First session is free, right? Has anyone ever moved solo, to a rural part of Yorkshire, from city life, and lived to tell the tale?

I’m a mid 30s guy who has lived a very nomadic life up to now, working online exclusively, moving from country to country every three months or so. I’ve mostly lived in cities, mainly due to the liquid short term rental market, not having to own a car or deal with possessions. But recently I’ve been feeling more and more the urge to buy a house in England and have something to call my own.

I’ve saved up 300k and I don’t really have anything material to show for it. And I’m starting to feel the need. I work online and it would be nice to have a decent office and some open space to pace about.

I know I could rent a place for a while and test it out, but does this really simulate the feeling of owning your house, and being able to invest time and money making it a home? Maybe this is possible renting too – i’ve never rented an unfurnished place ever.

I’ve asked my friends for advice and they are convinced I would go crazy quickly if I did this. But they all live in the city. So I thought there was bound to be a few nature lovers on here I could ask 🙂

An obvious question, is why the UK? Well, there is health care, language, culture. Also there is a very liquid property market. Selling a house almost anywhere else is quite an ordeal, even if buying it might be cheaper.

good thing about rural yorkshire, is that you are only about 1 hour from a good city. Leeds, Sheffield, York.

where were you thinking?

An obvious question, is why the UK? Well, there is health care, language, culture

Not in Yorkshire there isn’t.

if your working online .. rural yorkshire will be a problem even urban yorkshire can be difficult..

You have a job, you’re single and you’ve saved up £300k?

Have you thought about rural Derbyshire?

*slicks down eyebrows*

Still not made your mind up? Over a year since your first thread on this subject! And, of the three threads you’ve been involved with on this forum, they’ve all been on the same topic.

Odd.

Yeah it’s a bit of a sickness of mine it seems.

I’ve been looking at the fibre map and it doesn’t look too bad. Huddersfield, York, harrogate all seem pretty zippy.

Only you can possibly know what that kind of potential isolation will do to you. Some will thrive on it, some not do so well.

While I can see why you’d want to settle down in the UK, not sure why ‘rural’ Yorkshire?

Although rural Yorkshire could be anything from the fenlands around the Humber to the bleakness of the high-Pennines – and for some folk, the bits of green between Leeds and Bradford are classed as ‘rural’ 😉

And safe been ‘solo’? C’mon get a grip.

I’ve done a pretty similar move. From down south (40 mins outside London) to Heptonstall. I rent at the minute, it’s got my furniture, my pictures, it’s my house. Broadband speed is fine.

Leeds 1 hour by train, Manchester 40 mins. I can be on the M62 in 25 minutes, and going nowhere fast (in rush hour).

Rural Yorkshire is as pretty as a picture and here the riding is great.

Rent rural first, see if you like it?

First Rule
Rent First

I know I could rent a place for a while and test it out, but does this really simulate the feeling of owning your house, and being able to invest time and money making it a home? Maybe this is possible renting too – i’ve never rented an unfurnished place ever.

For 6 months suck it up and pretend your going to sink your cash in to duck egg paint and some “What appliance threads” while contemplating the perfect wood store configuration.
If it feels good you will be able to spend some time scoping ideal properties and sussing out the area and working out if you can work online from there.

I work online/from home for a small consultancy, I live in a small town and live on my own. At times it can be the most soul destroying and difficult thing as the one thing that makes moving easier is having a bunch of people through work to get you into the local scene.

So yes give renting a go

I’d say it’s a crazy idea because the I’d be choosing somewhere with better scenery, food and culture, probably somewhere near the alps

It’s not crazy if that’s where you want to be

Now on to more important things, what job are you doing? I want the same dilemma as you 😀

Yeah man, what do you do?!

He designed the only number generator truly random enough to tell marketing folk what headset standards will be available this time next year.

If you’re going to live in a valley or steep sided dale, get a place up on the tops.
Valley bottom fever is not a myth.
Link

+1 Rent for a few months. It’s generally a mistake to launch into furnture, paint and alteration decisions without living in a place for a while. Renting will seem like the early stage of having bought without that commitment, especially if you really don’t like the wilds

If you have that kind of cash I think you should buy somewhere you like the look of. If you decide you don’t like it, hand it over to a letting agent and you are now a property tycoon/have a pension investment and go back to your previous routine? You really can’t lose as fast as I can see…

Huddersfield, York, Harrogate isn’t rural. We looked at a house near ribblehead. Internet via satellite that stopped working in the rain. It rains a lot.

Huddersfield is a gem but you need to have some sort of connection to the place.

You need to choose the level of “ruralness” carefully. There are some pretty isolated communities in the Dales where you would not be accepted, no matter how many rounds you bought in the pub.

OTOH places like Skipton, Ilkley or Otley are near enough to Lancashire to be reasonably civiised.

Huddersfield is a gem

Never before have those four words been seen together.

Personally, I’d go Derbyshire. Scenery’s as nice, and it’s nearer to other places.

I’d go Derbyshire. Scenery’s as nice, and it’s nearer to other places.

Also many less yorkshire folk.

Anyway it’s Lakes FTW with fibre in the ground up there

This may depend on how rural rural is to you. My initial impression was that you would be rattling around a barn conversion in the Dales somewhere. I’d love it, you may not.

But you could have rural and live in a delightful village within half an hour of most of the major Yorkshire cities or towns. In the south Dales you can be very cut off in feeling but only be a short drive to Leeds. Or a little bigger you could live on the edge of the Peak District somewhere like Holmfirth and be 20 minutes from Huddersfield (which is sort of a gem, if you grew up there like I did. I can’t imagine what outsiders must think of it!) and an hour to Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford.

Village life has worked for us, though somehow I have ended up In Derbyshire. We moved here from Sheffield, and Edinburgh before that, to a village of 900. My wife, who grew up on the edge of Los Angeles, didn’t think it would suit her and that it’d be fun for a little while hut eventually wear thin. However she now loves village life, and likes it here so much I fear we may never move further north, which is scary.

It’s great- I have seen buzzards doing their mating ritual outside the back door, we have a local owl, a local family of badgers, a lovely pub in 100 yards, woods and fields with the associated footpaths and bridleways the other way and we know and can socialise with all our neighbours who have helped me fix our car, lift furniture, fix a garage door, look after our pets and so on. It’s lovely.

And we can have fibre if we want to.

Valley bottom fever is not a myth.

sexually transmitted infection is on the rise everywhere, not just rural yorkshire

I’d say it’s a crazy idea because the I’d be choosing somewhere with better scenery, food and culture, probably somewhere near the alps

better food and culture? the Alps? right, so melted cheese and yodelling is your idea of a good night out? 😆

I’ve asked my friends for advice and they are convinced I would go crazy quickly if I did this. But they all live in the city. So I thought there was bound to be a few nature lovers on here I could ask

It’s all very personal. You don’t have to live in the middle of nowhere. I quite like the whole fringe living concept of being on the edge of a National Park with great riding etc on your doorstep on one side and 30 minutes by train to a major city on the other.

I grew up in London and I like easy access to shops, a bit of culture, restaurants, gigs etc. I couldn’t live in a tiny hamlet with a pub and a village shop, but equally full-on urban does my head in. Small town edge of the Peak but 30 minutes by train into Manchester works for me.

I’d agree about renting too. Try going as rural as you fancy for six months or so and see what you make of it.

If it’s a Dales village, I would make an effort to rent something there first. Some of them have less of a pleasant community atmosphere, and may feel less welcoming than others.

I have a friend who moved from Cambridge up to a little village out of Whitby in Feb, she’s yet to go mad, but the whole house has needed renovating so that’s been a distraction. She also has family in the area. She works from home and has good broadand too.

So I’d say while it can be done, rent first, but also rent through winter, not through summer when it’s a very different place to be.

Living alone…

With fast broadband…

…left hander?

the southern yorkshire dales.. ie upper wharfedale is populated by retired gentle folks .. very few have local connections.. its a theme park more than anything and swarming with near retired folks at weekends..

go reet up northern dales somewhere like reeth there still proper yarkshire oop there..

Agree with renting.
It could be a step too far to go from somewhere, which has accessible everything for nearly 24 hours a day, to suddenly finding yourself quite cut off.

As said above, it could be a bit of hassle in winter but you won’t know until you try it.

If it’s a Dales village, I would make an effort to rent something there first. Some of them have less of a pleasant community atmosphere, and may feel less welcoming than others.

Some of the villages are very insular, think Royston Vasey with a different accent.

Does it have to be Yorkshire? As others have said, Derbyshire, or like me, County Durham. Maybe even Cumbria, outside the Lakes..?

I used to live alone in a village in rural Yorkshire, now I live alone in a village in rural Scotland.

I haven’t died yet… although as previously mentioned my broadband dies regularly.