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New Zealand would be my choice, by a country mile.
I'm very happy to say I never want to move away from where I live. When I can't cope with the stairs it'll be a stairlift for me.
Vancouver Island. Especially with the island work/life balance. Three, maybe four day working week
I just applied for a job running a microbrewery in the Caribbean
@yourguitarhero, I get the sense I’m missing something here, but if you’re serious: which island?
Ingoldmells just for the used dildos that wash up on the beach. Happened in Italy too but it's a bit pretentious that place, no Sky Sports or Stella on draft like.
Dunno, it just says "an exclusive one"? Early stages of applying obviously, but seems decent - apartment, van, tax free salary and two flights home every year. Want you to commit for 2 years.
Lost my job here and feel like moving out of the city (it's junkie heaven where I live! - worse just now) and always fancied the Rum Punch style life.
No idea what's happening with international recruitment just now though.
Mine was BC Canada, now I’m here though it’s so expensive compared to wages I’ve gone right off it, you can’t eat the scenery😩
On the plus side, one doesn't need to go on holiday! The cost of living is a bit of a joke, but then loads of people want to live here and / or treat property as investments so it's not really surprising.
I have pretty cheap tastes so make it work. My Caribbean cruise is a minivan and a camp stove 😀
Cape Town, South Africa
Great Mountain biking.
Good surf although cold water.
Fresh fish.
Amazing wine.
Nice climate.
The real locals have the best accent.
If it weren’t for crime and corruption I’d be there now sending you guys weekly invites to come and visit.
Scotland
I have visited many countries and lived in few. I am very fond of Bolivia and I really like some of the ways the dutch run their society but Scotland is my home. I'll probably move south of Edinburgh once I retire.
Right to roam and the mountains are that important to me that I could not live anywhere else
La bresse or girona. Probably the latter, great weather and good hills.
We're pretty happy here in Southern Cataluña, obviously difficult atm but the finca has never looked better with our olive and almond trees pruned and the land cleared. Normally we have hundreds of km of trails from the doorstep, mountains up to 1,400m within 30km. Climate is perfect, proper seasons with cold clear winters and warm summers, it rarely freezes or goes beyond 30° The people are very welcoming and cost of living low, I did a week's shopping yesterday for 2 for £60. The Mediterranean is 15 mins away but we're very rural with little hotel development. We can be in the UK in 2 hours from our local airport. All in all a great spot. This is us
Casa Tomillo
*could* = won the lottery so don't need to work and no visa rules?
Obviously somewhere with good mountain biking but also with a high standard of living when it comes to education, healthcare, crime, pollution etc
Err nope, nope and nope. You're describing the UK. Unless you mean countries that have fabulous healthcare / education / life for the wealthy middle classes and naff all for the majority population. There are lots of places like that.
I would buy a place in Southern Africa but away from people, preferably within the unfenced rurla wildlife areas around the northern Botswana / Caprivi strip / into Zambia. Lots to read around on land ownership though, maybe have a very small campsite. Or just a quiet place near Kruger NP and a WildCard every year. All assuming I don't have to work.
If I had to work then I would fancy living in Sausalito and commuting over the Golden Gate bridge to San Francisco.
Iconic MTB locations on the doorstep plus a famous, cool city and everything else California has to offer.
Possibly the Italian Riviera.
Queenstown, Christchurch or Nelson in New Zealand.
Or somewhere around Briancon or Bourg St Maurice in the French Alps.
If the budget allowed, probably somewhere North West Vancouver. With the caveat I didn't have to work all the hours under the sun to be able to afford to live there. I haven't been to NZ for a long time, but that would definitely be on the list to consider.
More realistic - we're some of the way through a move to FOD. Very fortunate that our jobs allow us the flexibility of remote working. So we're moving out of a town, into a bigger property, with a lot of land, on a forest track, with the forest backing onto our garden.
If the realistic budget allows, we are considering a small apartment in somewhere near Finale Ligure as well - but that's a few years away yet.
New Zealand or Canada.
Somewhere on the Garden Route in SA would be well up there too.
Genuine question we’re considering at the moment for a house that will eventually become a retirement abode.
Probably south of France with proximity to the pyrenees. Close-ish to either Atlantic or med coast.
Great climate of warm summers and mild winters, good house prices, beautiful countryside, the food of course and a relaxed way of life.
Could be more accessible, but an hour or two from toulouse/bordeaux ain’t too bad.
Sounds like our village!
We've been here 5 years this weekend..... We're 90 mins to Toulouse, 2 hours to Bordeaux, 45 mins to the mountains and 2 hours to Ainsa.
Happy to share the good and bad via pm?
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Slovenia...
Rarotonga: lovely people, music, beer and not too many roads.
We should be in Portugal right now, looking at properties around Ponte de Lima ....... #covid-19 sucks!
Slightly outside the terms of reference but
Mars
Far enough away from the horrible neighbours to be quiet and peaceful.
The mountain biking is probably quite good as well.
Hmm.. I had a flying visit to Calgary + Edmonton a couple of months back for work and i'd like to re-visit both.. i felt very comfortable and love all the checked shirts/pick-up trucks without having to deal with Trump.
The mountains are day trip-able from Calgary as well.
I'm also a big fan of Italy - could quite happily live in either Sorrento or Lake Garda.. was blown away by Garda last summer.
I love the madness of Italy.
Can I pick two?
I want to live in the Alps in winter, and maybe visit in the summer.
I want to live on a nice island in the Med in the summer, and maybe visit in the winter.
I've thought about New Zealand, but it's (literally) miles from anywhere. This may be the appeal to some people.
If I can solve the Middle East issue at the same time in fantasy land, I wouldn't mind Lebanon. You can ski in the morning and hit the beach in the afternoon. People are lovely too.
Hossegor or Capbreton, SW France.
South of there to the French Basque country for me, where I've just cancelled our June hols near St Jean de Luz. Hey ho. More wind/shelter/reef options than further north where it can be one massive whomping onshore beach. And really nice mtb from the door. And walking in Lakes sized hills. Great vibe, good food. All I need to do is persuade my wife before I'm too old to enjoy all bar the food and bloody rambling.
Huddersfield obvs...
I live in British Columbia, Canada now, but I've lived all over North America. It took awhile before Mrs. Bitchin and I both got decent jobs in the same town. The downside is that we are stuck in our starter home as house prices have skyrocketed out of our range. The plus side is yesterday I went biking and flyfishing and got to drive around in my redneck truck cuz gas is only $1/litre.
Scotland...oh no wait, here I am.
Though ideally a bit further north, the Great Glen, fort Augustus way, or any of the Ayeeelands.
commuting over the Golden Gate bridge to San Francisco
I'd rather be a bit further up the road, sipping wine in Sonoma valley. Cos I'm a bit pretentious like that 😉
1. On a small yacht boat in the MED.
2. Spain, maybe Granada.
3. Kerry, ROI (winters though?)
Costa Rica
Bamff I know some will think its Blackpool with mountains but I get board riding the trials
Aosta valley. Italian food great riding and skiing in the valley and less than 2 hr drive to loads of other riding in France and Switzerland
Done the Caribbean living thing for a few years and been on many of the islands. Spent lots of time on sunny beaches around the world and the only places I’d want to move to are Lake Garda, Tarifa, Ullswater but more than likely it will be back to my beloved Weymouth. I was supposed to be moving back down the weekend after lockdown. My guitars and off road bikes are down there. Grrr.
I did - will you need a deputy beer brewer, I'd to apply if you do.....
Los Angeles.
Specifically the north of the city near the PCH, Pacific Palisades maybe.
From the first time I visited I immediately wanted it to be my home.
I hate the what the UK has become, so there are few places in the world I wouldn't consider.
This an interesting question - some answers depend on how long you have got to live.
Healthcare - free and high quality essential once your 60+
Lots of third world places seem nice to live in, like Thailand. But proper heathcare is very expensive. Even Europe may get expensive once we are out of it.
Climate - some places are just too extreme, but you do need to consider what will happen in the next couple of decades. Some Pacific Islands will no longer exist, even some of the southern Med will be too hot in the summer. I go to Corsica every year, in the summer its too hot right now. I also lived on an Island in the Pacific for a year, some of them were already flooded part of the time back then, so if its a tropical paraidise your after, make sure its hilly, then watch out for the refugees when the other islands are flooded.
Safety - law, corruption, refugee crisis, war - some places are likely to suffer considerably, even here in Europe.
Language / culture - how long will the locals tolerate you if you dont speak the language or are not one of them when things get difficult. I grew up in Zimbabwe when it was still called Rhodesia, that was a difficult / frighteing time as a non local to live there on a farm. Ive also worked in the Middle East where corruption is normal and the law is a law unto themselves.
Work - if you need to work can you do so there, would you want to ? In the US you have very poor rights (one weeks notice for example), very expensive medical costs. Other places all your likely to get is minimum wage as your the imigrant.
I watched an interesting documentary on climate change and the scientists interviewed were actually discussing where to move to and live in the next 10 years. The chap in NZ was relocating to the Lake District.
Given all that, my age (54), my French wife - it would either be here in the Cotswolds or mainland France in the mountains.
I've lived in the Netherlands for three and a half years now, and I can't see me living in Scotland again.
I reckon Schoorl could be a contender - good mountain biking, loads of restaurants and pubs, close enough to Bergen and Alkmaar for a change of scene or the train to Amsterdam, but not on the train line so cheaper to buy a house there.
I think I could live in Sweden pretty happily as well, specifically that strip of coastline between Gothenburg and the Norwegian border. Again, good mountain biking, good pubs and restaurants, friendly folk, easy enough access to Gothenburg by train, Denmark and Norway close enough by road or boat. Love that part of the world.
How's the Netherlands misteralz? I love the idea of living somewhere with a decent bicycle infrastructure as it's 95% of my mobility, but not sure about the lack of hills 🙂
It's brilliant. I think I'm happier here than I've been anywhere else in my life. The lack of hills is something that I worried about before we came here - I spent three days in Brabant a few years ago and was looking forward to leaving halfway through the second purely because of the size of the skies and the lack of ability to tell which way was north, but not all of it is depressingly flat. We're near Alkmaar, so we've got the dunes - much of which are forested and full of trails - really close by. Gelderland is also hillier than you'd expect, as is Utrecht. It's not Scotland, sure, but if you're craving it that badly it's only an overnight ferry and an hour's drive away.
I cycle everywhere here and it's rare I use the car. My mental health is much better for it.
If I had to work? Seattle.
If I didn't or could work remotely - New Zealand or a 100ft catamaran with automatic rigging.
Western Lake District, which is actually more or less where I'm from, but life in the UK (or specifically England) really doesn't appeal anymore.
If I could just shift the Chilterns away from London commutersville so I could afford a nice wee plot & small house and keep my family close by I'd be as happy as Larry 🤗
1 acre plot round the corner, not even in the Chilterns proper sold for £1m 😬
Can't see us wanting to move from our little estate here in continental Croatia any time soon..... It has given us the best life we have ever had in so many ways. We appreciate it all the more in the current situation.....
If anything we'd move to the southern Balkans, southern Bosnia or maybe Montenegro.... Somewhere closer to the Adriatic with a more relaxed attitude.
Life here, if you can cope with/work around the bureaucracy, is pretty idealic.
Los Angeles.
Specifically the north of the city near the PCH, Pacific Palisades maybe.
I hate the what the UK has become, so there are few places in the world I wouldn’t consider.
Don't like the UK but the USA is ideal?
Does not compute.