Well Im English and got to add my tupence worth. Many places in England, wales and Scotland have the bits you listed. But I would agree with everyone else so far avoid London, it does not tick any of your boxes. Edinburgh ticks almost all except it is quite a bad spot for the weather. The West of the country has a lot more rain than say the east side, A lot of the south of england is more heavily populated than the north and as such very busy roads higher living expences etc (Mind you Edinburgh is pricey) Yorkshire (Dales and Moors area Outstanding English countryside but again pricey and slim on the job front, North east / Newcastle / Northumberland has a lot of what you ask Jobs in Newcastle, good roads Northumberland /lake district and Scotland all in easy reach, Dry climate. but like everywhere it has its downsides. For me your best to come ride around see what appeals look at Edinburgh a lot and Scotland and Wales (For the scenery) then get the boat to Norway and see the full scale finished product (scenery that is). If i could do it my choice would be to live summers in Scandinavia and split that with a winter job in central Europe - Germanys a good choice for high living standards , engineering excellence etc. The Uk has a lot of problems that will be getting worse in the future so it would not be my first choice if emmigrating from abroad.

you want to move to europe i want to move to usa, take my place and job in ireland and i will take yours.

Fair trade or what?

__________________
I spent 90% of my money on women and drink. The rest I wasted

As far as I'm concerned, it has to be the South West...Somerset, Devon or Cornwall. If you want a city, try Bristol or Exeter, if you want more rural then there are dozens of options. Amazing pubs, superb coastline and London 2-3 hours on the train! Good luck.

I'd say look at the north-west, and my favourite city would be Lancaster (well I lived there for 7 years so I would). It's small enough to be friendly, but has a huge student population so there's plenty going on. There's also all manner of theatre, art, art-house cinema, sports, and strange weird groups meeting in tiny pubs. Property still isn't that expensive, you're ten minutes from Morecambe bay, one of the finest there is as far as I'm concerned with the veiws across to the Cumbrian fells which are 40 mins or so up the A6, then there's the Fylde coastline down to Blacpool, very flat, but fantastic roads in their own way, and the Forest of Bowland is just out the back, with yet more great roads. There's also (or there was) a big biking scene with plenty of people riding out on Sunday mornings to various watery places.

Mancester's not far away either if you want a big city, Scotland's a couple of hours away tops and Yorkshire is just across the border, but we don't talk about them.

The only downside, it can be a bit rainy, but when it's not it's often sunny (Morecambe Bay has it's own microclimate).

Oh and you can get a ferry from Heysham to the Isle of Man for the TT

__________________

Hmmm, the Lake District... I've read quite a few Jack Higgins' novels that involve that area. Student population definitely a plus - adds some vibrance to the location. I'll look into more.

__________________
J A Y | Riding a 98 Suzuki DR650
Current ride thru Latin Am and Africa > Jammin thru the Global South

Can someone explain how when England, Scotland, Wales and NI are all considered countries, the UK is also considered a country...? :confused1:

It's terrible on my part, but I learned from Braveheart that the Scots don't like to be associated with England or maybe even Britain, so how is it all working out these days? Is there some dissent? I hear there's some breakaway rumors...

So everyone in the UK is considered British first, then they're either English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish, right? But I guess the Scots done like to be called British, right? How do the passports work? Does everyone get a UK passport?

I love history and I'm definitely going to be reading up a lot about how the UK came to be and I figured I should know more about the British Empire, since it directly influenced life in India and the rest of the world for better or for worse.

__________________
J A Y | Riding a 98 Suzuki DR650
Current ride thru Latin Am and Africa > Jammin thru the Global South

It's a lovely idea asking people where to live and work, but it's like asking a crowd of people which bike to ride or which watch to wear. Each country/city has its own charm. Find a town, find a job, if you don't like it after six months, move on somewhere else. Yes, most people see themselves as Brits on the world stage; some people are more fussy about exactly where they come from ie.Londoners/Bristolians. Don't worry about it. Just enjoy!

You're correct - all of us are British, but English people have the habit of referring to the UK as England. Since the time of Thatcher, much resentment was caused in Scotland by her government's anti Scottish policies, leaving us all now with a drift away from the the UK. "Britain", as you say, means also the "UK." And with any smaller country adjacent to a larger one, you tend to get people being assertive about their culture etc. Scotland has 5 million to England's 60.

All have the same passport, a British or UK passport.

Braveheart, I'm sorry to say, is Tartan Hollywood, portraying the "evil" English, and the "brave" Highlanders. It follows the cliches of a Western movie. None of this is accurate.

Incidentally, Scotland holds two main cultures - the Highland area - initially Gaelic speaking, and Lowland Scotland, which always spoke what we now call English (Northern English) since varieties of that language formed in these islands. The Scots were historically hostile to the Highlanders, and were part of the army which routed them at Culloden. Scots kings passed a number of laws against Highlanders.

After the Highlanders were defeated, many emigrated to, for example, the US, or Australia, where they inflicted the same horrors on Native Americans or Aborigines, that were inflicted on them.

Sounds good, mate I've got a close friend in Dublin/Kilkenny and once I'm across the pond, I'm definitely touring around Ireland for a while. I hear it's really beautiful and of course, then there's Guinness.

Great, that's what I've been reading too. That's like the real countryside of England, right? How's the weather generally there? And I presume it would be less crowded than slightly east of there, right? Been reading great things about Exeter.

__________________
J A Y | Riding a 98 Suzuki DR650
Current ride thru Latin Am and Africa > Jammin thru the Global South

ah ya its not bad spot at all, just weather is a bit un predictable lately and npt the best but still good social life so drop on over

__________________
I spent 90% of my money on women and drink. The rest I wasted

Thanx for that macro-level description. Yeah, I've been reading climate plots of the UK trying to understand general climate trends and that's what I saw too - the mountains in the west cause a lot of rain there and then there's generally a big rain shadow on the eastern part of the island, but it still rains there too...

I hear you on the problems in the UK and initially I was looking into moving to France (speak the language) or Germany but after research into their immigration policies, I found the UK to be the best to work with my trip to South America. France is just not looking at welcoming immigrants (non-eu) these days and I was really into Germany (the auto industry and location to tour eastern europe), but they require you to be in your current country of residence for 3 months before moving over and that wouldn't work for me once I left the US.

The UK has this high-skilled migrant program, where they're looking at attracting young high skilled labor and I qualify for it and it takes only about 5 weeks to process. I could easily spend 5 weeks in Brazil...

And then I got thinking that working in a non-English engineering environment would actually be quite difficult unless I got into one of the big global multi-nationals and I'm kinda done with the big corporate environment.

So, when the UK started looking like the best option, the more I read about it, the more I figured it's the better choice regarding jobs, motorcycling community, travel access, etc. But I'm aware of the downsides (weather, high cost of living, increased governmental oversight, traffic cameras, clampers, high cost of petrol, red tape, etc.).

__________________
J A Y | Riding a 98 Suzuki DR650
Current ride thru Latin Am and Africa > Jammin thru the Global South

Dear Jammin - are you mental?!

Exactly - the cost of living here is atrocious - (real world) inflation is currently running at 30%, fuel prices are extortionate, there are more speed cameras and CCTV in this country than any other in the world, yet crime (particularly petty, anti-social, and even serious violence) continues to increase... and don't get me started on the petty bureaucracy and countless laws that have been introduced that seem to only affect/restrict/oppress the law abiding...

If you do decide to come to the UK, for goodness sake live in the south east so you can get to the rest of Europe quickly...

Seriously.

xxx

with respect, he'd have to be mental to live in the south east. it's only 8 hours to france from edinburgh, and less from most parts of northern england. and the north is even closer.

classic british/english association, from today:

LONDON (Reuters) - Young Britons are to get the chance to go to the theater for free in a bid to drum up new audiences, the government said on Tuesday.

The 2.5 million pound scheme, which will run from February 2009, will involve 95 venues across England with a proportion of tickets given away free to anyone under 26.

Oh I agree, which is why I moved from Sussex to Wales... but I'm sure you appreciate I was being somewhat facetious... x

Mind you, goodness knows how you can get from Edinburgh to France in 8 hours? - unless you fly...

xxx

throttle to the stop, and inside the channel tunnel train before the door closes (or it goes on fire!)