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d-day66

Forager
Jan 21, 2011
213
0
consett, co durham
Hey there everyone, I hope i dont start any controversy here, but im looking to relocate as far north as i can! Highlands would be exceptionally nice. lol! Can anyone please offer me any info on this? And anywhere to live would be nice too! lol!! Thanks guys!
 

Andy T

Settler
Sep 8, 2010
899
27
Stoke on Trent.
I lived up that way 3 years. There are alot of empty properties due to the locals getting very high subsidies when building new properties. I spent most of time up there at a place called freswick........it's fairly close to keiss and the spar shop....and Thurso was just down the road. I suppose it all depends what you want to do up there, if you want access to the sea for fishing and a plentyful supply of rabbits then you may want to look round Strathy.
 

northumbrian

Settler
Dec 25, 2009
937
0
newcastle upon tyne
Hey there everyone, I hope i dont start any controversy here, but im looking to relocate as far north as i can! Highlands would be exceptionally nice. lol! Can anyone please offer me any info on this? And anywhere to live would be nice too! lol!! Thanks guys!

ye deing a shoot ower the border D ?
ye jammy barsteward lol, all that lovely land and canny people !Am getting reet jelous now man !
Anyway i hope ye find a canny ken and invite all us north easterners up to have a bit poach aboot !

cheers andrew.
 
Nov 29, 2004
7,808
22
Scotland
Hey there everyone, I hope i dont start any controversy here, but im looking to relocate as far north as i can! Highlands would be exceptionally nice. lol! Can anyone please offer me any info on this? And anywhere to live would be nice too! lol!! Thanks guys!

Is your passport in order?

Just kidding. :)

What can you do? Finding employment up there or starting a business can be just as hard (or harder) then finding or starting something down south.

Have you spent any time north of the border? Was there a part of Scotland that you liked more than any other?

I have lived and worked in Argyle, Perthshire, Edinburgh and the Borders, each region had its good and bad points. Perthshire was probably my favourite for various reasons.
 

d-day66

Forager
Jan 21, 2011
213
0
consett, co durham
Anything to get out of here! lol!
Thinking of starting my classes up there!
Thanks to all for the help so far by the way! I will look into all options!
 

BillyBlade

Settler
Jul 27, 2011
748
3
Lanarkshire
Have a useful, well practiced hand skill type of trade. Dont depend on anything tourist for an income.

Very good friend of mine, his G/F's comes from just north of Inverness, and says it's monotonous how many come to the area because they have an interest in the great outdoors, and then cant make a living when they have unpacked and the dust settled. They also struggle to integrate into what are obviously close knit communities because they really dont have anything practical to add to the communal skillset.


Do your homework on this one very carefully.
 

d-day66

Forager
Jan 21, 2011
213
0
consett, co durham
That is so true! But, isnt the same no matter where we lay our hats? I suppose thats the chance we all take when ever we have to move away for some reason or another!
AS the classes go, i would have to look into any other bushcraft schools and organisations in the area. See how they're getting on!
 

Andy BB

Full Member
Apr 19, 2010
3,290
1
Hampshire
The Inverness area (East Coast/Highlands) seems to get overlooked by the West-coasters, yet to me seems some of the nicest countryside in the UK. and - big advantage - suffer much less from the dreaded midge than the west-coast!
 
D

Deleted dude 7861

Guest
I got made redundant and ended up moving to Skye, best thing I ever did. Everyone is very friendly and accepting despite me and my wife being incomers. Work is hard to find but best way to start is by doing seasonal work and getting to know people. Most people have more than one job and need to be flexible. If you have a skill or trade that nobody else has in a village situation you'll be sure that people will come to you and that's a great way of getting known as word of mouth will help you lots.
 

vizsla

Native
Jun 6, 2010
1,517
0
Derbyshire
Have a useful, well practiced hand skill type of trade. Dont depend on anything tourist for an income.

Very good friend of mine, his G/F's comes from just north of Inverness, and says it's monotonous how many come to the area because they have an interest in the great outdoors, and then cant make a living when they have unpacked and the dust settled. They also struggle to integrate into what are obviously close knit communities because they really dont have anything practical to add to the communal skillset.


Do your homework on this one very carefully.
very true and great advice, we get alot of southerners mainly from london moving to our local villages non of them have any hands on skills or any idea about countrylife but they have plenty of money and a rangerover sport in black of course with i private plate with no more than 5 digits, but there of to a bad start with locals straigt away due to lack of local housing and making prices out of reach to next generations who are forced out of htere own village
 

demographic

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 15, 2005
4,691
710
-------------
The location can be ace but the job prospects might not be as good.

If I were to move anywhere in the country it would be north but I still need a job to pay for the place. Different kettle of fish if I was a coffin dodger with a decent pension to spend.
 

BillyBlade

Settler
Jul 27, 2011
748
3
Lanarkshire
very true and great advice, we get alot of southerners mainly from london moving to our local villages non of them have any hands on skills or any idea about countrylife but they have plenty of money and a rangerover sport in black of course with i private plate with no more than 5 digits, but there of to a bad start with locals straigt away due to lack of local housing and making prices out of reach to next generations who are forced out of htere own village

Exactly. It's an elephant in the room, but I sympathise with those who have lived in a community for many generations, and then find that local housing becomes out of reach for their children due to an influx of people with nothing else to bring to an area but a fat bank account.

The friend I alluded to earlier in the thread, having talked to his g/f on this subject in the past, fair to say she has described pretty much the people you just have!
 

Andy BB

Full Member
Apr 19, 2010
3,290
1
Hampshire
very true and great advice, we get alot of southerners mainly from london moving to our local villages non of them have any hands on skills or any idea about countrylife but they have plenty of money and a rangerover sport in black of course with i private plate with no more than 5 digits, but there of to a bad start with locals straigt away due to lack of local housing and making prices out of reach to next generations who are forced out of htere own village


Unfortunately, unless you live in a soviet environment, freedom to move around the country and buy at market prices is a fact of life. And surely an influx of free-spenders into a local community can only be good for local trades? I can't afford a house in Kensington but I don't begrudge those that do. Besides, I'm sure it was a local who sold his house for a very nice profit to the "southerners" - if he'd had any genuine feeling for his local community he'd have refused his hundreds of thousands profit and sold instead to a local. So a touch hypocritical to go on about the interlopers without addressing the root cause - greed of the locals.

Maybe they'd blend in better if they didn't face the bitterness of the local community? I find these sorts of reactions both borderline racist - "You're English coming to live in Scotland/Wales/Cornwall- away wi ye" and envy-ridden -"You're driving a posh car that I can't afford so I detest you". neither are attractive traits............
 

troy

Forager
Aug 9, 2004
167
2
moray, scotland
www.mtn-m.co.uk
moved to the moray area about 9 years ago and found the area quite full of jobs opportunities with the oil industry in aberdeen, the raf and now army camps plus the usual business stuff in the bogger towns, i.e inverness, elgin, aberdeen. Plus even in this what could be described as busy area as compared to the relatively empty highlands area (above inverness over to above skye) their is empty places to loose yourself in and make you feel how the postal services regard any where above perth i.e on the other side of the world. These days jobs are their like anywhere else, but their is more people to fill them - if your an engineer of any sort, communting to aberdeen for a 40,000 plus free lance or regualer job is very likely as thier is a shortage.

House prices are going down but a 3 bedroom detached rented is about 800 a month, average 300 to 400 for flat and their is the cairngorms a stone throw away. As for outdoor schools, well 9 years ago I only knew of woodlore, woodsmoke and the sas things in brecons, now they furnish the west coast of scotland and theirs even one on an island below slioch - their is more then a few, I guess the only problem with a location is the time, cost it would take customers to get to your location - their is no trains above skye on the west coast, east you have the A9 but in the middle their is only a few B roads - if you could do walking type stuff as well as the fire lighting it would open the opportunities as there is literally hundreds of poeple in the hills most weeks, except perhaps winter and more then a few could do with navigation training if you know what I mean!

Any way thats my little beef on the subject - my pay up here has been good, bad and non existant, encountered idiots, nice and those inbetween (more nicer then not) but over all I have never regretted moving here cause if all hell breaks down, the empty wild wilderness is only an hour away.
 

bronskimac

Forager
Aug 22, 2011
124
0
Dundee
If there is resentment about incomers buying up the housing, that may be explained by the rental stock, relied upon by many locals, being sold off so folk have to leave to find homes by no fault of their own.

As a tourist in Scotland with an English accent I have found locals all over the country to be friendly and talkative. I now feel completely at home in my current home in Dundee. I can't say the same for the men in a pub in Blaenau Festering dog, switching from English to Welsh as soon as they header my accent. When my friend who lived in Birmingham arrived shortly after, she gave them a mouthful in Welsh. :lmao:
 

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