I'll never live in London

I love visiting London for a day or a weekend, but I have no interest in living there. When I talked about this in 2021, I had spent almost six years living in Kent, and London still wasn’t my city. It can be an incredible place without being somewhere I want to call home.

I know the idea of moving to London appeals to a lot of young expats. For me, living in a small English village had helped me realise what I actually liked. The things that put me off London were largely about everyday life: how busy it felt, getting around at rush hour and whether I would have enough money left to enjoy being there.

A visit and a working day are different

Films and television can make London look very appealing. My concern was with the less exciting part of living there, the regular working day. A long commute, long hours, an overpriced lunch and getting home exhausted didn’t sound like a life I wanted. Some people are happy to accept that to be in the city. I wasn’t.

I wasn’t saying that every London resident has the same routine. It was the possibility of that daily struggle that put me off. Life already felt difficult enough without choosing a city whose everyday pace didn’t suit me. Enjoying a visit didn’t change my feelings about that tradeoff.

There is a lot to take in

The word I used to describe London was overstimulating. There are so many people, things to look at and sounds to take in that I find it a bit too much. I also find it hard to get a quiet moment there. The noise and busyness belong together in my mind, because they both make the place feel overwhelming to me.

Then there are the people who stop in the middle of the pavement to take a picture. I have been that tourist myself, so I understand wanting a selfie and enjoying a holiday. It still drives me crazy when I am trying to get somewhere and people suddenly stop walking right in front of me. Being on holiday and trying to catch a train are very different situations.

Rush hour was another part of London I had experienced and didn’t want more of. Trying to get around or leave the city while so many other people were heading home could mean being crammed into a station or carriage, pressed against other people. I had seen it, I had experienced it, and my reaction was no thank you.

Could I afford to enjoy the place?

Cost was a big part of my thinking. In that 2021 account, buying a property in London felt out of reach for an ordinary person like me, and I thought young expats would often need to share with several roommates. I understood why somebody might accept those costs because they wanted to be there. That wasn’t enough to make me want the same thing.

The part that bothered me was having so little money left after paying for the important things that I couldn’t do what had made London appealing in the first place. I used a £12 cocktail as an example of the expense at the time. Paying to live in the city and then struggling to afford the things I wanted to do there sounded frustrating.

That was my concern about the whole arrangement, rather than a budget for anybody else’s move. I could recognise the appeal of London’s bars and experiences while still deciding that the cost wasn’t a tradeoff I wanted to make.

Lots of people doesn’t guarantee company

I also thought London could be lonely. Having so many people around sounds as though it should mean plenty of people to make friends with, but I found it harder to get a sense of community there. To me, people felt less approachable, and it could feel like being one tiny speck among everybody else.

That was one of the negatives I thought the exciting pictures of London didn’t always convey. It can be a very cool place and still feel lonely.

Living in a small village had made me realise that I was a small-village kind of person. I liked that life and wanted it. I also thought it helped to try somewhere, because sometimes you don’t know whether a place suits you until you’ve experienced it. If someone else wanted to try London, I wasn’t telling them they couldn’t.

For me, the answer was already clear. I loved going into London for a visit, and I wanted to keep living elsewhere. Maybe it was somebody else’s city. It wasn’t mine.

Watch my full reasons for choosing to live outside London.