North or South England? (place to live, shops, homeless)
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My preference is Scotland, but for England itself, my vote goes to the Cotswolds, if you can afford to live there. So I guess my vote is "south"
The North of England is also very beautiful, and you have areas such as the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales and North Yorkshire Moors, the Lake District and Northumberland National Park.
The Pennine Way being a famous walking path across the North.
We did a road trip of the SE, very historic. Also very busy, lots of traffic
Reminded me of the DC metro area (American here), had an affluent and important feel, near the seat of govt., etc.
The place I feel most at home is Herefordshire in the West Midlands. Historic county, rolling hills, Black Mountains just over the border in Wales, Wye River valley beauty, Welsh Marches.
We took a narrow boat down the Monmouth & Brecon canal. Never have I ever seen such exquisite countryside and charming canalside villages.
John Travolta has been spotted recently in Suffolk and Norfolk in East Anglia.
In an Instagram post, Travolta said: "I’m here to shoot a short film called, “The Shepherd” based on a book by Frederick Forsyth that I’ve always loved."
American here, (northeast USA) but in the North, Lancashire has the most rain. Yorkshire, to the east of it, has better weather. Yorkshire is vast and beautiful with all sorts of varied terrain. Some areas in the North still have remnants of the dirty old industrial era but many are being brought up to date and turned into housing or markets. Yorkshire has a national park and a coastal area plus the gorgeous green Yorkshire Dales.
I felt at home in and around Norfolk too and it has seaside close at hand and seems to be a generally convenient location.
For holiday I would pick the South, places like Cornwall and Devon. House prices are lower in the North if that's a consideration and tourists and London escapees are threatening to spoil rustic Cornwall.
It all depends upon what you want. If you want beaches, if you want an airport nearby, if you want city or town.
Honestly, the terms 'north' and 'south' as far as England are concerned are overrated, overused and really aren't useful for discussions like this.
Sure, 'the north' is okay as a catch-all term for parts of England in some economic contexts, but I'd say that the cultural, etc, similarities between places often described as 'northern' aren't (usually) limited to the north alone, while at the same time there's a heck of a lot of cultural differences between the places usually described as 'the north'.
- Yorkshire and the North East have their own distinct cultural things going on, in terms of food, way of life, and accents, etc.
- The Lake District and Cumbria are part of the same 'North West' region as Manchester, Liverpool and even Chester, but the truth is that the towns in Cumbria (that's Carlisle, Workington, Whitehaven...) have more in common with those in the North East (like Newcastle, Tynemouth, Blyth, Ashington) than they do with Manchester or Liverpool, and the other big 'North West' cities.
- The Pennines are a rural chain of hills that cover parts of the North and Midlands, stretching from Northumberland to Staffordshire, but the way of life and architecture are pretty similar right through the range (kind of like the Massif Central in France, or Appalachia in the States); Alston is a Pennine town in Cumberland (about 20 miles from the Scottish Border), while Buxton is in the Derbyshire Pennines, yet Alston and Buxton are a heck of a lot more like eachother than Alston is like Carlisle or Buxton is like Derby.
The 'south' arguably makes LESS sense as a block region of England than 'the north'.
The North East and South West of England probably have more in common with each other than either does with the South East. Coal mining in the 18th-20th centuries, something virtually nonexistent in London or the SE (save some parts of Kent), yet it was a staple of life in the North East, and significant parts of the SW like Somerset and the Forest of Dean. The NE and SW of England have a similar rural culture and way of life too, in either case you're rarely much more than an hour from rugged mountain terrain, something simply absent from the SE, and you could could pluck a village like Blanchland or Harbottle from Northumberland and place it in the Costwolds, and it would not look out of place.
I say the Southern part as it is easier to get to rest of Europe via HSR. You can go on all the gastronomy tours, and still get up to northern England. I am not saying anything wrong with northern England.
I say the Southern part as it is easier to get to rest of Europe via HSR. You can go on all the gastronomy tours, and still get up to northern England. I am not saying anything wrong with northern England.
There are plenty of budget airlines and ferry links to Europe from across the UK, and many areas have decent travel connections from Europe, and that includes the North.
As for rail services, you can take a train from the North on the East Coast Main line, and get off at King's Cross, and the St Pancras International Eurostar station is directly next door to Kings Cross, so changing trains is relatively easy.
The same is true for the West Coast Main Line, which terminates at Euston, which is also only a short walk from St Pancras.
You can also drive down to s Folkestone in Kent, stick you car on the train at the Eurotunnel terminal (Le Shuttle) and cross the channel in 35 minutes.
HS2 is set to cut journey times even further, whilst direct services may be the next step once HS2 is completed.
The UK and Europe also have interconnecting bus (coach) routes across the continent that are similar to the US type interconnecting bus services such as Greyhound.
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Where exactly is this invisible line that divides North and South England?
