Location, location, location
Aug 7th 2013 | 6:37 pm
#1801
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 2,919
From: Tunbridge Wells KENT
Re: Location, location, location
I'm not happy with the social side down in the Caribbean or the heat and weather extremes (hurricanes and excessive heavy rainfall) or the workload which has to be done in our acreage (one) but I'm not necessarily certain that things will be that much better for us overall in the UK.
We are in Lavenham, Suffolk for a couple of weeks and this comes pretty close to what I would regard as ideal because of the beauty and peacefulness of the place when the hoards are not moving in - this is the finest medieval village in England - and the agricultural heritage adds a great deal of spice, as there is so much coming off the land in terms of products. I can do a very good range of walks here too. The population is more slanted towards older folk - I felt young at 62 in the Sunday church group.
The same could almost all apply to certain areas on the south coast such as Old Town Eastbourne and parts of Devon and Dorset so we need to check further because overall Lavenham doesn't work for us at this point because of the lack of particular courses at local colleges.
Plus I think that we would need a car here because shopping in the village is expensive as is public transport and the only supermarket is the COOP. We don't really want to have to pay for the cost of running a car.
Last edited by Pistolpete2; Aug 7th 2013 at 6:44 pm. Reason: Plus I think that we would.....
Aug 7th 2013 | 7:01 pm
#1802
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 2,919
From: Tunbridge Wells KENT
Re: Location, location, location
Hi All,
I am now thinking that when, gods willing, the house sells, I am going to downsize to my prized pieces, put them in storage, head to the UK, buy a campervan and travel around looking for that special place. I am now thinking small, rented is the way to go. I am tired of trying to maintain a property. (Number one son wasn't much help either
.) I have been working way too hard and want to put some living in my life before I leave this planet.
Realistically, this will probably mean Spring 2014 since I don't fancy living in a campervan through the frosty English winter, though I could potentially park on a rellie's doorstep for a while. Besides, I get my Canadian pension in March
.
What I am looking for is freedom, travel and low-cost living. The travel could include forays into France and Italy before (or even after) deciding on where to settle. It seems to make sense to me now, to look 'on the ground' for a place, which I feel I will happen upon in my travels, rather than try to decide where to live from here. We all know how well that has been going
.
I am still feeling drawn to living close to the sea, in some place without hoards of people and traffic nightmares, i.e. not the Southeast
. I might even consider Wales. With the money I would save on living, I could probably afford overnighters in London if I feel the urge, which I no doubt will.
Anyway, my plan would be to travel the coast of England and Wales, looking for those fellow alternative living types like myself and see if I can find where I want to be.
Alternatively, I could always come back to lovely Salt Spring Island if I decide to.
What do you think?
I am now thinking that when, gods willing, the house sells, I am going to downsize to my prized pieces, put them in storage, head to the UK, buy a campervan and travel around looking for that special place. I am now thinking small, rented is the way to go. I am tired of trying to maintain a property. (Number one son wasn't much help either
.) I have been working way too hard and want to put some living in my life before I leave this planet.Realistically, this will probably mean Spring 2014 since I don't fancy living in a campervan through the frosty English winter, though I could potentially park on a rellie's doorstep for a while. Besides, I get my Canadian pension in March
. What I am looking for is freedom, travel and low-cost living. The travel could include forays into France and Italy before (or even after) deciding on where to settle. It seems to make sense to me now, to look 'on the ground' for a place, which I feel I will happen upon in my travels, rather than try to decide where to live from here. We all know how well that has been going
.I am still feeling drawn to living close to the sea, in some place without hoards of people and traffic nightmares, i.e. not the Southeast
. I might even consider Wales. With the money I would save on living, I could probably afford overnighters in London if I feel the urge, which I no doubt will.Anyway, my plan would be to travel the coast of England and Wales, looking for those fellow alternative living types like myself and see if I can find where I want to be.
Alternatively, I could always come back to lovely Salt Spring Island if I decide to.
What do you think?
I think a big driver of the split Uk and somewhere else bit for us is the weather in the winter in the Uk which I could definitely do without, if possible, after 37 years in the tropics and sub-tropics.
I am beginning to think that that traffic is pretty much there just about wherever you go over here. I remember reading a poster who said he observed that just about everybody has a 4X4. Well in this part of the world pretty much everybody does and they come BIG. My theory is that public transport is becoming prohibitively expensive and limited in outlying areas, except for pass-holders, so more and more are steadily reverting to cars or two cars and have to travel greater distances as real estate becomes less liquid and decent jobs harder to winkle out. Our last three places to stay have been on trunk roads (Brighton, Tunbridge Wells and now here in a village) and the volume of traffic past each location is relentless, particularly heavy distribution transport.
Last edited by Pistolpete2; Aug 7th 2013 at 7:21 pm. Reason: My theory is that public transport is....
Aug 7th 2013 | 7:18 pm
#1803
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 2,919
From: Tunbridge Wells KENT
Re: Location, location, location
Things looking-up for foodies in Hampshire:
http://www.theguardian.com/business/...odie-farm-shop
Waitrose in the news again earlier this week:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...thal-link.html
http://www.theguardian.com/business/...odie-farm-shop
Waitrose in the news again earlier this week:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...thal-link.html
Aug 7th 2013 | 7:21 pm
#1804
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,195
From: Beautiful Dorset, UK
Re: Location, location, location
Hi All,
I've been catching up on all your posts... and visits home Cheers and PP2. I had my son staying with me for the past 4 months, which has been challenging to say the least, but he moved out the day before yesterday
.
I have a new plan! After spending copious amounts of time to make this a stellar year in my gardens, the darn deer got in and demolished pretty near everything. That's it, I said. I am tired of working and then coming home to work on my house and garden so the plan is to get the place up to par to sell and get the heck out of here.
I am now thinking that when, gods willing, the house sells, I am going to downsize to my prized pieces, put them in storage, head to the UK, buy a campervan and travel around looking for that special place. I am now thinking small, rented is the way to go. I am tired of trying to maintain a property. (Number one son wasn't much help either.) I have been working way too hard and want to put some living in my life before I leave this planet.
Realistically, this will probably mean Spring 2014 since I don't fancy living in a campervan through the frosty English winter, though I could potentially park on a rellie's doorstep for a while. Besides, I get my Canadian pension in March.
What I am looking for is freedom, travel and low-cost living. The travel could include forays into France and Italy before (or even after) deciding on where to settle. It seems to make sense to me now, to look 'on the ground' for a place, which I feel I will happen upon in my travels, rather than try to decide where to live from here. We all know how well that has been going.
I am still feeling drawn to living close to the sea, in some place without hoards of people and traffic nightmares, i.e. not the Southeast. I might even consider Wales. With the money I would save on living, I could probably afford overnighters in London if I feel the urge, which I no doubt will.
Anyway, my plan would be to travel the coast of England and Wales, looking for those fellow alternative living types like myself and see if I can find where I want to be.
Alternatively, I could always come back to lovely Salt Spring Island if I decide to.
What do you think?
I've been catching up on all your posts... and visits home Cheers and PP2. I had my son staying with me for the past 4 months, which has been challenging to say the least, but he moved out the day before yesterday
.I have a new plan! After spending copious amounts of time to make this a stellar year in my gardens, the darn deer got in and demolished pretty near everything. That's it, I said. I am tired of working and then coming home to work on my house and garden so the plan is to get the place up to par to sell and get the heck out of here.
I am now thinking that when, gods willing, the house sells, I am going to downsize to my prized pieces, put them in storage, head to the UK, buy a campervan and travel around looking for that special place. I am now thinking small, rented is the way to go. I am tired of trying to maintain a property. (Number one son wasn't much help either
.) I have been working way too hard and want to put some living in my life before I leave this planet.Realistically, this will probably mean Spring 2014 since I don't fancy living in a campervan through the frosty English winter, though I could potentially park on a rellie's doorstep for a while. Besides, I get my Canadian pension in March
. What I am looking for is freedom, travel and low-cost living. The travel could include forays into France and Italy before (or even after) deciding on where to settle. It seems to make sense to me now, to look 'on the ground' for a place, which I feel I will happen upon in my travels, rather than try to decide where to live from here. We all know how well that has been going
.I am still feeling drawn to living close to the sea, in some place without hoards of people and traffic nightmares, i.e. not the Southeast
. I might even consider Wales. With the money I would save on living, I could probably afford overnighters in London if I feel the urge, which I no doubt will.Anyway, my plan would be to travel the coast of England and Wales, looking for those fellow alternative living types like myself and see if I can find where I want to be.
Alternatively, I could always come back to lovely Salt Spring Island if I decide to.
What do you think?
Would you be planning to do that while you had no fixed address somewhere in the UK? What would spring to my mind is how you would get on (without an address) with things like registration/insurance of the campervan, a bank account and so on...
Aug 7th 2013 | 7:31 pm
#1805
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 2,919
From: Tunbridge Wells KENT
Re: Location, location, location
Sounds an idyllic idea to travel round in a campervan looking at areas
Would you be planning to do that while you had no fixed address somewhere in the UK? What would spring to my mind is how you would get on (without an address) with things like registration/insurance of the campervan, a bank account and so on...
Would you be planning to do that while you had no fixed address somewhere in the UK? What would spring to my mind is how you would get on (without an address) with things like registration/insurance of the campervan, a bank account and so on...
http://www.boatmail.co.uk/motorhomemail.html
It's not clear how you would make your contribution to council taxes.
Aug 7th 2013 | 7:38 pm
#1806
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,195
From: Beautiful Dorset, UK
Re: Location, location, location
Same thought crossed my mind, ref mail address, but I did find this FWIW:
http://www.boatmail.co.uk/motorhomemail.html
It's not clear how you would make your contribution to council taxes.
http://www.boatmail.co.uk/motorhomemail.html
It's not clear how you would make your contribution to council taxes.
There are people in the UK that live full time in this way (a few blogs/forums out there to look at), but I suspect they start off doing so with things in place from when they had a permanent address. I also suspect some of them use the address of a relative or friend as required.
My understanding on the council tax, is that if you don't stay in one place longer than 28 days, you don't need to pay.
Aug 8th 2013 | 1:36 pm
#1807
Thread Starter
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 2,060
From: Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
Re: Location, location, location
Sounds an idyllic idea to travel round in a campervan looking at areas
Would you be planning to do that while you had no fixed address somewhere in the UK? What would spring to my mind is how you would get on (without an address) with things like registration/insurance of the campervan, a bank account and so on...
Would you be planning to do that while you had no fixed address somewhere in the UK? What would spring to my mind is how you would get on (without an address) with things like registration/insurance of the campervan, a bank account and so on...
. There are some great deals in the UK on campervans and is a much more economical way to go than renting a vehicle. It could end up only costing petrol plus the usual food, occasional B & B and other incidentals. Of course, it could take a little time to sell but if I was going back to the UK after shipping my belongings from here, I wouldn't need to sell.
Same thought crossed my mind, ref mail address, but I did find this FWIW:
http://www.boatmail.co.uk/motorhomemail.html
It's not clear how you would make your contribution to council taxes.
http://www.boatmail.co.uk/motorhomemail.html
It's not clear how you would make your contribution to council taxes.
I like this site which has some good information, especially in the travel section, which covers the whole of Europe:
http://www.campervanlife.com/
No intention of paying council tax until I am resident there. Remember, this will be like an extended vacation initially, probably for a few months.
Last edited by bandrui; Aug 8th 2013 at 3:05 pm.
Aug 8th 2013 | 2:23 pm
#1808
Thread Starter
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 2,060
From: Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
Re: Location, location, location
Hi Rebs... I see you are in Beautiful Dorset which is still very much on my list of desirable places to be. I may have asked this before, but what part? and what can you tell us about the place?
For me, Dorset marries desirability of place with access to many other points. I still remember looking up Bridport on Rightmove and being quite impressed.
Doodling around Youtube and found this interesting video of the "secret" coast road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElAYPJ8DbPM
For me, Dorset marries desirability of place with access to many other points. I still remember looking up Bridport on Rightmove and being quite impressed.
Doodling around Youtube and found this interesting video of the "secret" coast road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElAYPJ8DbPM
Last edited by bandrui; Aug 8th 2013 at 3:05 pm.
Aug 8th 2013 | 6:22 pm
#1809
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,195
From: Beautiful Dorset, UK
Re: Location, location, location
Hi Rebs... I see you are in Beautiful Dorset which is still very much on my list of desirable places to be. I may have asked this before, but what part? and what can you tell us about the place?
For me, Dorset marries desirability of place with access to many other points. I still remember looking up Bridport on Rightmove and being quite impressed.
Doodling around Youtube and found this interesting video of the "secret" coast road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElAYPJ8DbPM
For me, Dorset marries desirability of place with access to many other points. I still remember looking up Bridport on Rightmove and being quite impressed.
Doodling around Youtube and found this interesting video of the "secret" coast road:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElAYPJ8DbPM
Aug 8th 2013 | 7:58 pm
#1810
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 2,195
From: Beautiful Dorset, UK
Re: Location, location, location
I would use the address of a friend or relative. My second cousin in Devizes might be a good bet or my friend's son in Brighton who has a Masters in International Relations... handy .
There are some great deals in the UK on campervans and is a much more economical way to go than renting a vehicle. It could end up only costing petrol plus the usual food, occasional B & B and other incidentals. Of course, it could take a little time to sell but if I was going back to the UK after shipping my belongings from here, I wouldn't need to sell.
When things firm up a bit, I shall open an HSBC account here (Victoria) where I can have both a CAD and GBP account. I shall keep my CIBC account open too. There are no charges on a bank account here if you are over 60, other than email transfers, etc.
No intention of paying council tax until I am resident there. Remember, this will be like an extended vacation initially, probably for a few months.
. There are some great deals in the UK on campervans and is a much more economical way to go than renting a vehicle. It could end up only costing petrol plus the usual food, occasional B & B and other incidentals. Of course, it could take a little time to sell but if I was going back to the UK after shipping my belongings from here, I wouldn't need to sell.
When things firm up a bit, I shall open an HSBC account here (Victoria) where I can have both a CAD and GBP account. I shall keep my CIBC account open too. There are no charges on a bank account here if you are over 60, other than email transfers, etc.
No intention of paying council tax until I am resident there. Remember, this will be like an extended vacation initially, probably for a few months.
Aug 8th 2013 | 8:12 pm
#1811
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Joined: Jul 2010
Posts: 2,053
From: Scotland, just!
Re: Location, location, location
Sounds like a good plan to me. You are flexible and have a good general idea of what you want. I've even thought of living in a tent and I'd have to learn how to handle the rain.
I remember one of the posters on here saying she went to Scotland and slept in her car and from that she decided she needed a station wagon. Now who was that?
Someone mentioned about a way of finding room for rent. I think it was called "Thousand of Rooms for Rent". Anyone heard of it?
I'm still visiting Los Angeles and staying in a super nice hotel.
Now here is something to think about..DW had to go into hospital for surgery today and it didn't cost anything!
Cheers
I remember one of the posters on here saying she went to Scotland and slept in her car and from that she decided she needed a station wagon. Now who was that?
Someone mentioned about a way of finding room for rent. I think it was called "Thousand of Rooms for Rent". Anyone heard of it?
I'm still visiting Los Angeles and staying in a super nice hotel.
Now here is something to think about..DW had to go into hospital for surgery today and it didn't cost anything!
Cheers
Cheers, I think that was Peigi (not sure is I have the correct user name). She moved to Ayrshire, Scotland and then I think was working in Inverness. She bought a tent that could be attached to your car, but I can't remember the name of it. She used to post a lot on the over 50's thread.
Aug 8th 2013 | 11:45 pm
#1812
Ping-ponger
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 12,090
From: Yam Yam land
Re: Location, location, location
Cheers, I think that was Peigi (not sure is I have the correct user name). She moved to Ayrshire, Scotland and then I think was working in Inverness. She bought a tent that could be attached to your car, but I can't remember the name of it. She used to post a lot on the over 50's thread.
Aug 8th 2013 | 11:55 pm
#1813
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 1,358
From: The sunshine state
Re: Location, location, location
Sounds like a good plan to me. You are flexible and have a good general idea of what you want. I've even thought of living in a tent and I'd have to learn how to handle the rain.
I remember one of the posters on here saying she went to Scotland and slept in her car and from that she decided she needed a station wagon. Now who was that?
Someone mentioned about a way of finding room for rent. I think it was called "Thousand of Rooms for Rent". Anyone heard of it?
I'm still visiting Los Angeles and staying in a super nice hotel.
Now here is something to think about..DW had to go into hospital for surgery today and it didn't cost anything!
Cheers
I remember one of the posters on here saying she went to Scotland and slept in her car and from that she decided she needed a station wagon. Now who was that?
Someone mentioned about a way of finding room for rent. I think it was called "Thousand of Rooms for Rent". Anyone heard of it?
I'm still visiting Los Angeles and staying in a super nice hotel.
Now here is something to think about..DW had to go into hospital for surgery today and it didn't cost anything!
Cheers
http://uk.easyroommate.com/
Aug 9th 2013 | 9:17 am
#1814
Thread Starter
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 2,060
From: Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada
Re: Location, location, location
I did contact the govt about that but apparently all records 1970 and prior are destroyed. I can drive on a Canadian licence for a year and it can be converted to a UK licence for automatics only. I intend to write back to them about this as I have driven a standard my whole life and do not want to drive an automatic. Besides, I have already passed a test in the UK; why should I have to do it again? I am hoping that proof of driving a standard here (via insurance company) will persuade them otherwise.
Aug 9th 2013 | 10:15 am
#1815
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 4,224
From: US
Re: Location, location, location
I did contact the govt about that but apparently all records 1970 and prior are destroyed. I can drive on a Canadian licence for a year and it can be converted to a UK licence for automatics only. I intend to write back to them about this as I have driven a standard my whole life and do not want to drive an automatic. Besides, I have already passed a test in the UK; why should I have to do it again? I am hoping that proof of driving a standard here (via insurance company) will persuade them otherwise.
Cheers
