My wife and I are seriously fed up with the Uk and are planning to move to Canada. Not really sure which part yet but I am a hotel manager and my wife a civil servant. I am not sure which direction job wise to move into - anything that sustains us I guess. I would be able to buy a house pretty much straight out and love the idea of lots of space. I know this is quite vague but I guess I have to start somewhere. I have 2 children 12 and 7.
We do have friends in the USA in Eastern Pennsylvania so somewhere within 5-6 hours driving of there would be a good base.
Any and all advice is helpful

Have a hunt through the Wiki (at the top of the page) and read all about your options especially the immigration/visa side of things as that will no doubt influence your decision. To give you a vague idea, you could apply for skilled worker permanent residency but it takes around 5 years to get, or there are ways to get out there quicker but most of those ways rely on you getting a job offer and your potential Canadian employer proving to government that there is no Canadian suitable for, or prepared to do, the job. And obviously if you do it that way then you will just need to go wherever you can get a job and will not have that much choice in the matter.

There are other ways to immigrate to Canada though so do read the Wiki thoroughly - be prepared for lots of research and hours and hours of reading! Whatever option you decide to try and go for will no doubt have a bearing on what you decide to do career wise so you will need to do a lot more research. If you want to go quicker than the 5 years for PR then it might be worth looking to see what occupations are in demand for any provinces you want to live in.

Hope that helps a bit and welcome!

Hello, swmuzzer, and welcome to the BE forum.

Christmasoompa has given you good information.

To help you find the Wiki articles that will be most useful at this early stage of your research, I recommend MISTAKES, followed by Beginner's Guide to Canadian Immigration.

Kingston, Ontario is about 4.5 hours' drive from Scranton, Pennsylania, by way of example. Unfortunately, Ontario isn't the easiest place to find employment that will fast-track your entry to Canada, which essentially is employment that no qualified Canadian wants. To find that, you often have to go east and west of Ontario.

Based on my personal experience, choosing a destination on the basis of friends' location doesn't make a huge lot of sense. We came to Calgary in 1977. A year later, in 1978, friends of ours moved to Edmonton, 3 hours' drive from Calgary. They didn't move to Alberta because of us, but rather because the husband was able to find work in this province. Still, they and we were very glad to find that we were living relatively close to each other. Since then, we've driven back and forth to each others' cities and seen each other once or twice a year. But, to be honest, everyday life in Calgary, our kids, our work, the friends we have here, etc., have been much bigger factors in our lives than those friends in Edmonton.

You think, "It's only a 3-hour drive," and you think you'll do it fairly regularly, but you don't. Your kids' sports activities and all sorts of other things take over your life. Well that was our experience anyway.

Also, most government organizations in Canada give preference to citizens and permanent residents of Canada. So, in the beginning at least, it might be helpful for your wife to keep an open mind about the kind of work she'll do. I'm sure she has skills that are transferable to other industries.

But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself and telling you all this too soon. I do heartily recommend that you read the Wiki articles I told you about.

Hope that helps.

Hi swmuzzer,

Perhaps you will need to break out the map and pick a couple of places to visit. It's a big place and fortunately everywhere is different. I am sure that if you give us the names of the places that you are interested in people here will be only too pleased to tell you about it.

Ontario would be a good choice if you are set to be within a drive of Pennsylvania. I drove drown to Pittsburgh from Toronto through Buffalo,NY(i90 - i79 route) and it took 5 hours just to give you an idea of scale etc.

We are looking forward to your questions
Good luck