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UK travel

Welcome to our UK travel forum where you can get advice on everything from holidays to exotic destinations, to tips on London travel.

Relocating from England to Scotland as a single mum

28 replies

TheOldSoul · 13/09/2025 07:28

Hi :)
I am hoping for some advice / guidance, I own a house in south west England, it’s just me, my son and our dog and we have no one else, no family. We want to relocate to Scotland with our plan being to rent first but then buy a little place in the highlands as remote as possible, or even Shetland. We have got rid of loads of our belongings and our house is now on the market. The drive time from where we live will be at least 12 hours and both myself and my son have medical conditions plus our dog is elderly and receiving palliative care so travelling up to view properties is not really an option as it’s bad enough we are going to have to do it once we have sold. So my original plan was to ask for remote viewings and find a rental without viewing in person first but now the house is on the market I’m starting to panic and wonder if I’m being a complete idiot!!?! Help! I can’t see any other option, is it a completely stupid thing to do or is it fairly normal when relocating to a new country? I’m both scared and excited in equal measures and my son (teenager) is desperate to leave and cannot wait for the new adventure. Doing it alone though as a single parent is very frightening. Has anyone else done this or something similar?

OP posts:
Mammut · 13/09/2025 12:41

What areas are you interested in OP?

outdooryone · 15/09/2025 14:42

Another one here who is struggling to understand the decision you are making here OP.

I moved up with family 15 years ago, my second stint living in Scotland, and moved up very much 'eyes open' to the challenges of rural Scottish life. Since then (and a divorce) I have now moved somewhere with more facilities, on the railway and main road network, with a doctors in the village and a hospital within an hour. I am much happier.

Island life is something else again - and if you have never come and spent a couple of weeks in January on the island or remote coast you are considering, then you really, really need to.

Rural in Scotland is also of a different scale to rural in England. I used to drive an hour after school so my kids could learn to swim. Each way. Getting to secondary school for some local kids was a 1mile walk down a driveway (pitch black in winter), 8 miles on a landrover, then 27 miles on a bus. The kids left home at 7am to get to school on time, and got home at 5:30 or so....Every food shop was a 16 mile round trip to a tiny CoOp - a proper supermarket once a month was a 70 mile round trip.

Remember that school is different up here - a different curriculum and education system. As a teenager your son is right at the difficult point of the education systems being different - you need to do research. If you are very rural and remote, the school may well be boarding as well (paid for by LA). Do you want to be split up each week?

Jobs are also tough rurally - unless you want to drive to a town or similar, which could be an hour or more away. Past that, you are looking at lots of low paid, seasonal jobs for many.

As an ex-landlord, I would never rent a property to someone I did not know. And frankly at the moment the holiday let market has devastated rural long term rentals. You will be in a queue of 17 other people - and if you are not prepared to be here to view, you will not get a house.

Remember as well how crap the weather can be, particularly at the shoulders of the year when the weather can be something else compared to where you have been living. Add in dark winters, higher costs of heating homes etc, and winters can be tough.

All that said, I love loving here and would not move south of the border again. My view is the education system is better, quality of life higher, houses cheaper (but you spend more on heating and travel for the most basic of supplies). The community feel is totally different up here, and I love it.

SpencerGarciaGideon · 15/09/2025 17:06

I live in a rural area in the central belt of Scotland. It's only a 20 minute drive from Glasgow so it's easy enough to get to hospitals, supermarkets, vets etc. but it's so rural that buses are few and far between, everyone knows everyones business and there are a lot of farm animals that can be heard in the distance. Lol maybe work your way up to the Highlands? As for the viewings. As long as you have a clear idea of what you need in a property, video viewings should be fine.

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