We have been talking seriously about spending six month to a year in England in a couple of years - perhaps 2004. We spent 5 months in England in 1988 (2 months moving around 1 week at a time in vacation rentals and 3 months in Essex - not the best choice of an area).
Of all the countries we have visited in Europe, I think England is the one I would most like to live in. Not for the weather obviously (we have perfect weather in Santa Fe) - but for the beautiful countryside, the walking, the villages. And to use as a base to do more European travel. I picture us flying off for a week in Greece, week in Eastern Europe, short trips to Italy, Spain, France. I think we might even bring the cats with us and rent out our house in Santa Fe. We could both continue to work in England, since we do most of our work by email anyway. Plus, my mother is English and I can live and work legally in England.
I thought I would post this now to get some feedback. When it gets closer to the time, I will ask Jonathon for help because we would probably want to be somewhere around Stroud where he lives. We spent a month near there in 2000 and are planning another trip to that area next year. Stroud is a nice sized town (not too big, but big enough) with a sort of "new age" feel like we have in Santa Fe, not too far from the airport or London and it is a beautiful spot with great walking.
Do you have high speed Internet access there yet? That would make it perfect!
Pauline, that sounds great! Before I fell in love with Italy, England was my first love...think it goes back to the Beatles, and me being an impressionable 12 yrs old in 1964. Altho I can't offer the kind of help and info you want, I did want to be the first to offer to do a house swap with you...yours in England for ours in Umbria? Aren't I the grand planner?! Anyway, put me down for a week or 2! Good luck!
Posts: 4914 | Location: Umbria | Registered: 29 June 2001
quote:Stroud is a nice sized town (not too big, but big enough) with a sort of "new age" feel like we have in Santa Fe, not too far from the airport or London and it is a beautiful spot with great walking.
Yes, agreed. We moved here from London 10 years ago, and chose Stroud for much the same reasons. And for a base from which to explore Europe, it makes a lot of sense: I'm sure you've visited the Ryanair, Go and Easyjet sites and seen the sort of fares that are available. Even with no special offers, you can fly to Italy and back for less than UKP 100.
Yes, you can get high speed internet here, though we're still on standard modem. Broadband costs about half as much again.
Do ask more when the time gets closer.
Jonathan
Posts: 2941 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
I don't know Stroud at all, but I do know that the countryside is very beautiful all around that area.
If you are going to be doing a lot of trips to Europe, though, you might want to consider being closer to Stansted where most of the cheap airlines seem to fly from.
Cambridge, for instance, might be a place to consider. The whole area is a bit of an English silicon valley so the internet connections ought to be good. Also the presence of the university would mean there would be good bookshops and a constant supply of interesting events. Cambridge has a good repertory theatre and I'm fairly certain that it has reasonable restaurants. The only problem I know about is that the town does attract a lot of visitors in the summer so parking is likely to be difficult. But maybe you could solve that by living on a houseboat on the Cam. That way you wouldn't need a car.
Beebee
Posts: 1954 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
Thanks Beebee! Good suggestion. We lived in Essex for 3 months in 1988 and used to drive to Cambridge because they had a good natural foods store. I think we will make a few trips to England before this all happens - so we can have fun choosing a region. We are starting to think about a walking vacation for next April.
Steve usually works as a computer software consultant - he doesn't work all the time, so we can take long vacations.
We took several years away from work in the late 80s - early 90s after a program he wrote was a success (school administration software - schedules students to classes).
Two years ago he decided to write a product from scratch again (the same student scheduling idea) - and that he can do anywhere. He works on all our trips. He completed a big part of the project in Switzerland last month. That product is on the market now (being sold by part of Pearson, the big English publishing company), but he is still adding more to it. www.tabbysoft.com
I used to take work doing technical writing, but that doesn't pay as well as it used to, so now I do web site design (which explains why I am always at the computer) and also work for Steve. www.tabbyweb.com I started SlowTrav 2 1/2 years ago as an excuse to learn web design - little did I know that it would turn out to be such a fun hobby.
We are lucky we do this kind of work, or we would not be able to live in Santa Fe - if is hard to find good work here. Many people here work for themselves or as consultants and travel to the places they work.
There you have it - with all the stuff I write on this message board and on the web site - our lives are an open book!
Ah well, too late to re-train for that line of work, for me I'm afraid. So that's one door closed.
I've often thought that the perfect occupation would be to be a writer because you take the job wherever you go and the world's your oyster. The problem is that no one would ever pay enough to read anything I would write to keep me in bread and water, let alone all the other little luxuries that I enjoy.
I've remained in England for so long because they generally enjoy much longer holidays per annum than in North America and women retire 5 years before the men(!) although that's now going to change, allowing more time for travel.
Maybe that's an idea for a new topic somewhere on the boards - ideas for jobs that give you the freedom (time & money) to indulge a passion for slow travelling.
Beebee
Posts: 1954 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
Pardon me for popping into your conversation, but I'd love to know more about the subject of Americans living in the UK. We are retired, and thinking of moving to Europe. Will EU countries allow us to live there if we don't require jobs? Can we get medical insurance? My husband's grandmother was from Northern Ireland. Does that entitle him to live in the UK? Does anyone know of a good website pertaining to Americans living in Europe?
For what it's worth, I think I'd love to live in the area around Chichester, or Plymouth.
Hi Libbie! There has been much discussion of this on the Italy forum - I will look for a few threads for you to read. Contact the British embassy to see if you can get citizenship or residency based on your husband's grandmother. From what I remember, you can only get citizenship if it was your father or grandfather (they changed the rules after some recent date but it is not retroactive). I cannot get English citizenship because it is my mother who is English, but they offered me a working permit that could be turned into citizenship after a few years.
You may not need to bother with this, but just get residency. There are lots of good expat sites that will be able to help you. I will hunt around on the Italy forum to see what I come up with. But dinner is ready, so I will do it tomorrow. (Or maybe someone else will come along with the answer!)
My husband's mother was born in Belfast in 1916. He and his sister applied for and received Irish passports this year. I believe for Ireland it goes back to grandparent. The Irish embassy would have the answer. Getting their passports was really quite simple.
Posts: 107 | Location: Bergenfield, New Jersey | Registered: 14 March 2002
But aren't they British passports for Northern Ireland? I have an Irish passport because my family was from Ireland. Is the status in Northern Ireland different from in England - do people in Wales and Scotland have British passports? This is kind of confusing to me!
It does get confusing. They have Irish passports because their mother was born in 1916. The status of the northern counties changed in 1918, I believe. My mother-in-law had altered some of her American documents to show a birth year of 1918 (oh the vanity ) and we assumed it would be difficult to obtain Irish passports. But she eventually fessed up to all of us. Her family was originally from Wales and she always considered herself British. Her children, however, consider themselves Irish/Welsh Americans. I believe the Welsh and Scots have British passports. Do you use your Irish passport? The passport explains how you can stay in England for such an extended time. I have to wait two or three years to join my husband in retirement and then really slow travel. We have family in England and hope to be able spend a lot of time there.
Posts: 107 | Location: Bergenfield, New Jersey | Registered: 14 March 2002
I have never used the Irish passport, but I keep it up to date. This passport will allow me to live and work in any EC country (from what I understand - still some paperwork probably). I have a status available for England, because of my English born mother, where I will be issued a working permit and can become a citizen after a few years - at least that is what the embassey told me.
We went to Europe in 1988 intending to stay, but decided that instead we wanted to move to the US (from Canada) and we won that immigration lottery and were able to. That is why we are here now.
Gosh! Does that mean you have THREE passports? Another reason to be jealous. I thought it was really neat when I discovered that I had British citizenship without having to do anything by virtue of the fact that my dad was born in Scotland. In fact his parents had emigrated to Canada some years before his birth, but his mother went home to Scotland when she was 7 months pregnant so that my dad could be born a Scot - no small undertaking in 1912, I'd have thought. Anyway, I eventually applied for a British Passport, when the French went through a phase of requiring North Americans to apply for visas. Once I had 2 passports, I rather fancied the idea of qualifying for more but have never done anything about it.
As to Libbie's plans to move to the UK as a retiree, I think you would need specialist advice. I have several American friends who live here, but they have all come as a result of jobs, studying or marriage. The special dispensation given to people like me, I believe, was only extended to Commonwealth citizens and where the rule used to be grandparents or parents I think it may have been reduced to parents only. I have looked for suitable websites and the only thing I could find was this site for the Home Office. You would have to investigate further to see if it was helpful; I didn't see anything very obvious there. My advice would be to phone your nearest British embassy/consulate. They will have all the information you need on current criteria. I have read that the Home Office is considering changing their system of assessment to the Canadian "points" model. Armed with all the relevant information you might be able to determine which system would benefit you most.
Good luck, though.
Beebee
Posts: 1954 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
Coincidentally, I read Beebee's post about Cambridge on the morning that we were about to drive to Stansted. We're back now, and will post about Florence in the appropriate place. Stroud to Stansted isn't at all bad, by car - 2:15 on Sunday morning (high winds but clear roads), and 2:30 coming back yesterday evening with heavy rain. Yes, the weather can be dreadful here, but at least we're unlikely to suffer tragedies like S Giuliano di Puglia.
Cambridge does have good bookshops, and good restaurants. But it's so FLAT
Jonathan
Posts: 2941 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
Pauline, I would hope that any visit to Great Britain would include a few days in Scotland. I live in Edinburgh and it really is one of the most beautiful cities in the world!
quote: Stroud to Stansted isn't at all bad, by car - 2:15 on Sunday morning (high winds but clear roads), and 2:30 coming back yesterday evening with heavy rain
2.5 hours seems like a long way to me, when you have to factor in the wait once you get to the airport and the journey you have to make at the other end.
I'm afraid I was spoiled for all time a few years ago by accidentally moving to within 15 minutes of Manchester airport. It meant that you could forget your passport and still have time to turn around, retrieve it and still have plenty of time to catch the plane. Of course, it did mean I had to live in Manchester
Posts: 1954 | Location: London, UK | Registered: 09 September 2002
quote:2.5 hours seems like a long way to me, when you have to factor in the wait once you get to the airport and the journey you have to make at the other end.
Yes: but remember that for you and me (and Pauline when she moves here), the flight is only 2 hours. (1.5 last Sunday with all those gales helping us on our way ). Most of the people reading this have to sit on a plane for hours & hours! So the total journey time seems OK to me.
Jonathan
Posts: 2941 | Location: Stroud, UK | Registered: 18 November 2001
We spent a week in Edinburgh in 1988 and enjoyed it (although I kept calling it Edmonton, because it too is a very northern city). We also spent a few days near Peebles (I think) to the south and loved that area. I would like to return to Scotland one summer to see the stone circles in the very north and to explore some of the wool places. I used to be a knitter before the web site took over my free time.
2.5 hours doesn't seem that long to me. Where we are now it is over an hour drive to the airport. And then we fly to the east coast (several hours) and then onto Europe (several more hours). But it must be nice living in London to just hop a train or subway to the airport and then have short flights to all those places in Europe!!
Topic Closed
Anyway, put me down for a week or 2! Good luck!
I thought it was really neat when I discovered that I had British citizenship without having to do anything by virtue of the fact that my dad was born in Scotland. In fact his parents had emigrated to Canada some years before his birth, but his mother went home to Scotland when she was 7 months pregnant so that my dad could be born a Scot - no small undertaking in 1912, I'd have thought. Anyway, I eventually applied for a British Passport, when the French went through a phase of requiring North Americans to apply for visas. Once I had 2 passports, I rather fancied the idea of qualifying for more but have never done anything about it.