Where does everyone live ?

We are deciding where we want to move to, so Im wondering where is everyone living at?  Do you like where you live?  Do you regret moving there?  Share share =)


My husband wants to live near Birmingham, thats where his parents live. But I kinda wanna live near London. (Not inside it, but maybe like a 30 minute drive) 

So where do you guys live in the UK and tell me the pros and cons, maybe I can get some ideas ...

I'm in Cardiff in Wales.

Pros:
Highest quality of life in the UK
Only 2 hours from London by train
Wales has a very low cost of living
Lots of pretty places nearby, like the Brecon Beacons or Tenby
Has the amenities of a big city (shopping, night life, sporting events, etc). Without the unbearable crowds and high costs.

Cons:
Haven't found any really.


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I'm near Burton-on-Trent in Derbyshire, pretty much as southern as you can get in our county. I work in Leicestershire... it's only 3 miles from my home and 15 minutes by car. We're within an hour of Birmingham, Nottingham and Leicester. Derby is about 30 minutes away. London is about 2 hours by train.

Here in the East Midlands I feel like I can travel anywhere in England in a comfortable amount of time by car and anywhere by train or plane. There are 3 different airports nearby as well as several train stations.

Honestly, the only con I can really think of is an entire UK thing. Stores over here usually close around 5pm-5.30pm... It's REALLY annoying when you're used to be able to go shopping after work.

I'm not knocking London, but I haven't really heard great things from Expats about living there and the Brits I do know who live there are early 20's and actually leave London to go surfing every chance they get. It's somewhere I adore visiting, but it's so very expensive! If London is where you'd like to be, really look into the costs of living there. Salaries are high because people wouldn't be able to afford it otherwise. 

I'll second that comment about many expats not liking living in London. A close expat friend of mine lives in central London and she hates it and always tells me she would be more inclined to stay in the UK if she lived in Cardiff or someplace else a bit quieter.


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I'm in Wokingham and without traffic it takes 30 minutes to drive to London (west side).

I am very happy in the area I'm in as I've made some great friends here but it has taken many years to get to this point.  Having a child helped a LOT as I started going to baby groups to meet other new moms.  If I had my choice of anywhere, I'd probably move to Northern England as it sounds like people are much friendlier up in Yorkshire/Manchester areas.  It's just a littler harder to "break in" in the South East.

Just for a little balance, I really liked living in London. I'm also happy now that we're in the countryside, but if we could've found a place in or near London that had some outside space, that would've been fine with me.

And as KFdancer says, having a baby helps. We made friends with nearly everyone in our NCT group.

We're just outside a town called Biggleswade.

Pros:
- Town name makes people laugh.
- Lots of outside space/farmland around us.
- Decent commute (40ish mins) into London.
- Town is on the up - recently got an H&M and a TX Maxx, plus Next and River Island are on the way. I've also heard tell of a Waitrose, but this is spoken about in hushed tones.

Cons:
- Shops on high street close at incredibly stupid times.
- There's a market every now and again, but not a nice one with fresh produce. Instead it's one of the ones that sells pound shop quality household items out of crates in the street. (Who, while wandering around the high street, thinks "Oooh, 40p is a good price for a straining spoon"?)

I've also heard tell of a Waitrose

You know, only in England....

I'm in the Fife region of Scotland. Small village.. easy commuting to the major motorways, 35 to 45 min drive from Edinburgh..
20 min drive to the beach... short drive to countryside.. 15 min drive to major supermarkets..
Love it !!!!
Been in the Fife region for 13 of the 16 years i've lived in Scotland.

Never lived in any part of England so I can't comment other than to say i've heard folks say closer to London the more mega expensive it is..


Others mileage may vary..

You know, only in England....

Waitrose is in Scotland too.

Waitrose is in Scotland too.

I've been off a bit lately, a mild slump.

I was sort of trying to make a little remark about how Waitrose is another class-based shibboleth.

For instance, "It's a nice area, has a Waitrose..." is different than, "Hear they're putting in an Iceland".

Waitrose facing middle class revolt from shoppers who claim that its free coffee and tea are attracting the wrong type of customers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/waitrose-faces-middle-class-revolt-over-free-coffee-loyalty-card-9030195.html

We live in London and love it. True, it's more expensive than the rest of the UK, but salaries are generally more.

We're able to walk everywhere, so we don't pay much in transportation (maybe £10 a week combined). I think a lot of whether you like living in London or not depends on where you live and work. A long commute from one end of London to the other can kill your day and your wallet, but we're happy walking to work and most everywhere we need to go. Definitely something I can't say about where I grew up - you had no option but to drive if you wanted to go anywhere.

We have a small garden, a nice flat (small as you would expect, but it suits us fine), we're in a quiet neighbourhood and the Thames is just a ten minute walk away.

I'm sure we'll move out of London some day, but for right now, we like it here.

I just noticed that you said "30 minutes drive to London".   Just FYI, nobody ever drives to London.  There's nowhere to park and the roads are gridlocked


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I'm in Wokingham and without traffic it takes 30 minutes to drive to London (west side).

I just noticed that you said "30 minutes drive to London".   Just FYI, nobody ever drives to London.  There's nowhere to park and the roads are gridlocked

Often people who live near London or commute in will drive to a Tube station in one of the outer zones, park their car and take the Tube in. I'm assuming that's what KFdancer meant - in her case, driving about 30 minutes to a station on the west side of London.

We have 2 offices in London that I frequent.  One in the City which I take the train to (thankful that my travel expenses are covered as my ticket is £35.80 a day!).  The other is in West London straight off the M4 and we have parking.  I drive there.

I enjoy living in London, but as Travelling Frog mentions,

I think a lot of whether you like living in London or not depends on where you live and work. A long commute from one end of London to the other can kill your day and your wallet, but we're happy walking to work and most everywhere we need to go.

My OH and I work on opposite sides of London -- Him in West London (Zone 3) just where the M4 meets the North Circular, and myself out in Hertfordshire (Zone 8 ) off the A10 about 10 miles outside the M25.  To share the burden, we live in Zone 2 North London, where rents are pretty extortionate and our commutes are 50 minutes or 1 hr 15 mins, respectively.  Our salaries may be higher, but this is not in proportion with the higher costs of living. At present, I have little to no chance to consider owning my own home, and instead we pay over 40% of our take-home pay just on fixed rent/household bills/commute costs.

Having lived in Manchester, Nottingham, and spent a good amount of time in Leicester, there is no doubt in my mind that we'd be much better off financially if we lived elsewhere in the country (with the rather large assumption that we'd be able to find jobs there). 

However, I do enjoy living in such a diverse and exciting city with all the various opportunities it provides.  For now, I'm quite content to stay put, but this opinion will likely change significantly within the next 5 years as we inch closer towards settling down/starting a family.