing.

Can you give a bit more information about your lifestyle? It's hard to comment without knowing your circumstances. Are there children to consider? Do you work? Will you be living alone?

Do you have any experience and knowledge for living "off grid"? Because the romance will wear off reeeeeeeeal fast.

If you drive and have a reliable car, then go for it. If you have school aged children, maybe think a bit more about moving right now.

I'm biased, I live in North Wales on the coast, and wouldn't live anywhere else in the world. I have mountains and beaches on my doorstep, and the most glorious views from every window.

Appealing for a holiday, very different long term.

Cheap for a reason.

It might seem romantic but, when you’re a 90 min round trip away from a supermarket, or waiting 18 months just for an initial hospital appointment after referral, then a couple of years for actual treatment, the romance tends to sour.

Betsi cadwaladr health board is frequently in special measures and many, including my loved one, wait far too longer for cancer treatment and die. Waiting list for rheumatology was 11 months just for an initial appointment, orthopaedics 18 months, and that’s before even being put on the replacement op’s list. It’s pretty dire.

Living off grid is very hard work and you need so many skills to make it work. It is not romantic in mid winter to be thawing water pipes from a well or in summer for the water to dry up, to be chopping wood for the fire constantly. It is not impossible but I live in rural Wales and people come with this dream but in reality it is hard. Not many manage it unless you move into an off grid community of which there are quite a few which thrive. Rural living in remote areas is beautiful but also difficult in winter. Just do your homework to make sure it is right for you. Smallholdings eat money in reality and take hard graft to make sustainable.

There is a reason property is cheap in such places...

I live in the area (but not very rural) - small town on the edge. I've learned Welsh and now function in a Welsh speaking office.
If you don't need to work - fine.
If you want to work in the public sector you will need at least some level of Welsh. Other jobs fairly few and far between and often seasonal.
If you are WFH - be realistic about Internet speeds. It's not that long ago than parts of Gwynedd were still on dial up.
Most schools in Gwynedd are Welsh medium which is fine if your kids are happy to learn Welsh but you might have a long distance to an English medium school.

All that negatively aside, I'm lucky to live where I am. People are friendly if you are also, and not expecting everything to work like London.
Everyone knows everyone, and if they don't know , know your auntie.

The anti Welsh brigade will be on in a minute telling everyone how unfriendly north West Wales is, but you need to understand once you are away from the coast resorts and out of season most people here speak Welsh as their first language not to annoy the tourists

Do you really mean off-grid, or do you just mean living rurally?

I live in Pembrokeshire, right on the coastal path!
I grew up here.
There are plenty of pretty rural areas here where you can be almost ' off grid' !
I wouldnt want to live anywhere else!

Do you really mean living "off grid"? Because if you do, please put all romantic notions out of your head. Imagine you've been sent back 200 years in a time machine. If you just mean living rurally in Wales, then why not. Half of England has moved there since house prices got crazy and WFH made nowhere really off limits. Just be warned though, that if you are used to city or suburban living, there are challenges. The nearest hospital can be bloody miles away, there are limited public services, the internet can be awful, public transport is non-existent and you could get seriously snowed in in the winter. As for jobs, they are very few and far between and locals will get priority. Wages are low too. You will (I believe) also need to be Welsh speaking for jobs in the public sector. Apart from that as they say, Wales is beyond beautiful and the people are lovely.

I have lived in Mid Semi Rural Wales for 20 years and love it here. Raised my kids here and there was no better place to do it. Despite what some may tell you, the people here have been amazing and we have never not been made welcome. We have many close friends and neighbours here. We are very lucky to live with amazing views from every window and are not far from several lovely coastal towns and beaches. These are the pro's.

The con's are that winters here are pretty tough. We have central heating and a log burner but many of our friends and neighbours don't and their houses are pretty cold. The weather where we live is awful. Cold frosts, snow, and every single named storm of the season batters us, closes local roads due to flooding at times and some areas even get cut off. Power cuts are frequent if we have storms so you need to be prepared for that.

The nearest local supermarkets to us are miles away so we have an ASDA delivery weekly. There are not KFC's and McDonalds in every town or even a Starbucks or Costa. Your local Hospital may not be that local and public transport and the train service where I am is shite. So if you do move to Wales do your research and make sure you have the facilities close to you that you require. Take some time to visit the area many times and find somewhere that feels like it matches your requirements first. Before we moved here we had a caravan where we now live. So we were able to explore the area and spent lots of time here before deciding to make the move permanent. I would suggest taking some holidays. Book a holiday cottage in different places and get a real feel for the area as all areas of Wales offers something different and will feel different.

If you live somewhere that is very Welsh speaking you may struggle to find work if you don't speak the language. Decent jobs can be difficult to come by here at the best of times and if you don't speak the language that pool of available jobs will be even smaller.

But it is a beautiful and amazing place to live and we feel at home here. I have never regretted our decision to move to Wales. But please do make sure you know what you are getting, and what you may be giving up, by looking to move here.

I was tempted to do that but in Scotland.

I was raised in the countryside and wanting to go back to a greener lifestyle after living in London for many years.

In the end I decided against it because of:

• the weather
• worrying about getting older and not having good access to a GP and hospital
• limited access to jobs.

So I compromised and moved to a small coastal town in England where I have a garden, good access to the sea and lovely countryside but also to shops, coffee shops, restaurants and cultural activities.

If I was younger though I might have given the full on rural lifestyle a try!

Do you really mean 'off-grid' - ie no electricity?

If so, you need to think about heating/hot water, lighting, cooking, refrigeration, clothes washing and drying and broadband/telecoms. If there's no electricity there will almost certainly be no gas and probably no mains water, either. Or mains drainage. And - because of mountains - no mobile phone signal. Without an (expensive to install) septic tank, can you happily construct and use and maintain an hygienic earth-closet type loo? And will you get this plan past local building regulations?

I have lived off grid just for a while while we were building a house in a remote area (not Wales) and it's hard. Romantic in summer with the wildflowers and birds and bees etc but big Calor gas cylinders for cooking/hot water for washing are very expensive. Without a fridge or freezer - there are very few gas models and they are costly - food goes off so quickly, in spite of old-fashioned expedients such a wet muslin draped over a milk bottle. It's not much fun to have to climb halfway up a small mountain to get a phone signal, or to travel 50 miles each way - by the one bus per day from a stop several miles away - we walked - to the nearest town to do shopping and get broadband reception. Or to drive miles to fill your car's tank with expensive petrol (of which supplies can be unreliable).

In the winter it was brutal. As previous poster says, you have to be prepared for your water supply to freeze (and then you have to sort out airlocks when it thaws). Your dwelling will need good insulation. You'll need a good supply of logs - again, not cheap. Winter or summer, you'll need some sort of telecoms; we had (grant aided) satellite and it was, compared to very average non-remote installations today, very very expensive and very slow and unreliable. Etc etc etc.

If you are just saying 'off grid' to mean 'rural' then that's a totally different kettle of fish and a little bit disrespectful to many people already living and working in remote rural communities.If you want to find out how they cope, I think it would be a very good idea to talk to them.

Don't - whatever your plans - ignore all that previous posters have said about the absence of GPs and overworked hospitals and consequent long waiting lists in remote rural areas.

Thank you all for your thoughts and comments, I really appreciate them!

I’m a young-at-heart 50-year-old, single with no wife or kids to consider. I love photography and the stunning scenery around Snowdonia and rural Wales, and I’m fortunate that I could afford to live simply without needing to work. The idea of off-grid living is appealing, but I don’t yet have the skills for it, so in reality, I’m thinking more about rural living rather than going completely off the grid. I drive so thats not an issue for getting around.

My main concern is how I’d manage things as I get older, doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, or even just the risk of falling and not being found for ages. Those little practicalities make the decision a bit trickier!

I’ve seen some absolutely beautiful properties with breathtaking views, acres of land, and even rivers with fishing rights, perfect for my dog and for spending my days photographing kingfishers. But then there’s the other side of me wondering… am I embracing a dream, or am I just running away from the world and waiting for the inevitable?

It’s a big decision, and I really appreciate all the different perspectives!

Go for it. I’m a little older than you and spend half the time v remotely. I’d be here permanently if it wasn’t for my pesky kids. Arrived this evening. Spent an hour setting up- water on, fires lit, electricity reset. Feel like a pioneer woman! Don’t go completely off grid if only to be able to recharge a car.

I like that part of the world very much but for me it’s too rural for anything more than a holiday. And I’m too long on the tooth and too crap at languages to learn Welsh and I’m not arrogant enough to pitch up there and not bother learning so 🤷‍♀️

I wouldn’t romanticise it.

I moved to a new town and found it hard. I am incredibly close to all amenities. My GP surgery is actually next door and a local hospital is a 10 minute walk, shops are a 4 minute walk. Five minutes in the other direction is miles of remote countryside, lots of horse stables and excellent walking routes so I do have the best of both worlds but it’s still being a struggle relocating. I think without having both I would have found it very hard to settle.
It’s nice having pretty scenery but in a way I find walking it makes me feel isolated. I couldn’t imagine that being 90% of my life.

As someone up thread pointed out, the Welsh weather is terrible. There's year-round rain, not just in the winter and snow in the hills which cuts off rural areas.
If you're thinking about settling in north-west Wales don't start off by pissing off the locals and calling it Snowdonia - it's now officially known by its Welsh language name of Eryri and it's Yr Wyddfa, not Snowdon.
Learning some Welsh would help you integrate and get to know people - Duolingo is a good place to start and there are lots of Welsh language classes and courses. My favourite ones are in the beautiful language centre of Nant Gwrtheyrn.
I do think you're romanticising the idea of living off-grid though, especially as you're not that young starting off.

In Snowdonia we have GPs a hospital nearby. Longer waiting lists than England. I suggest that you learn Welsh living in Gwynedd though.

I absolutely ADORE Snowdonia/North West Wales/West Wales, and go there a couple of times a year, for long weekends. Love Snowdon/Llanberis area, Betwys-y-Coed, Capel Curig, Llangollen, Barmouth, all of it!

Would I like to live there? No. I mean some people do and that is lovely for them. But I have spoken to some (English) people who moved there after buying a B & B/Guest House, or a shop, and whilst they like it, they say it's grim in winter, the trade is scant, and over the year, they barely break even. And people under-estimate how long it will take to get to places... eg; to a major hospital. Or anywhere really! Phone signal and internet can be sketchy!

Barmouth (for example,) is gorgeous, and that whole area (Machynlleth, Dolgellau, Mach Loop, Horseshoe Pass, Fairbourne etc,) but it takes soooooo long to get anywhere from there, because as lovely as North and Mid Wales/Snowdonia is, the traffic routes aren't great, and public transport is poor. That's why property is so cheap. That, and the fact that there is not much there except tranquillity and beauty.

DH and I moved from a busy large town to a little village in the sticks (from West Midlands to North Midlands,) just over a decade ago, and we are 15-16 miles (half hour drive,) from most places really - including any banks or hospitals or train stations ... (We just have a little market town 3-4 miles away with no banks and not that many main shops really.) Even the market town only has a couple of buses a day to just 3 towns 14 to 16 miles away in different directions. We have no train station for 15-16 miles.

We also have no public transport in or out of our village and zero shops. Just one pub, a Church, and a Parish hall that houses a dozen or so hobby/social groups. It's a very friendly village though, our neighbours are lovely, and the area is gorgeous... River, woodlands, canal, farmlands, fields, lots of beauty, so we love it and have no plans to move anytime soon. But it is a bit rural/off grid. And having had the culture shock from Town to tiny village 15 miles from most places, I know I would not want to be MORE rural/further away from places. I mean we got used to being out in the sticks, quite quickly, but yeah, there is much less closeby than there is in a town! (Obvs!)

I think the idea of living in Snowdonia is much lovelier than the reality would be (for most!)

!

Are you wedded to Wales?
Scottish Borders have lots of the advantages you’re looking for but better funded services. It’s pretty empty and as not even fulltime incomers we’ve had a very warm welcome.

@Fingerscrossed22 I'm extremely jealous. I grew up in north Pembrokeshire but left for work.

There are a few off grid “intentional communities” around the Preseli mountains - perhaps google and plan a visit? They offer tours etc and can talk about the realities. There seems to be a lot of fallings out etc among them, but at least it offers a first hand perspective.