My wife and I have decided to move from London to Brighton.
It’s a no-brainer really. My wife’s family is there, the quality of life is fantastic and we love being there. It’s a big decision to relocate after almost ten years in London, but we are now well on our way to making the move.
Picture (cc) by David Nikonvscanon
I’ve explored various options for feasible places to commute to London from with a family over the last few years, reading all the books I could get my hands on and checking out train times with sites such as National Rail and Commute From.
But in the end, our decision on where to live outside London with our young baby, came down to one thing: family.
Support network is important at any stage in life – friends, family etc. But when a small child comes into your life you feel it even more. It’s not that you are running to your parents every five minutes, but it’s great to know they are about and if there is an emergency there is someone you can rely on.
Living in London, the most intimate I’ve got with any neighbours is exchanging the very odd bag of sugar or Christmas card.
So we are on our way – we’re renting out our home in London and planning to become tenants ourselves in Brighton. We had originally hoped that looking for a rental rather than a place to buy would speed up the move, but an unusually quiet rental market has not made it easy.
Through this blog I will share some of my experience of making the bold move out of London, which will hopefully be of interest to many people living in the capital who want to move out. I’m also hoping this will be of interest to Dads and Mums who want to organise a major move with a young family. Finally, there is the entire logistics of becoming a commuter, and how to achieve the work-life balance as a commuter – I’m going to share a little about how I will make that more manageable as we move out of London in the coming months.
I hope you can join me for what will be for me a major life event. Your comments and feedback are welcome along the way. Are you thinking of moving out of London, have you already moved to a commuter town near London or are still thinking of where to live near London with a better quality of life?
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