Country living - move from a large city. Help !

[Ozster]

Hi All,

We will move next year to get near a good school for DD.
We love nature as a family , walks and hiking etc .
We have always said we would retire to the countryside but I'm thinking manure we should do it sooner ?

Has anyone with a young family (DS10 DS5) made the move ?

My only concerns are :

Childcare for after school ( grandparents will be an hour away if we move )
Clubs : I would like the kids to still go to clubs like tennis/rugby/piano

What else should I consider ?

Thank you in advance

Maybe ! not manure Nice one auto-correct !

How rural? My daughter is 13 and I love the fact I don't need to ferry her arou anymore. She can be t nines / trains to meet friends independently.

Second the public transport. When I moved rural this was the biggest issue. Trains every 2 hours which stopped at 8pm were a huge shock after living in a city. There was no Uber

I've lived on farms most of my life, but I spent a brief period of time in my 20s 'city living'.

Things I miss from my brief foray into the real world

Takeaway deliveries
Takeaways within a 15 mile radius full stop
Being able to walk to the pub and walk back again
Being able to get a taxi if you didn't fancy walking back from the pub
Mobile phone signal
Internet that wasn't weather dependent
Being able to pop to the corner shop for something you needed without having to get in the car
Being able to wear nice shoes all year round because they weren't going to instantly get ruined by mud between Oct-April
Wheelie bins
Public transport

I've rarely been near my DD's school since she was 11. She can walk.

Some parents arrive 10-20 minutes early to get a parking space to collect DC. Multiply that by 5+ years....

People have different priorities.

Depends a bit on what “rural” means to you. Are we talking Home Counties “village” big enough for a supermarket/ secondary school, or something 3 miles from nearest public road in Ardnamurchan? It sounds like I’m being bitchy, but some people’s idea of “rural” is my idea of suburbia, and other people’s is very hardcore remote.

I think you need to think about what your priorities are and work from there as areas vary so much. I've always lived rurally and I would say that transport is the biggest issue, in most rural areas you have to drive as public transport is poor to non-existant in most places. You will probably find all the things you want but you need to think about how far you are prepared to drive to get them. In my area I considered anywhere within a 5 mile radius to be very close and within 10 miles easily drivable. If you are use to city life you might find that too much traveling. However you also need to consider what the traffic is like, a colleague of mine who moved from London to my area was amazed that she could travel 10 miles along country roads in less time than it took her to travel 3 in London.

Yes - depends on how rural. If no public transport, you will spend your life ferrying children about. Also check the local schools and WiFi.

Yes the public transport is a huge issue when the D.C. become teens if you're rural rural. No busses after 6 and then only every couple of hours and none on a Sunday, means that you have to be prepared to ferry children everywhere so they can socialise.

Being prepared to be snowed in and unable to get to work, ditto floods in some areas.

Loving nature, walks and hiking isn't the same as moving to a small village with a part time shop, children having to get a school bus to school and all that goes with trying to fit in to somewhere as a townie.

I was useless at all of the above so moved back again 😂

Oh and I would STRONGLY recommend renting first. The atmosphere of the local village will be so important - and fairly impossible to sense at first.

I would echo a pp in saying that some people's idea of rural is my idea of suburban, so, op, how rural are you thinking?
In a truly rural area you are very unlikely to have mains gas, and the electricity supply can be a bit dodgy in bad weather. You many not have mains drainage either and you also may have a private water supply. In snowy and icy weather your road will not be cleared or gritted because you are not a priority.
There will be no public transport nearby. Taxis have to be booked days in advance. Obviously no uber, no takeaway deliveries either. Your nearest takeaway may be quite a drive away. Ditto your nearest supermarket. No nipping out to pick up that item you forgot unless you fancy a 30 mile round trip.
Long dark nights and no street lights.
Possibility of dodgy broadband and no/minimal mobile signal. (We have only had a decent signal since last year).
So, that's all the things you might consider downsides to rural living. That is how it is living in a rural area, although we live in a group of villages which have a very strong community feel it is very much a farming/hunting, shooting, fishing area. Driving and having a car each is pretty much essential, especially if you are having to ferry your children around.