relocation: what were your reasons and how did make your choice about where to go

[mabel1973]

3.5 years ago, Dh, DS1 and I moved back to our home town in the midlands, after 2 years living just north of london. I decided not to return to work after having DS1 and we thought at the time it made sense to be close to our families. It has given us great family support whilst we've here, but the thought of staying here for ever, depresses me quite frankly.

DH is coming to a cross roads with his job and we feel now is the time to take the plunge and move on.

The trouble is , as we are not moving because of work, or for any particular reason,other than a feeling that 'there is more to life than this' we are struggling to make a decision about where to go.

We have always wanted to live by the coast, and that is probably our main requirement, DH's line of work means he could work most places as long as we are within commuting distance to a major city.

Aparat from sticking a pin in a map, I am at a bit of a loss.
I am just interested in other peoples stories of relocation and how it came about and how you came to your decisions.
TIA

bump

We moved to be nearer to family but not too near

We moved near to major city, mainly for work for my DH but schools were very important.

My advice having moved to a totally new area with no idea of what you are letting yourself in for is to rent!! Then you find out local knowledge and then if you buy you are informed. (especially important with the prices of property and where the local thugs hang out)

We originally lived in a small town, shopping very limited but surrounded by amazing countryside so great for walks etc.

Now that we live near a major city there is countryside but you have to drive to get to it so it kind of defeats the point for us a bit

Shopping is now amazing but that has never been a passion of mine but it does mean that when we need to go to DIY store or shop for clothes we have a very wide choice very close by.

I think the best thing would be to list what is important to you, so yours could be -
coastal (within X miles of coast)
schools
parks
local shops
community centre/places to meet people

With being in the Midlands you could go West to Wales or East coast meaning a easy commute to your family to keep up those contacts.

We've relocated 4 times, usually at least 250 miles from previous location.

Always due to dh's promotions. The last (and hopefully final) time, we looked at a 30mile radius of his new office, so much of Herts, Bucks, Berks. Ended up choosing this v pretty valley in an area of outstanding beauty. As we're always going to be hundreds of miles away from family and old friends, the main thing we were looking for was a quaint village in lovely countryside. Other things are obv. more important to other people.

(actually, I didn't even see this house before we bought it - dh called me from his new office, described it & I said, fine, buy it. I just wanted to get the kids schools sorted out and by that time it was July)

We have just moved as we hated where we lived before and we worried the effect the town would have on dd as she grew up. Living somewhere we hated was adding to my depression, causing problems between dp and I and limiting on my creer.

I simply looked for schools anywhere in the country where we could afford to buy a house and liked the look of.

We ended up in Dorset.

We are renting as we are yet to sell our old house but I also agreed to a house I had not seen. It has been ideal as we can get to know the area before comitting to buying.

When I came for interview, dp drove around to see what we could afford to buy and if he liked the area. He loved it and was sure I would to so I accepted the job. We did have a list of what we were looking for in our new area.

Our life is so much better now to the extent that I am now slowly coming off my medication and even my IBS has gone. I can't believe a town was making me ill.

thanks for sharing your experiences. TS&P we have the same problem here regarding schools.
Whilst we live in a nice village where the primary schools are lovely, the surrounding areas are quite rough and this is where the secondary school is, and whilst DS1 is only 4, i still feel i want to plan ahead so we can guarantee he and Ds2 get into a decent school.
I also found it very difficult as for the 1st 2 years here i didn't have the use of a car, unless i dropped DH at work, so my life was limited to activities within the village (I am a SAHM doing a bit of work from home for our business), and I could feel this really getting me down.
The village we live in is where DH grew up, and a lot of his friends still live here, whereas my old school friends are a 20 minute drive away, which whilst not particularly far, means I can't just pop round, so I have not seen as much of them as I thought i would when we moved back here, this has caused resentment between DH and me, as I feel stuck here, while he just pops to the pub with his mates whenever he feels like it!
DH says he is really not bothered where we go and reckons he won't miss his mates ( i think it's made him realise that whilst he has moved on a lot of his friends are still doing the same things, going to the same pub every saturday night etc.)

But i think schools are a good place to start and also easy to reach activities such as playgroups etc, and some form of civilisation for me would be nice!

I moved from London to Rugby. This choice was made after massive research on a place still commutable to london, closer to my partner's relations, good for schools and with reasonable house prices. I am very happy here, lots going on, people are friendly, houses are in better condition. We are renting and rents are so low compared to London, our three bed semi with huge garden goes for the price of a one bedroom flat in a cheap area of London. We are looking to buy and prices are very reasonable here (anywhere else less than an hour from London by train costs the earth). I used two great books: Escape from London and Guide to commuterland.Then used the internet a lot (google maps, rightmove, ukvillages...). We looked into South East but many places had crappy commuter services and house prices were even higher than in London. There are places in Essex where the train journey is longer than here (and we are miles further) and there are very few trains if you want to work late in London.