Where should we escape to?

December 10, 2006 4:28 PM

Where should we escape to? We (couple, not going to have kids) vant to be alone. We telecommute, so all we need is somewhere very quiet and safe and stable with good home Internet access. Where are the best places? I know we will have to do some travelling and check them out, but if you can give us some ideas, places, links, strategies to start on, we're grateful.

I looked at past threads and found this about retiring in the US but I'm Canadian so that's right out. The Shetland Islands look like a good place to check out, since I have relatives in England. He's from eastern Europe and it would be nice to be in Europe to be near his family, but that's not the only option either. Would be nice if it's a place that has English speakers, but not absolutely necessary. Hot climate is nice but hardly necessary. We're both from cold "temperate" places.

We could buy a place to live cash down for about $100,000. Not much, I know. Of course in a few years we'll have more, but that's where we're at. This is not really about retirement, as we are decades from retirement age.

My first thought is Moose Jaw -- they have that nice natural spa in town. Pretty cold, but decent community activities, considering the tiny size of the place. Can we do better than Moose Jaw?

posted by Listener to society & culture (20 comments total)

What about Scandinavia?

I imagine that real estate outside of city centers there isn't too expensive, internet access is probably pretty good, you'll be closer to his family, and English probably won't be too much of a problem, giving you time to learn the local language. It's also closer to the Mediterranean, or India, or Morocco, or various other warm climes than Moose Jaw, right?
posted by mdonley at 5:07 PM on December 10, 2006

How about rural Australia or New Zealand? Plenty of variety, and cost of living is very reasonable.
posted by bystander at 5:19 PM on December 10, 2006

Maritimes.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:21 PM on December 10, 2006

Escapeartist.com is a variable-quality but mostly interesting web magazine for people asking similar questions.

This is the kind of question that's best answered by just visiting places if you possibly can. It sounds like you have the resources for at least a low-budget whirlwind tour. Get to London, and from there, budget airlines such as Ryanair can get you very cheaply to a huge range of places in western & eastern Europe and north Africa.
posted by allterrainbrain at 5:23 PM on December 10, 2006

New Zealand.

Incredibly socially progressive, friendly people, stunning natural scenery.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:28 PM on December 10, 2006

mdonley: Scandinavia is all the things you imagine! All the Scandinavian countries have really well-developed infrastructures internet access-wise (especially Sweden!), and there's certainly room for a lot more people here without any immediate danger of crowding. It's very safe (even in the cities), and we all speak English, pretty much.

However, not too expensive? Well. Not so much. I live in Norway, and a small house in the middle of nowhere will start somewhere around $ 200 000 plus. (I do believe Sweden is a little more reasonable, though.) Cost of living is also very high here, and things like having a car is taxed very heavily and also just day-to-day expensive with petrol prices around $2 per litre.
posted by aforambivalent at 5:34 PM on December 10, 2006

Ditto for New Zealand. The West Coast of the South Island. Beautiful beaches, decent weather (aside from the bits of rain) and I'm sure you could pick up a little shack by the beach with internet access for a song. Check out the area around Hokitika.
posted by craven_morhead at 5:39 PM on December 10, 2006

Hm - if property prices are too high, perhaps one of the new EU member states? Slovenia and Estonia are ostensibly the most developed - English might be trickier, though.
posted by mdonley at 5:43 PM on December 10, 2006

Thailand. You could easily buy a house with that much money. Furthermore the cost of living is extremely low while the quality of life is very good - wonderful people, heavenly food, excellent travel options to the region and beyond.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 5:52 PM on December 10, 2006

I'm going to plug my home town. Cheap nice houses out in the county, enough arts/culture/stuff in town when you want to venture in----> Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
posted by stray at 6:11 PM on December 10, 2006

Seconding Thailand (great internet, great food, great people, great beaches, great prices) and Nova Scotia (water front property is still a relative bargain there).
posted by furtive at 7:07 PM on December 10, 2006

I've always wanted to go to:
- Switzerland, like John Walker
- Carribean (My wife is from Antigua - so that may not be tremendously difficult)
- Sri Lanka like Arthur C. Clarke

I dunno, I'm a canuck too and my future escape destination fantasies have mostly been warm and tropical ;-)
posted by jkaczor at 8:11 PM on December 10, 2006

FYI, Sri Lanka is a political mess and recent rumblings indicate that it's going to get worse. I wouldn't even visit it these days.
posted by intermod at 8:32 PM on December 10, 2006

How about rural Australia or New Zealand?

Home internet access in rural NZ is not good. Most people I know who live even on the outskirts of our smaller cities get little or no connection. Hell, my boyfriend telecommuted from home in the middle of Auckland for a year and the internet connection barely coped and was expensive. By international standards our broadband is slow, expensive and not wide spread.

Incredibly socially progressive

Um, not so much in the rural places being recommended upthread. Also the climate isn't overly warm (although nicely temperate and not really cold in the north) and visiting your family in Europe will be very expensive and time consuming.

I don't think NZ fits your scenario at all actually.
posted by shelleycat at 10:18 PM on December 10, 2006

What about the St. Lawrence Rover/1,000 Islands area in Ontario? I recently took a boat through the Seaway and it seemed like there were some very nice quiet areas on the water there; not so rural that they'd be disconnected from things like Internet, but definitely off the beaten path. Not sure what land up there goes for, but there looked to be a lot of older cities where the industry has left; I can't imagine it's too expensive. (It's definitely not on the U.S. side, but it seemed like there was much more development and urbanization on the Ontario side than the New York one.) If you don't mind the winter -- and it seems like you wouldn't, if you're considering Moose Jaw -- you might want to consider it.

Ogdensburg is a typical small city right on the St. Lawrence and according to City-Data the average new home construction costs in the past 10 years have all been under $80k. The population is steadily declining there as well, so I suspect there are deals to be had, if the Canada side is similar.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:33 PM on December 10, 2006

Thanks, Shelleycat. I think NZ is too far, flight cost wise, too. It's great when someone suggests something I didn't think of and they someone else who knows more about it pipes up. This thread is helpful, and I'd love to hear more. I will have to read up on the expat forum sites, I think, and then we will plan some scouting travel for places to settle.

It's possible to be alone in an urban area -- in a nice concrete tower. Sometimes cities are quieter (civilized) than rural areas where "I'll run my tractor [snowmobile, generator, etc] whenever I please."
posted by Listener at 11:12 PM on December 10, 2006

A couple of friends have just moved to Sanday, in the Orkney Islands. this is her blog about the process. I expect it fits your criteria, but I'm sure Beth would be happy to answer any questions you have.
posted by handee at 1:11 AM on December 11, 2006

Austria will put you close to Eastern Europe - it's rich, safe, modern, many Austrians speak English, it has incredible natural beauty and offers a wide range of cultural opportunities.

If you want more bang for your buck, try one of the newer members of the EU surrounding Austria - Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Craotia or Slovenia, with Slovenia probably being the most modern and safe, and having the highest ratio of English speakers.
posted by syzygy at 4:14 AM on December 11, 2006

There is the odd day, usually in the spring, when Shetland is the warmest place in the UK. On the other hand, it's usually windy, cold, and damp (I may be being a little negative here). And there aren't any trees. Unless you've been somewhere else with no trees, you may not know if this is important until you visit, but it means there's one less thing between you and the weather.

Shetland is on much the same latitude as Whitehorse and ... lots of bits of Canada with no large population centres, but that would presumably be more to do with the winters there. Lots of light in the summer, really really not much in the winter. Again, you probably won't know if this would be a problem to you unless you've been or go to somewhere similar.

Shetland is also a long, expensive way from anywhere. This quite possibly means a higher cost of living as well as higher transport costs.

... What about Ireland? Still windy and damp a lot of the time, but usually warmer and with more of a balance of daylight hours, English speaking, lower cost of living (and I think houses are relatively cheap?), quite possibly you can get somewhere remote and rural with better transport links to England and Eastern Europe. The one thing I'm not too sure about is availability of decent internet in rural areas.
posted by Lebannen at 11:46 AM on December 11, 2006

Thanks, everyone. I don't mind no trees, because I'm from the prairies originally and I love the big sky. I don't like the closed-in feeling here in the Okanagan hills.

I'm really mostly a Vancouverite, though, and so far a concrete tower condo with lots of south facing windows so the rain isn't depressing looks like the best option -- once the property market isn't quite so inflated. And I don't know this guy, but here's the ultimate link on that topic, I think.

Going to be doing a lot of looking in the next year or two.
posted by Listener at 1:17 PM on December 11, 2006