People who moved from cities to live in villages, how are you doing?

28 comments

1. I was in the same boat as you. I feel isolated outside of the city – I’ve lived in city centres/very close suburbs my entire life, so when it came to buying with my partner we were hesitant to go too far. But we also wanted to escape the smog a bit. We found a happy medium where we’re a 15 min bus journey from the city centre, but we’re also on the cusp of the countryside. The area we bought also has it’s own amenities – loads of bars and restaurants, so we don’t feel isolated in the way that you describe.

   I personally couldn’t move to such a small village. It makes you rely on your car more as well.

2. Sheffield is a city that feels like a collection of villages because of its topography, and loads of green space. Best of both worlds.

3. I personally would need to be near a train station that has express trains to Edinburgh. If its a village that you need a car to get to I hate that, makes night outs in cities basically impossible to plan for.

4. I grew up in a big town outside of a big city, moved to the city at 17 for uni & stayed for years. Partner & I bought a house near where he grew up, very rural & no public transport.

   I love it. Love nature & the quiet. Love being able to see the stars. I still like to visit the city, still enjoy the entertainment. However, if I go to the city at the weekend now I find it far too busy, noisy & dirty. Never thought that would be me!

5. We moved from a city last year to the cotswolds. Its lovely, quiet, the air is clean, I can see the stars at night and there’s less of a risk that I might get stabbed.

   Sure there is more of a commute for basic things and for work, which at the moment sucks because the cost of living, but this is unprecedented and who can plan for that.

   I’d recommend doing your research though. I live near the backside of nowhere, but I do also have a direct train to London for when work requires it, access to major towns within a 10 min drive, good schools for my daughter and a lot of farm shops for food.

6. I moved from London to a remote Scottish island with less than 500 inhabitants.

   Yes, it’s a completely different life but I love it. I feel part of a community, where people know each other and actually care for each other.

   We have to do without stuff (takeaways is the main one!) but we get so much more in return. Orca, seals, the Aurora…

7. I’m in a small town and I can walk to everywhere, even three supermarkets are all within 5 mins. Not too many decent pubs but that’s a good thing.

   Standard of living as improved at lot but I am saying that from the perspective of a middle aged person. I’d have hated it in my 20’s and 30’s.

8. I moved from London suburbs to a small village in Kent and I do not regret it at all. I would never move back to a city or even a large town if I can avoid it. Small towns and villages are the place to be.

   I was definitely worried when we first looked but we got so much more for our money and the areas we could afford weren’t total dumps like we were looking at in the city. I still see my friends regularly enough as it’s not a long drive and TBH as you start to get older you will just see friends less and spend more time with your family.

9. Fantastic. Until I need a loaf of bread. Then it’s six miles each way. Learning to eat canned things. I have two neighbours, neither of which are close enough to complain about the noise. I can leave a window open and nobody tries to nick my TV. I can leave the door unlocked and nobody tries to break in. I don’t see traffic. At all. Rabbits play in my garden. Robins sit on my garden table and hold court. Wouldn’t go back.

10. Moved to a tiny village in central Scotland. Love it.

11. Best move we ever made.

    We live in a tiny village also in Scotland (no pub, no shop, 6 miles to the nearest town, less than 20 miles from a city – so not *that* far away).

    We’ve never really been pubgoers and we’re old (and rich) enough that not having easy access to nightlife doesn’t bother us that much. If we want to see a gig or go to an event in one of the cities one of us drives, or we book a hotel and stay over.

    Our house is detached, so no neighbours to bother or be bothered by (we’ve had nightmare attached neighbours before) and it’s much bigger than we could afford elsewhere.

    The nature is phenomenal. We have all round forested hills/field views. In the last 2 days alone I’ve watched the family of 6 hares in the field behind the house, seen deer and pheasants in the field, watched the family of buzzards that live in the trees behind the field, had a pair of woodpeckers and their babies visit our garden feeders, alongside all the usual tits, finches, sparrows, blackbirds, robins etc. There are red squirrels in the woods at the bottom of the village, where I’ve also heard a cuckoo, seen fox babies and watched a red kite scouting over the village.

    The internet isn’t particularly fast, but it’s good enough for WFH and streaming telly/films. ‘Popping out for a loaf’ is a bit of faff since we have to go in the car, but I’m just more organised.

    Once we realise that not being in a city/town doesn’t usually mean actually *remote* we wondered why we ever thought all that noise and people and stuff was worth it.

    Just being in the green and quiet has does wonders for both of our mental health.

    Sorry for the essay – but – yes, absolutely the best move we ever made.

12. My wife and agreed, when we moved out of London, that if we did move to the country, we’d ideally move to a small town, or possibly a large village, but certainly not a small village with no facilities. That was several decades ago. Anyway, long story short, we moved to Oxford and I absolutely loved it, but then we had to move to somewhere quieter for my wife’s mental health, so now we’re in a small village with a few hundred people and no facilities. We basically have to drive to get anywhere.

    I don’t *hate* it, and a fair number of people in the village are nice, but there really isn’t anyone whose interests align with mine (I’m pretty geeky and love live music). Also, our house is lovely and the garden is gorgeous in the summer, and it’s great to have some space.

    But, with no other constraints, I’d move back to our flat in Oxford like a shot. My wife, however, loves being in the country.

    I wish we’d bee able to hold out a little longer and we’d waited for a house in the next village along (about 5 miles away) to come up. It has a couple of pubs, and it’s that much closer to Oxford, and the public transport is a lot better. We couldn’t have got as a big a house, but I would have been ok with that.

13. I live in a village now, and I grew up in a village. I lived in much more urban/city areas in the 10 years between. This one is pretty affluent; most of the houses are about 1.5-2x the national average (note: I’m renting an unusually cheap flat near the centre – we got lucky with the rent somehow). Be wary that in the right (or wrong?) places, you can end up in the middle of a cult. This village runs all kind of weird festivals and events, shutting down the roads and such. I’ve seen people with [VILLAGE] bumper stickers. Last week, I saw somebody with [VILLAGE] *license plate.* Don’t get me wrong, it is a lovely place, and if you’re into that sort of thing, the events might be cool. But yes… there is a definite cult like vibe going on. Everybody knows everybody’s business. I’m an introvert, but I can’t go to the supermarket, butcher, coffee house, etc., without getting pulled into an inescapable ten-minute chat. I want to like it, but it hurts my soul.

14. Community, less traffic, people with similar interests, more green, more space, decent pub where you can walk in pretty much anytime and share a conversation with somebody, great schools, better views, see the stars at night, quiet. Im a fan…

15. Unless you’re sure I’d advise against it.

    A better stepping stone would be to a small town.

    One small high street, couple of supermarkets and 50+ pubs.

    It’s very very different to city life but gives you a taster of a quieter life.

16. I moved from a much more urban part of Bristol to a village just outside of it – although it’s the kind of village that is well connected by bus and has a commute time of under an hour, so I actually feel like I’ve got the best of both worlds now. Lots of clean air, nice rural areas nearby, and yet still within a distance where people can come and visit us easily.

17. Lived in one of the Major Northern cities. Now live in the outskirts of a tiny village of 250 people in North Yorkshire.

    Took a while to adjust and yeah, sometimes you miss only being a 2 minute walk from a shop or some form of entertainment, but I honestly love it. I’ve got my house, my own personal slice of the countryside and I can enjoy it in ultimate peace and privacy. Clean air, birds tweeting, sheep bleating and the sound of the brook in my garden flowing – okay – with the occasional pickup truck blasting past maybe once an hour.

    I can garden and now spend wayyy more time outside. As I’m a driving enthusiast, I also enjoy the roads.

    Me and my Fiance both WFH although I do also do site work. She still works her old job, which is city based but is pretty much fully WFH. I moved to a more local position, but the office is still an hour away. We do occasionally pop into our respective offices (maybe once a month for me, once every 3-4 months for my Fiance) but a long drive once in a blue moon is not a hardship to us.

    I can imagine our careers will eventually yank us back to a city setting but for now, we’re very happy here and would be extremely sad to leave.

18. I’ve moved from a very big city to the suburbs and to be honest, I kind of hate it.

    Yes, nature is lovely and it’s great that we don’t have to worry about criminality as much, but we’re both childless and not really into the typical nuclear family lifestyle. That’s why it’s been quite tough finding common ground with people here.

    We try our best to keep in touch with our city friends and go to the city as much as we can, but with all the effort in the world, life has just kind of shifted to this new location and it’s often too difficult to get included in events or parties because we live fairly far away.

    That’s why we’re now actually buying a house back in the city. Not the same city as before, a smaller one, but it has lots of things going for it and we cannot wait to again experience more than just bird watching and lawn mowing.

19. I moved from East London to a hick village in Suffolk about ten years ago. It’ll take a while to get used to it.

    I initially struggled with a lack of Domino’s and McDonald’s and missed the vibrancy that I associated with living in a large town, but that was me romanticising what was an absolute shithole Dagenham is. I look out my back window at a huge chalk cliff and nature reserve, and that is one of the many reasons why I never regret escaping while I could.

    Strangers will say hello so get used to that😊. You’ll fall in love with the quiet after a few weeks.

    I made a point of not isolating myself from friends/family. I stayed in contact and travelled back frequently. Isolation is the primary concern, so make sure that you actively stay engaged with friends and family.

    Think about what you value. Not everyone loves it out in the sticks.

20. Hate it.

    I lived in this town for 15 years in rural Worcestershire. moved about for the next 25 years. Lastly we ended up on Wirral so were 30 mins from central Liverpool and we loved it.

    For the last 3 years we have moved back near the town I lived in and it hasn’t moved on. No pubs that are walkable, no shop that is walkable, no takeaway that delivers, nearest supermarket 10 miles away. need a car for everything.

    pros no. street lights or noise.

    IT depends on what you want from live. my ex-husband has lived in and around this town all his life and is happy.

21. Well…

    Its great for some things – wildlife, my kids are happier, our house is bigger, we have an amazing garden with a beautiful tree in, we have pets, we talk to our neighbours and help each other out, everyone has chickens (free eggs), it usually smells better, the schools are smaller, there are less social problems (I guess this depends on where in a city you were – we were in a really rough bit so pretty much anywhere is probably an inprovement on that), if I’m having a bad day where I live is just so beautiful so it’s hard to stay mad at the world for long.

    Some things are not so good – the dawn chorus here in summer is typically chainsaws, strimmers and tractors, the farm next to us spray weird shit on the fields from time to time (pesticides, shit, fertiliser), if we need to go somewhere outside of the village it involves a long drive – that’s 5 out of 7 days minimum and the amount of stuff different villages do is pretty variable ours is good and there’s a little something going on most weekends but others are just like wastelands as far as events and activities go, we have to talk to our neighbours and help them out, everyone has cockerals, everyone knows all your business and gossip like crazy which led to a short period of paranoia and anxiety for me (I’m mostly over that), there is no anonymity at all, we spend so much on petrol it’s insane – I feel like a one woman climate disaster sometimes just going to the shops and getting kids from school. Where we live there’s quite a few young families and people in their 30’s/40’s (the village mayor is 38) but I know some villages are basically retirement communities now.

    We moved from a medium sized UK city to a rural French village so I dunno if it goes for UK villages too.

    I know on balance it looks like I’m having a terrible time but in reality I do like living here, I like my neighbours and getting involved in community things, I like that even people I only know in passing worried when they didn’t see me walking the dog for a month (I was fine but the dog died) and it’s less stressful than where we lived before – not seen anyone attacked in the streets since being here!

22. We moved from a vibrant lively university town to a dinky little village in the middle of nowhere. We have a small city about a 20 minute drive away which deals with the restaurants and non-food shopping pretty well, along with reasonable gyms and suchlike.

    The village itself would be dull, but we have a renovation project and a fair bit of land to look after, and it turns out the people here, while sometimes being a little over-interested in everything, are lovely and supportive. They’ve made us very welcome.

    We’ve needed to be a little more organised with food shopping, because takeaways won’t deliver to us, and everything is a car drive away. But overall I’m very happy with the decision we made. When the house is finished we should double our investment easily – but it is soaking up all our spare money right now.

23. I moved from a city and now live with just three other houses. It’s amazing. I always said I’d never move out but I can only recommend it.

24. The only thing to do to really make sure whether you like it or not is to experience it temporarily (but for long enough that you have covered anything that may go wrong) without having the strong ties of a mortgage. Is it possible for you to rent an Airbnb for a month or two and see how you both feel?

    I moved from London to a small town right before the second lockdown for a year (close enough to be considered commuter town) and discovered I hate being dependent on trains, taking a cab this far out is not easy and my entire social life is in London so I just moved back in once my lease expired.

25. I am from Manchester and have lived in London and Liverpool, and chester. Now live in a village that has basically the things you need and is quite nice.

    Now I’m not going to say I don’t miss the bustle, and options a little. And in particular I’m not a fan of having to drive to everything.

    But it is fine, and made up for by a bunch of other stuff. The views are lovely, the people are nice and at our phase of life (kids, house) most people we know end up driving to meet up with each other at weekends and planning all that way in advance anyway. And it’s great for my boy to be able to have space and look for bugs in woods and that in relative safety.

    Caveats apply in that me and the missus have lived in remote locations before, and I’m within reach of cities (chester, Liverpool, manchester) if I should choose to visit.

    But I went to London last weekend and by god I prefer this to that. And re other cities, I think the benefits basically match the costs.

26. Went from City -> Village -> City.

    I was miserable in the countryside / village, population of about 100 people.

    If I wanted milk, I had to drive or dedicate an hour of my life to walking up to the nearest shop.

    When I didn’t feel like cooking, I was stuck with MAYBE 3 takeaways, as long as I picked the right time.

    Public transport was a single bus, every hour between 8am and 6pm, which cost £8 return, taxi was £10 each way, reduced service on a saturday, no service on a sunday.

    People having their work vehicles broken into were pretty common, because it would take the police a good 30 minutes to arrive on a good day.

    Before WiFi calling was available on all networks, you’d be stuck with just a single network provider, because they edged out the competition just a bit with signal (Read: 0 singal at all versus 1 bar of signal).

    My neighbours were a couple in their 30’s who desperately wanted kids but realised the kids would be bored out of their minds, as they were there was no-one below the age of 18 in the village, and that they would end up living their lives as personal chauffeurs for the kids, just to make sure their lives were somewhat normal.

    Friends tend to stop bothering to come visit you, because when the only source of entertainment is a run-down pub that only accepts cash and charges an arm-and-a-leg for a pint, it’s soul sucking. It ends up being purely on you to make the journey to see them, and like I said: Public transport is awful and costs a bomb (£60 return from my village to London and took me about 3 hours each way).

    I spent 8 years in the village and regretted it all the time, but it was cheap. The second I finished my education and got a decent paying job, I just headed north, and bought a place in the city again and would never look back.

27. I moved to a small town, not quite a village but it’s surrounded by countryside. I like the area and there’s more of a community feel to the place.

    One thing I miss about city life is the anonymity, I find it somehow disconcerting that in the town I’m in everybody knows everybody’s business.

28. I grew up in villages and I distinctly remember the 2 hour walk home after a night out after getting an hour bus to the nearest bus stop, that and wanting to go into town would need to be a whole day event because that’s how long it took to get in and out.

    Moved to uni and I gotta say although I like the space the convenience of being right beside everything is amazing.