I'm just interested really

I'd quite like to move back to the town I grew up in, not because of any sentimental attachment or family or friends still living there but because the location is great. We have a nice house, good jobs and a couple of really good friends where we are now but we're a long way from anywhere.

What were the reasons you moved and how did it pan out?

---

We moved 25min from the surf to the bay purely because it was 150k cheaper. Meant I didn't have to go back to work and in 4 or 5 yrs we can always move back. But after living here for a few months I like it. The playgrounds are fully fenced, the bay is nice and flat and great for toddler swims. The streets are quiet, we have one shop, which is a post office/bottleshop/general store. Restaurants and cafes are a 5min drive either way and Geelong is 30min away. In another 4yrs my boy might want to join nippers then we might move back. In the meantime I think it's a fantastic place to grow up in.

i'd love to move, i'm so bored with canberra. i want to move somewhere smaller and by the beach, i want a simpler life.
but dh can't get a job in places like that and he's really not keen

Hi CO:

We've made two major moves during our marriage, the most recent being Singapore > Sydney in 2008. What made us move on the turn of a dime was our daughter's ASD diagnosis (Singapore not the ideal place to be if you are dealing with SNs).

We moved here because it was one of the few cities that offered great resources for our daughter and employment opportunities for us both (my husband is in a very niche field of banking).

We moved here with an 8 month old baby and a newly diagnosed 2.5 year old toddler. No friends or family in the area (my husband is from VIC). I had never even driven on the left side of the road prior to moving!

Things were a bit chaotic at first -- renting and looking to buy, trying to set up an early intervention program, working, making new friends -- but things quickly fell into place. Within just a few months, I truly felt as if Sydney were "home," and now, 4.5 years later, you'd have to use a bomb to blast my @ss out of this place because I love it & want to stay for the long haul.

Good luck with your decision!

Just over a year ago I moved back to my home town after an absence of 20 years (though my parents still live here, I rarely visited). My husband got a job here, so he moved a few months before I finally agreed to quit my job and leave the coastal city that I love. I moved with a sense of dread, to be honest, because I didn't have great memories of the place, but it's so much different when you're older and have children. My kids have benefitted most of all as they have close relationships now with lots of extended family who all live in the local area. And I have made new friends and got involved in the community.
Beforehand we lived so far away that relationships were all through skype! I really do miss my job and my friends and the brilliant weather we had before, but it doesn't make up for the family support we now have and the far more stress-free lifestyle of the country - plus, being a SAHM now, I have time for me!
When I left home at the age of 17 I said I would never come back to this town... but now I can't see us moving again for a very long time.

WE've moved a lot. LIke others, for hbs work pretty much, but also, we decided to get out of Brisbane some years ago.
We just didn't want to have and raise children in the city and knew we'd be better off financially as well as socially and emotionally, living in regional towns and cities.

Tamm

PS: About to move again too!!

I moved back to my birth town, after 12 years away.
Honestly, after living in large vibrant cities across the world, the small regional town thing is a bit stifling.
The gossip side of things drives me crazy too.
But my family is close (positive and negative haha) and the schools/ lifestyle side of things is good.
Jobs (range and salaries) facilities and the weather all suck.

Thanks everyone... I'm just trying to work out if my reasons are solid enough to really work towards it or if we're going to get there and wish we hadn't. DP's not keen even though I'm pretty sure he'd actually really enjoy living there. It's about twice the size of where we are now but not so close to a much larger centre, an hour and a half from the beach and the same distance to the snow. Unlike where we are now which is about 6 hours to the beach, 3 to the snow but only half an hour from a large town which we travel to at least a couple of times a week.

I moved back to the town I grew up in (later years) and where my parents still lived.

We initially started to think about it when I applied for a very good job there which I didn't end up getting. Because the germ of the idea had been planted we had started looking at properties to rent. We found a perfect house - just perfect - and DP decided we should go anyway just to live there!

It was really, really hard for me, which came as a surprise.... I felt like all the hard work I had done from the age of 17 to 'get out' was for nothing!

There were many tears. It lasted a year.

Then we moved again.

Ours is a bit different in that my parents don't live there any more and most of my friends have also moved on as well so I'm expecting to move as though I don't know anyone rather than going 'home' so to speak. It's more about the location than anything else. DP is not keen at all and I'm trying to weigh up whether it's worth persisting or whether it will be a huge hassle and it's worth staying where we are.

I know that where we are, our kids will be gone as soon as they're old enough and there is no reason for them to ever need to come back whereas the place I'd like to move to has at least some reasons for them to pass through or stay. It might not happen, but there is nothing here for them when they're older and I would really be sad if they stayed in such a limited/limiting town.

Ah you THINK you don't know anyone anymore... that is the thing.

What it ended up for me was seeing people I'd gone to school with as angry, defeated middle aged drunks or harpies screaming at their kids in the carpark.

I started thinking "Is this me? Am I one of them now?"

It came to a head one night when DP wanted to go to one of the pubs in town on a Friday night and I broke down in hysterical tears..."When I left here it was so I never had to go somewhere like THAT ever again.."

He was able to view it all as a slightly bemused and amused outsider - for me it was like I had fallen back down the rabbit hole and I couldn't get out!

We moved because Adelaide is cheaper than Sydney for housing and we have family here and not in Sydney. It has overall been a good move although I miss Sydney like crazy. I wouldn't move back to a small regional town though. Adelaide is a small enough city for me. I love getting out of it for a while, looking forward to when being mobile/nomadic again is a possibility.

mmm we have moved towns twice since being married, first time was for work and cos we needed more. Little town and we found ourselves needing to leave it every wknd.
Went to a little bit bigger place that had a little bit more but then shifted to a bigger place 80000 for study reasons and we have stayed cos hubby got a job and then we were ina financial position to buy and i have found a job and there is everything we need here, however i hate the weather. Way way tooo hot in summer and cold in winter (cq) and well i am putting up with it cos i dont think weather is a good enough reason to move. ha ha ha plus after the last time we shifted I remember sayin the words "'i am never shifting every again""

I've moved towns twice. First move was really just to prepare for the second (financially). So first move was to a little house on a dairy farm, middle of no where. Same town as my then-boyfriend but no other support. It was cheap enough that I could get back on my feet financially, and move into another town with more resources for the kids and I, so I could study full time. Sill here now.

The reason I moved, was that the town I had grown up in was closing in around me. My breakup with the kids dad was spectacular and gossip-worthy, and I'm just not the 'addicted to drama' type. I didn't want that to be my story, I'm so much more than that.

I'm so glad we moved.

Housing prices. I moved 20 minutes away and my mortgage was $70 a week cheaper than my rent where I was.

It's also much bigger and I have Aldi, butcher, IGA, amcal, florist, subway, chinese, maccas, KFC, pizza, fish n chips, servo, my mechanic, train station to melbourne, park, childcare and catholic school all within 3 minutes walk of my place.

ETA: Forgot to add that my vet, scrapbooking shop, op shop, bank, asian grocer and pub is in the 3 minute walk radius too.

I want to move! I just don't see how. And I'm not sure my reasons are really good enough. We have a lot of friends and family here since we have never lived anywhere else. I just want a smaller town, quiter lifestyle and the weather is awful too. I once found a thread on eb bagging out my town, had me laughing for ages.

We moved 18 months ago, from Sydney to a small beachside town 10 hours away. Best thing I ever did.

Reasons: Didnt want to work fulltime just to pay rent, childcare and bills, and have no time to spend with the kids. Didnt want them both in fulltime care. Wanted a simpler life, places to walk to, no need to travel, and no shopping centres close by to spend all my money at!

We got so much from moving, new friends, smaller school, friendlier place to live, no after school care needed, beach, river, parks, and nearest big shops are 40 minutes away.

But we are still close enough to a major centre, an airport, and the Gold Coast is only 90 minutes from here. And housing is soooooooooooo much cheaper!