Moving to an island?

Homes and Retreats
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QUAID
Posts: 234
Joined: Sun Dec 01, 2013 1:06 pm

Re: Moving to an island?

Post by QUAID »

Are there any forested areas with wildlife on the island?
Malthouse
Posts: 668
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 10:51 am
Location: Plymouth

Re: Moving to an island?

Post by Malthouse »

I moved to an island with a population of c1200 about 8 years ago.

Lessons I learned, some the hard way...

* You will never be accepted by everyone, some will welcome you from day one some may take time and some may never like you or what you represent.

* If you enjoy your own company then great, because unless you have endless cash you can't just escape when you fancy it so indoors with a good book is a great way to get away from it all.

* Not everyone on an island appreciates the resilience of it, some don't get the isolation and get very upset if their papers or post are delayed because the ferry was late. Expect to find some very like minded people and some who would be a burden should civilisation start to show a crack or two.

* Be good at improvising and compromising, you can rarely get what you need when you need it.

* Education and local politics may not be to your liking, democracy and common sense do not always fire on all cylinders in an isolated community.

Your experiences may differ, these are all subjective points. Good luck! I love it and would not go back.
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CynicalSurvival
Posts: 189
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2014 6:39 pm
Location: Scotland

Re: Moving to an island?

Post by CynicalSurvival »

Malthouse wrote:Lessons I learned, some the hard way...

* You will never be accepted by everyone, some will welcome you from day one some may take time and some may never like you or what you represent.
Thanks for all these points - sorry for the slow reply, I was having some difficulty with my password on UKP but it seems to be sorted now.

In the end I think I am going to stick around, although I still feel that safety-wise, there is a lot to be said for a smaller island. Harder to get off, but harder for hostiles to get on. Assuming it is reasonably distant from militarily strategic areas, I'd recommend it is worth considering. The more sparsely populated ones tend to have a good ration of land:people so foraging or home growing is a more realistic prospect than on the mainland.

All in all though I am in a good spot now and have some local knowledge and contacts so there would be a big loss of throwing that away.
The last taboo is the myth of civilisation. It is built upon the stories we have constructed about our genius, our indestructibility, our manifest destiny as a chosen species. - The Dark Mountain Project Manifesto http://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/
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diamond lil
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Joined: Sat Nov 27, 2010 1:42 pm
Location: Scotland.

Re: Moving to an island?

Post by diamond lil »

A lot depends on which island... the western isles would be a huge cultural shock, even without the weather. The northern isles have hellish weather long dark winters, and already too many incomers. I've lived deep in rural Scotland all my life and I'm fairly self sufficient and tough - but even for us moving to one of the islands would be a huge learning curve and might be a disaster.