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Well going outside the stw norms; Rostrevor.
Based solely on the weather, I'd say anywhere between York and Edinburgh.
What happens North of Edinburgh?
Wildlings
Thanks for the advice, everyone. To answer the "why not a different country?" question, I'm a dual UK/US citizen, and you can't just up sticks and move somewhere else. There are some other countries, Portugal, Costa Rica, and a few others offer a reasonably easy move, but there are downsides to these too. Canada would be a great option, but I'm getting long in the tooth, and I'd have to get another corporate-style job, which I'd quite like to avoid, plus it's another long road to permanent residency, probably longer than I want to work.
And I know the UK is not perfect, but at the moment, how many of you have friends who are having to carry their 'papers' around with them, simply because of the colour of their skin? The UK feels like it's not too late to save, and at this point, I'm not sure if the USA is.
That's how we ended up in Ireland. Couldn't face the gong show that the UK had become under the Tories, and weren't really knowledgeable enough to know where we could do our jobs in the UK but outside London.
Ireland has its own problems of course - the complete and utter abdication of the healthcare service to the private sector, for one, and the lack of any sense of government accountability for another - but is in a decent enough spot in the venn diagram of work/ life/ riding
Ilkley ticks all your boxes except the property prices one so you might need to find a compromise on the house. It's a brilliant place to live for many reasons but also because you can do everything without a car apart from drive into the Dales for more awesome biking
I love Ilkley, but sadly don't have £500k. Rightmove just made me cry.
That's Wales mate.
out of the country for about 14 years
I've been out of the country for 26 years now, just over the water, I go back 'home' a fair bit but find being back in England hard work, especially the amount of traffic and general busyness these days, it's changed a lot in over two decades, and mostly not for the better unfortunately with lack of public service investment, populist politics and stupid house prices.
Maybe I've changed, but I'm not sure where I'd settle if I went back, where's the place that feels 'homely'? Where do you feel like you belong, to me that'd be the overriding factor (plus the weather!), and for that I guess you've got to test the water, rent somewhere, see how you feel. I've always fancied Bakewell, or the Vale of York, but probably when I retire!
Sorry.... That should say this *county* had gone to the dogs.
Essex is a literal walking parody of itself.
How long since you've been there? I grew up there in the 70s and 80s and can confidently say it was always shit.
OP - find somewhere nice on the edge of the Dales like I did. Pretty easy to get into Manchester and Leeds, local riding is mostly XC but the Lakes is reasonably handy.
There are even direct trains to London from the little market town I live in. 500K gets you something pretty decent around here.
@phinbob where about in the US are you?
We've been here 11 years now, and this past 18months has been the first time we've had serious conversations about moving back, though giving up the space and proximity of biking and skiing we have in Utah is pretty hard to imagine!
We're a bit east of Seattle in Washington state. Really love living in this location. Walking distance to a small downtown, riding from the door, several big trail networks 20-30 minutes drive away, and a small (and a bit low/shit) ski area about 45 minutes away that operates an uplift bike park in the summer. Another place about 90 minutes away with a bike park, and Whistler is doable for a long weekend. I had a great hike up a 5600 ft mountain in the snow the other day and the trailhead was half an hour from home. That's going to be tough to replace.
The state is pretty sane, liberal by US standards, and we have good friends here. It would be very hard to leave, but things are just getting worse and worse nationally, now with the latest round of arrests of journalists, clearly political prosecutions of 'enemies' and everything.
I've had a hard time seeing the place in the same way since the '24 election. I can't believe how much the political scene has changed since we arrived in 2012, or maybe I just didn't see it.
Sounds like similar outdoor opportunities to us, with a much more liberal outlook, Utah certainly leans strongly right.
I think I'm in a similar place in terms of being a bit blind to the pre-24' shifting politics, it certainly didnt change overnight, but definitely feels like a massive inflection and I'm struggling to see how it comes back peacefully. Sadly I decided a couple of weeks ago to delete news apps from my phone and stop reading the news on a daily basis, it was affecting my mood, and so far the family have seen an improvement so thats good.
We seriously considered a move back last year as a role came up, but the move to near oxford was impossible to make work, financially, biking-wise and for our kids. Only one perspective of course, but we used trail-density on trailforks for biking and hiking as a metric to pick where we moved to when we decided to move from Mass back in 2021, and doing the same to most parts of UK was hard to feel positive about. It doesn't help that our boys both race DH competitively and freeride, so Uk doesn't appeal.
If someone put a gun to my head I'd be looking at the borders region, as losing the space and BLM access wouldn't be bearable.
Ireland has its own problems of course .. the lack of any sense of government accountability for another
Not really heard that one, main issues I hear seem to be cost of living and housing cost / availability with the knock on rural depopulation which impacts across day to day living. Politics, particularly pump politics, is interesting though hence why we are lumbered with the Healy Rae clan and there are hundreds of the buggers.
If you can get the work element to er work, Ireland is a great alternative to UK or other EU member states. We also seem to have had quite an influx of yanks over the last few years locally.
I live in Warwick, which is great for most of your requirements, great for road biking but not so good for MTB, although Cannock and FoD aren't far way. An older detached for £500k might also be a stretch. But my daughter lives in Malvern, which is probably worth a look and house prices are a tad lower.
She me very odd suggestions about where people consider is good for XC mtb . Hull ?? Really
IMO
cant beat Notth Bradford / Leeds ticks all the boxes with great riding from the door and you can get 40 miles away (Gebden Bridge etc) without touching road
I moved from Bradford to Shropshire. Houses are cheaper, it’s quieter , less crime, less pollution, stunning scenery
But transport links are shite and biking isn’t great, it’s just steep up and down in small locations
Malvern, which is probably worth a look and house prices are a tad lower.
Yes very nice part of the world, great countryside and pubs and decent rail links, not far from bigger places for services 👍
Ireland has its own problems of course .. the lack of any sense of government accountability for another
Not really heard that one, main issues I hear seem to be cost of living and housing cost / availability with the knock on rural depopulation which impacts across day to day living. Politics, particularly pump politics, is interesting though hence why we are lumbered with the Healy Rae clan and there are hundreds of the buggers.
If you can get the work element to er work, Ireland is a great alternative to UK or other EU member states. We also seem to have had quite an influx of yanks over the last few years locally.
I love visiting Ireland (as tourist and for work related stuff). Landscape, people and conversations, music, Guinness, all that stuff that everyone likes. But it seems to me that, compared even to Wales where the situation isn’t that good, that access to land for all the things I like doing seems impossibly difficult. No open access, no extensive footpath network, etc.
It seems like to opposite of how Scotland works. I know Scotland is full of big estates owned, in some cases, by the super rich whereas much of the West of Ireland seems to be owned by the people who use and farm the land. Whilst the idea that the land is owned by the locals appeals on one level, it seems that you are shut out of accessing it. In Scotland, regardless of whether the place is owned by the Sultan of Brunei, the ownership rarely stops you gaining access to walk, ride, paddle, camp etc as long as you observe the code.
Is the reality different if you live there and understand how it works?
per that thread I’d suggest Barnard Castle
Free eye tests too.
Where we are, SW Iveragh, there's a lot of walking available up in the hills, a fair bit being off piste but there are sever several marked paths. We are in two walking groups, a summer one that goes out at least once a week and a winter one which does about the same so there's plenty of walking available. A lot of it is at landowners permission rather than RoW though. There's not much of a mtb scene but whether that's due to access or just the fact that a lot of the terrain doesn't lend itself to biking I'm not sure. Of all the walking trails we do there's very few I'd want to cycle. Even when cycling was really trendy here a few years back the mtb scene here was very small.
With regards to paddling, Mrs Kilo has been out on a few of the lakes around here when there's been easy access with only one issue and that was from one of the fishing bailiffs who is apparently a bit of a next Tuesday.
So speaking for the Inny Valley, it's not too bad at all. Come visit, we have a great hostel and Ireland's first community owned pub (The Inny Tavern ) which needs your support!!!
Somewhere within easy distance of the East Coast mainline would be my preference.
Fast trains up to Edinburgh and down to London. Lots of great riding on the east of the Pennines between the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland.
Easy to get to the Lakes along the the A66.
We're looking the move from Barnard Castle, which is fab BTW for the riding, but a tad distant for the train connections.
Maybe between Durham and Newcastle just to make train travel an easier option.
I'll put a shout out for Brighouse, West Yorkshire. We travel all over in our campervan but despite visiting lots of great places, our little town still ticks too many boxes to move.
Riding wise, we have steep woods everywhere up the Calder Valley, chock full of handcut trails and moors beyond that. We are on the canal network so getting to the trails is mostly off road.
Wharncliffe, Bingley, Ilkley, Win Hill, Dovestones, all around an hours drive away.
Venture a bit further and you have the Dales/Peak District/Lakes/North Wales, etc.
And as we are pretty central here, apart from say, Aberdeenshire or Cornwall, nowhere is that far away.
Travel wise, we are on the rail network and have great bus connections too. We live near the train station so use this for Manchester Airport and nights/days out in Leeds, Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford and the Grand Central goes to and from London regularly every day.
Culture wise, we were in the beautiful Minster in Halifax last night watching David Bowie by Candlelight, next month we have The Empire Strips Back in Leeds, March we have the Antarctic Monkeys in the Picturedome in Holmfirth, followed by a new talent called Ellur in Borough Market, Halifax, all attended via public transport.
In fact, Gig Wise, if thats your thing, we are spoilt for choice, with great venues big and small, all a train or bus ride away. Special mention to The Piece Hall in Halifax though which has become our favourite venue through the summer months and is 10 mins away.
We are't far from Yorkshire Sculpture Park and last year the Turner Prize was nearby in the amazing Cartwright Hall in Bradford. There's Hockney as well in Salts Mill.
Beer wise, again we are spoilt for choice, everywhere around us has a good cask/keg beer scene and Brighouse has too.
Food is the same, in town you have Italian, Mediterranean, curry, etc, and one or two fancier places such as Brookes and The Brickyard if you want to treat yourselves. Leeds, like Manchester, both a train ride away have food scenes to match anywhere if that's your thing.
We recieved £19,000,000 from a Town Grant so our outdoor market has had a rebuild and the town is undergoing a pedestrianisation over the next 18 months so the cafe's and bars will no doubt become more outdoorsy in the future. Apart from fashion, I can leave my van at home and buy pretty much anything I need from a proper butchers, veg shop, bakers or one of our 4 supermarkets.
We aren't a tourist town or cool but we are a proper decent place to live. And it's Yorkshire so its friendly, obviously.
£500,000 should get you a cracking house.
Yes, Mrs Mugboo thought so, they were both Xmas presents. I forgot, we have the Gorillaz at the stunning new Bradford Live venue too!
Bingley, Baildon or Skipton would meet your requirements.
As said above, for weather and transport, somewhere close the East Coast mainline.
The Pennines really do keep the East side of the country noticeably drier.
We live in Woodlesford, 10 min train ride from Leeds, so I can do home to Kings Cross in 2h35m if I get the right train.
Leeds property prices are still a bit lower than manchester.
However for you I am going to suggest York. Its a lovelt city, Dalby Forest and Moors 30 mins away, amazing links to London and Edinburgh, good culture stuff and enough Americans so you can still get a reminder why you moved back.
Obviously lots of little villages and towns either side of A1 to consider, Yarm and the posher bits near Middlesborough seem to be popular with my Yorkshire relatives looking to get maximum house for their money in an area not over run with folk.
A village/town near Bath such as Chippenham.
The upside is this area is well placed for access to large parts of the country, due to the roads that cross here, like the M4, A429, A350, A4, A420, and there’s some pretty good riding as well. The downside is that the house prices are pretty high due to the upsides.
Chippenham is growing at a ridiculous pace, the old saying “I can remember when this was all fields” applies to developments taking place now, that were fields a year ago! 😒
East or NE Scotland has a lot to offer.
Politics, Society, employment. No university tuition fees; lower child poverty; good access to reliable healthcare and better education, if that's relevant. Not crowded. State owned clean and reliable drinking water from your tap. Over 100% green energy capacity (already supply most of England, Wales & Ireland's too, from the excess). Accepting of immigration. So, a better lifestyle as well as more reasonably priced housing in the vast majority of locations.
Wildlife. Weather, trail access rights, quiet roads, with much better surfaces than south of the border. Worldclass trail networks in the glens. A lifetime's worth of proper mountain trails to explore. Islands; snowsports; worldclass climbing; rivers that aren't polluted.. Paddle sports, wild swimming, bothies. Orkney for history, Hebrides for bike touring. I see deer and kites every day; we have red squirrels in the woods, pine martens eating the squirrels, wildcats in the glens just a few miles away. There was a merlin sitting on our garden fence two days ago and sparrow hawks visit regularly.
Edinburgh festival. Mainline train access to central London. Flights from Scottish airports to pretty much anywhere in Europe, summer or winter.
I live just north of Dundee, with a lovely network of riding direct from the house, cafes and weather resistant trails nearby, skiing (piste, touring, xc), rivers, lochs and beaches all nearby, fantastic road cycling and gravel too. Dunkeld, Deeside, the Cairngorms are all within easy day trip distance. Innerleithen is a bit further away but still no more than 2 hours each way.
From Dundee, I can fly straight into Heathrow or take a direct train to Kings Cross. Or Plymouth, for that matter. Our house is very nice, spacious and in a rural location, gardens, sheds, trees and with views of the mountains; warm, valued at well below your £500k budget. South of the border is crowded, expensive and has many more, and deeper problems.
@highlandman you make it sound like utopia, though you did omit the midges 😱
East or NE Scotland has a lot to offer.
Politics, Society, employment. No university tuition fees; lower child poverty; good access to reliable healthcare and better education, if that's relevant. Not crowded. State owned clean and reliable drinking water from your tap. Over 100% green energy capacity (already supply most of England, Wales & Ireland's too, from the excess). Accepting of immigration. So, a better lifestyle as well as more reasonably priced housing in the vast majority of locations.
Wildlife. Weather, trail access rights, quiet roads, with much better surfaces than south of the border. Worldclass trail networks in the glens. A lifetime's worth of proper mountain trails to explore. Islands; snowsports; worldclass climbing; rivers that aren't polluted.. Paddle sports, wild swimming, bothies. Orkney for history, Hebrides for bike touring. I see deer and kites every day; we have red squirrels in the woods, pine martens eating the squirrels, wildcats in the glens just a few miles away. There was a merlin sitting on our garden fence two days ago and sparrow hawks visit regularly.
Edinburgh festival. Mainline train access to central London. Flights from Scottish airports to pretty much anywhere in Europe, summer or winter.
I live just north of Dundee, with a lovely network of riding direct from the house, cafes and weather resistant trails nearby, skiing (piste, touring, xc), rivers, lochs and beaches all nearby, fantastic road cycling and gravel too. Dunkeld, Deeside, the Cairngorms are all within easy day trip distance. Innerleithen is a bit further away but still no more than 2 hours each way.
From Dundee, I can fly straight into Heathrow or take a direct train to Kings Cross. Or Plymouth, for that matter. Our house is very nice, spacious and in a rural location, gardens, sheds, trees and with views of the mountains; warm, valued at well below your £500k budget. South of the border is crowded, expensive and has many more, and deeper problems.
But apart from that, what has living in Scotland ever done for you?
Ok MCTD, I might have missed out a few other good points...
Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow; Hogmanay; some of the best seafood in the world; haggis; the Costa del Moray; basking shark and whale watching; sport diving. But most of all: 'Friendly people'.
Edinburgh festival.
On what planet is that a reason to move to Scotland.
Its horrendous.
East or NE Scotland has a lot to offer.
Over 100% green energy capacity (already supply most of England, Wales & Ireland's too, from the excess).
I don’t think Scotland’s energy can be 100% green. It’s electricity generation is probably 3/4 renewables or there about. But electricity only provides a proportion of the country’s energy demand. Wales too is a net exporter of electricity… both nations will be meeting most of their total energy demand (electricity+transport+heat) from non renewable sources.
It is, and it isn't... Depends how you view it. On the one hand, we make a lot more green energy than the total amount used in the country. However, there is some generation that isn't green, as there are areas in the country and times when both nuclear and fossil fuel power are essential to keep the grid topped up. This means that the actually generated volume of energy frequently exceeds the load and the excess is exported to the rest of these islands and to Norway as well. Green energy generation capacity in Scotland is still growing very rapidly, having already passed 300% of our own current requirements. And this is why the Westminster government is forcing through several new interconnectors going south and why the big international data centre builders are looking so favourably on the UK as a long term build option - energy security is some of the very best in the world. The current range of larger new pump storage builds will improve that further, storing the excess in country as a vast potential energy battery.
Anyway, please accept my apologies for the sidetrack, this thread isn't mine and it's meant to be about nice places to live. The whole of the UK is fortunate in having a very good level of energy security and happily for us up here in the north, the vast majority of ours comes from wind, hydro and PVs.
several new interconnectors going south
Worth bearing in mind if you are considering Scotland and don't want to live under a pylon. I think you could probably map where the new lines are going to be based on houses for sale on rightmove.
https://www.ssen-transmission.co.uk/projects/project-map/
It is, and it isn't... Depends how you view it. On the one hand, we make a lot more green energy than the total amount used in the country. However, there is some generation that isn't green, as there are areas in the country and times when both nuclear and fossil fuel power are essential to keep the grid topped up. This means that the actually generated volume of energy frequently exceeds the load and the excess is exported to the rest of these islands and to Norway as well. Green energy generation capacity in Scotland is still growing very rapidly, having already passed 300% of our own current requirements. And this is why the Westminster government is forcing through several new interconnectors going south and why the big international data centre builders are looking so favourably on the UK as a long term build option - energy security is some of the very best in the world. The current range of larger new pump storage builds will improve that further, storing the excess in country as a vast potential energy battery.
Anyway, please accept my apologies for the sidetrack, this thread isn't mine and it's meant to be about nice places to live. The whole of the UK is fortunate in having a very good level of energy security and happily for us up here in the north, the vast majority of ours comes from wind, hydro and PVs.
At the risk of further sidetracking and I accept that I am being pedantic… but Scotland (and Wales) may well produce more electricity than they consume, but they are a long way from producing all the energy they consume from renewables. Electricity is only part of the energy mix: gas still dominates for heating and fossil fuels for transport.