Hello,
I'm an American thinking for years of moving to the UK. One big question is regarding how quickly I'd feel confident driving on the other side. The other is how hard is it to find your way around streets there when they are not on a grid system as here in the US?

No grid system where I am in the US, and you can find it in the UK (Milton Keynes, for example). But sat nav will get you to where you need to go until you get to know the area.

If you’ve never had a UK driving licence before you’ll have to take the tests to get a licence anyway, and that’ll take quite a while, so can have a course of lessons before your test to make you feel more confident.

Good luck.

Oh my word.... you have been asking questions about the UK for some 8 years now, and have still not made the move.!

Anyhow, finding your way around the UK is not more difficult than the US, although the roads are somewhat smaller (single lane roads in some rural areas) and a lot busier. Cars are much smaller too in most cases.

The roads in the UK are generally much narrower and more congested than US roads and, broadly speaking, less well maintained although the latter will depend on where you are (as a general rule, public transport in the Southeast is better than elsewhere but the roads are worst).

You can drive on your US licence for up to 12 months but you’ll need to pass your UK driving test to continue driving after that. You’ll also likely find insurance to be more expensive whilst you only have a US licence so it’ll be in your interests to start that process as soon as possible. The driving test in the UK is likely to be considerably more difficult than the one you took in the US so you may wish to take some driving lessons to prepare you.

You will also need to decide whether you wish to pass your test in a manual or automatic, the latter will limit you to only driving automatics, which although are becoming more common, are still less popular than manuals.

In the last few years both of our adult children have moved to England having never driven here before. Our son took driving lessons to help pass his test, our daughter did not but she did lots of online research I did sit with her many times driving around the area where the local test center is. Both passed first time and both only did automatic transmission licences. Large numbers of cars here are automatic, and you can’t buy a hybrid or fully electric car that is not automatic. Our son drives a Toyota Yaris hybrid and our daughter drives a VW id.3 EV.

Google maps or similar makes navigation easy.

Apropos of driving on 'the other side' I moved to Spain and found no problem because I bought a Spanish car , that helped a great deal.

I think driving on the other side of the road is a small challenge in comparison to adjusting to the manner of driving and the road infrastructure. It can be a shock to drive along in an empty lane and suddenly realise you are blocked by a long line of parked cars, for example. Negotiating the narrow roads and issues such as parked cars can take a lot of getting used to. After returning from 23 years spent driving in the US, I was also taken aback by how much the standard of driving had dropped since I left.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend taking a few driving lessons before you drive by yourself. Also worth taking your lessons and your test in an automatic. That way, you only have to deal with the road conditions. Once you get used to his, you can always take another test in a manual shift car.

Please just don't do a Sacoolas!

(Years ago, I very nearly did one in Florida, coming out of Denny's, onto a (luckily empty) side road prior to the main road. As I started my turn into the wrong lane a pedestrian gave me a long hard look, making me realise my mistake!)

Thanks everyone for all the advice and info.
dunroving , what do you do when the road is blocked by parked cars? Why is that allowed?

He didn’t say that the road is completely blocked by parked cars. That is definitely not allowed. What you do come across are roads with parked cars blocking your progress without you having to cross to the other side of the road, being sure to look for oncoming traffic and most certainly indicating that you are going to pull out to overtake the parked cars.

FYI, he did say:
"It can be a shock to drive along in an empty lane and suddenly realise you are blocked by a long line of parked cars"

Yes, but you just go in to the other lane, it doesn't mean you can't get through at all. So picture a fairly narrow road, people are parked on one side of it next to the sidewalk, you have to go round them to carry on, that's all. It's something I encounter here (Boston) far more than I did in the UK, so you may be used to that already depending on how wide the roads are and how congested it is where you are.

Here's a photo to illustrate what Dunroving means - as you can see, parking is allowed on one side of the street (often for a road like this, with cottages on it, that don't have driveways so have residential parking areas on the road instead). So if you were coming up on that side of the road you'd have to wait until the other side was clear to go around them.

thank you, oompa