Where SW, train station, 30 mins beach, circa 2.5 hrs London, retirement?

[Mum5net]

Doing a recce next month for retirement in 2026. Ideally not as far as Exeter and not sure we have funds for Bristol.
Have eight days to just go driving and check out places - rather than actually visit houses and stalk Right Move. T
Looking for 3 beds, 2 bath semi or detached house for £700k with garden and garage. No flats as we have a dog and don't want to pay a service charge.
Want to be able to home exchange with others abroad for at least twice a year, so ideally near an airport (30 mins) and somewhere people abroad would want to visit.
Have previously eliminated Winchester & Chichester on our last explorations. Winchester was too spread out and a bit ££, and really wanted to love Chichester but didn't love the housing stock or get the vibe.
Interests are beach walks, woodland walks, pub lunches, DIY, garden etc need links to London for DC x 2, also have relatives on the LNER route to Edinburgh. Needs to be a town as have to give up driving in next decade. Public transport quite high up the agenda as don't want to rely on others.
Currently am a 10 min walk to a station and 10 min walk to Sainsburys, 10 min walk to fabulous park but poor northern weather and 5 hrs from London prompts move.
Hit me with your best suggestions, please.
I have an A3 laminated print out of the routes for SW trains, but no idea which stations are the gems.

I would stay in Christchurch if visiting BH postcodes and the New Forest. And if you want a nice treat stay in the Chrustchurch Harbour Hotel. Honestly its location is fabulous!

Carey's Manor in Brockenhurst is close to the station and has a lovely spa!

Another nice option at an affordable price is the Bear at burton - beautiful old inn , lovely rooms, great food - we've stayed there 3 times- 2 miles out of Christchurch -

Thank you. We have the dog so was thinking three nights Airbnb maybe in either BH13 or BH6 or Lymington

Dorchester has 2 cinemas and they’re both super cheap. The plaza is independent and little but very comfy chairs and cute, the odeon has to compete so prices are a fraction of what they are in Taunton. We usually go to Dorchester cinemas (either - we chose the best timings for us) and Brewery square for food. Between Dorchester and Sherborne you have the villages in the wriggle valley and they’re great villages with lots going on - chetnole, Leigh and yetminster. We’re involved in some of the activities over there through the village hall (although we don’t technically live there). Depends what kind of vibe you’re after.

BH13 is expensive (Sandbanks,Canford Cliffs) so include BH14 south of Ashley Road too for Ashley Cross, Whitecliff, Penn Hill and Lilliput. You can walk/cycle through Poole Park to the town centre.

Salisbury. Then visit Sherborne, Marlborough, Shaftsbury, Romsey, Southampton and Emsworth. Pottle past the 'Stones as you go.

Going to book Airbnb tonight - should we do Ashley Cross, Westbourne or Southbourne for accommodation? All three have suitable places with availability.

I love Ashley Cross. You’re already a local - non Poole types always refer to it as Lower Parkstone!

Any of those places would be good, but Southbourne is more central if you are covering New Forest/Lymington from there too.

Booked. Now going to do three weeks’ research of Rightmove of Exeter and Ashley Cross and Lymington to be ‘ more aware’.

Just a quick note. On the local news last night, I heard that Exeter council have plans to double/treble the size of the city by another 200,000. That may put some off the city itself but it could add more jobs and security of facilities. I'd worry that Topsham may just become a suburb like Pinhoe.

I’m in BH6 today. Have eliminated Exeter although DH really likes Lympstone. Anything I should know or look for in Southbourne?

You’ve picked a lovely day for it. Don’t forget to picture it on a wet winters day! And it does rain more down here on the coast!
Do update if you can

Get down to Sobo Beach (bar on the beach) and have a paddle.

Check out Southbourne Grove high street
Pokesdown Station is due a refurb with new lifts in the next 12 months. Or you can ride a Beryl Bike across Tuckton Bridge to Christchurch station.

Thanks @TianasBayou We did the beach bar then let the dog do the paddle! Fab day.
26,000 steps and exhausted, Walked the length of Southbourne Grove High Street and visited four estate agents. We now know about ‘the grid’, Carbery Ave, West Southbourne which are ‘in’ and ruled out Heggetsbury Head and Christchurch . Tomorrow is Ashley Cross and the bits of Poole on our budget.

Hope you have another good day!

So planning another mission in June. We want to go back to Asley Cross and Lilliput and Southbourne. We didn't make it to Lymington or Salisbury so need to spend time there, too.
Lymington on paper looks like a less hectic/ quieter. What do people think? It's got everything on my list but so had Chichester and that didn't work. Interested to hear any comparisons between these areas.

I can comment well having lived all over London and Brighton too. Can confirm Worthing is a great place if you want:
-A lovely quiet beach
-Beautiful countryside and walking nearby
-Friendly safe community, quite diverse and queer friendly
Very good cafes restaurants pubs and bars (both traditional and also natural wines bars and small plates etc, craft breweries for Brighton vibes)
-Good schools
-Leafy parks
-Decent town centre with walkable shops
Three train stations(!) and an easy enough commute straight to Victoria/East Croydon/Clapham, and Brighton of course
-Decent parking (especially compared to Brighton)
And affordable homes! I bought my three bedroom house in a good area for only 30k more than my one bedroom flat in Brighton- and for the price of a one bedroom flat in Zone 3 London.
For us it's been a no brainer and we love it, we're in our 30s and lots of our friends are following suit.
-Best areas: Check it out in person. Personally we're near the station on a leafy nice street, Tarring (West) is also desirable. But the best way to ascertain is to go and walk around.

Are you on commission? Worthing is SE - not SW.

Coming back to update my original thread on its first anniversary!
Exactly a year on, we’ve left Scotland, moved to Poole, and have now been here for a month. All is grand — and we’re so glad we were brave enough to see it through.
A huge thank you to everyone who shared little golden nuggets of advice. We made three separate recces — in April, June and September — testing out so many of your suggestions. Each time we ditched the car and walked thousands upon thousands of steps to really get a feel for the place.
Having such a wide range of recommendations was invaluable; there’s no way we could have covered that ground on our own. In the end, we knew we wanted to be within 20 minutes of a railway station, and Zoopla and Rightmove helped us narrow things down from 400 miles away.
Luck also plays its part. Not everything lands face up, but on the days it really mattered, it did — and that made all the difference.

I was thinking Arundel - I would move there like a shot - beautiful countryside and very close to lovely beaches like West Wittering

@Mum5net thats amazing!!! I suggested Ashley Cross upthread, I'm so pleased it's worked out for you! And at the best time of year too, sandbanks is your oyster by late April.

I used to have my weekend breakfast sitting on a bench on 'evening hill' overlooking the harbour. 😍

Sidmouth doesn’t have a train line as far as I am aware. It is indeed a lovely place.

I can genuinely remember last summer wishing I had a WhatsApp group with some of those who posted. Re-reading the whole thread today, I realised just how many small comments, suggestions and golden nuggets smoothed the search, saved me hours and stopped me disappearing down blind alleyways.
Some of it was wonderfully direct — like the gentle steer that BH13 probably wasn’t the right fit for us. Other bits were tiny throwaway lines that turned out to be incredibly useful when talking to estate agents. You don’t always realise at the time how valuable that kind of local insight is — but it absolutely shaped our decisions.
@Ilovelowry @TianasBayou @Cyclingforcake @TeenLifeMum @Sassybooklover @LaPalmaLlama

What’s rather lovely now is that the places we ruled out for being “too far from the beach” have become our ready-made day-trip list for high summer, when everyone else is heading to the beach
We’ll be off to Cardiff, wandering around Bath, exploring Salisbury, and rediscovering Dorchester! And truly I want to try going east as I never ever made it to Worthing and along the coast to Brighton as that all got dismissed early on.
It feels like the search never really ends — it just evolves. And I’m still quietly grateful to everyone who helped us get here.

PS @Ilovelowry I watched The Lowry tapes on BBC recently. Loved it!