Hi guys,
Me and my family (wife and 3 year old son) are seriously considering moving to Nova Scotia, and would love to hear from people that have made the move.

Whats it like, are you settled, easy to make friends, good schools etc.

Would love to hear your thoughts, find out good areas to live etc.

If anyone would be happy to chat, PM me your number and we could have a chat.

We're just looking for some chat from people who have actually done this.

Thanks in advance

Edinburgh Family

There are quite a few of us living here

I have been here 3 months and love it, we have a very large house and 18 acres, live totally rural (just what we wanted) room for the 4 dogs (no kids) and although I am not working (hubby has the TWP) I have started the process for my nursing evaluation and hope to work part time. Hubby has the workshop he wanted and slowly getting the toys he wants. I am having a go at my hobbies and even trying some new stuff out.

We've been here about 2 years and love it - definitely one of the better decision we made in our lives. Its a great place to raise a family - you can live in an area with really good schools without needing to be a millionaire and have a good-sized house and plenty of garden (a couple of acres is quite common). The people are unbelievably friendly. I have heard a few people say that Nova Scotians are friendly but it isnt easy to actually become friends with them but that hasnt been our experience - I think you basically just have to make the effort (e.g. invite people over etc instead of always hoping for an invite to a bbq from someone else).

Its a beautiful place - great beaches, very forested and natural looking, nice parks, lots of snow in winter, hot summers.

On the down side I find Nova Scotia employers really retarded. They dont particularly pay very well and seem to think that employees will slave away for 10 years before they are entitled to a promotion. This is something I expect will start to change over the next few years as there is beginning to be a serious labour shortage in many industries here. Most of the people who have moved here I think have done so for lifestyle reasons rather than as a career move.

I'm happy to chat further if you like - I'll PM you with my details.

Yeah later on you'll find loads of UK people replying to this thread who are now living in NS. I'm sure loads of people can help you with any questions you may have.

x

were not at the moment, but will be by christmas

Hi We moved (also with 3 yr old son) to NS almost 9 months ago. We had traveled to many provinces and came to NS on a reccie in May 2007. We loved it straight away and bought a house whilst here on reccie. 3 months later we got our PR and 2 months after that we had sold up in the UK and landed (got lucky with selling house at height of market).

We already feel very settled and OH is 7 months into his job which he loves. We have made a number of friends and have great neighbours. I'm aways out and about with the little one - play groups, picnics, days at the lake, soccer camp etc.

I'll PM you with number. We also have Skype which is great for chatting.

The place is filling up with us all and the more the merrier! We moved here 6 months ago and are just moving into our dream house, we could never have afforded anything like it in the UK and we love the place.

Happy days

There are gzillions of Brits in NS. Everytime I land at Halifax airport it seems every other person is British.

Hi Edinburgh Family,

We have lived in NS for the last 8 months (nearly) and we love it. We moved to a small town called New Glasgow, it has around 10,000 people in it and all the resources you need to get by. It is an hour and 20 from the airport so your not to far away from the "Big City".
I too have found the people really friendly. I have a good number of friends (more than I ever did in the UK) that is sas to say considering I lived in Glasgow UK all my life before moving here. Paul is right though you have to get out there and get your face known. Once you do and you start getting invited to things then you will never look back.
We movedover with a 3 year ond and a baby in tow so if we can do it anyone can.
Good luck with everything and PM me if you need my number or anything.
Julie

Another New Glasgow resident here (ex Aberdonian). We arrived in Jan 07 with 2 sons who were aged 12 year old and almost 16 year old at the time

We too all love it here. OH started work immediately and I now have 2 p/t jobs with the same organisation which I love. Even our elder son old has a p/t job too (like most teenagers here).

Both kids enjoy school here too. Everyone settled in almost immediately (and we arrived in winter!). People are extremely friendly and there is always plenty of events happening in our town or in our neighbouring towns of Stellarton, Westville and Trenton. For the size of our town we have a decent amount of stores inclusing a couple of malls, a 7-screen cinema plus a drive-in movie theatre, bowling, plus lots of sports (of course). We are also only 10 minutes from a beautiful sandy beach.

Although I moved here from a small village just outside Aberdeen, the community spirit in New Glasgow is far more visible than I could ever have hoped for.

I could probably say that New Glasgow is not unique in Nova Scotia because by all accounts the other BE members living over here love where they are settled too

There's another Brit family arriving on 28th July ! Hope we settle in as well as everyone else seems to have .......

hi edinburgh family
we have only been here since may and we love it. my 8 year old loves the school she goes to and has settled really quickly, my 3 year old was a bit longer in settling but he loves it too.
everything is only a short distance. i have a city on one side of me and the airport on the other.
i have met lots of amazing people both brittish and canadian the move was a lot easier than i imagined it would be. i was offered a job in feb and we arrived in may. from old scotland to the new scotland

We have been here 3 years now with our 7yr old and the 19yr old moved over last year. We came here on visitor visas and gain residency last August via the NSNP Community Identified Stream, which took 8 months.
We live on the Malagash Peninsular overlooking the Northumberland Strait, with Prince Edward Island 18 miles across the water. We initially came here looking for a vacation home and ended up falling in love with the place and never wanting to go back to the UK. I would never have believed how hot it gets here, like today around 30 degrees and the winters are not as cold as I thought they would be.
Our daughter (7yr) is one of 18 in her class compared to going to a sort after school in the UK with nearly 40 in her class. The school system is very different but I think much better. Our eldest daughter came over and even though she had finished school in the UK, started school here for the last year and just graduated a few weeks back. She made the decision to come here and just loves it, making lots of new friends.
If you would like any info about anything just PM me.

Thanks very much for all the replies.
This is all really useful, and exactly what we we were hoping to hear !

Will start contacting some of you this weekend.

We are planning our recce next May, so hopefully by then we will have have a few friendly faces to catch up with.

Can anyone give us a realisatic idea of how much houses are.
We'd be looking for at least three bedrooms, with a large garden, in a good area near good schools.
I work in finance, so I guess I'd need to be around 30-45 minutes from Halifax.

Once again thanks for all the replies, this is really useful and its appreciated that you guys are spending time replying to us

We are looking at properties this kind of time frame away from Halifax in the Colchester region.

From what we have seen we are looking at up to $250,000 to get similar property, however for this $ we have seen plenty of properties which come with 1-5 acres.

From our recce, the nearer you get to Halifax the more expensive it becomes and you get less land. It all depends where in relation to Halifax you want to live.

www.mls.ca is a good site to give you a feel for property prices or www.propertyguys.com for private sales for which there are many in NS