[earlybike]

Slightly OT: Living in a capital/big city is tough:

- High rents, even in Berlin nowadays

- There are more options but also much more competition for finding the right accommodation, job and spouse

- In particular, finding your long-term partner can be a huge struggle in a big city in times of Tinder where nobody is committed anymore

For some the solution is just to escape, avoid the challenge and call it nomad life (this is my feeling when I read such stories, maybe I am wrong).

However, once they have kids, they have to settle and are back to square one.

[phillc73]

> However, once they have kids, they have to settle and are back to square one.

I don't necessarily think it's back to square one. One doesn't have to settle in a big city.

I moved out of London when my first child was due. We moved to a mid-sized (250k population) European city. I was able to find work, in an unrelated field to my previous experience but still using similar technical and management skills. The remuneration is less than I was earning in London, but the cost of living is significantly lower too.

This was a lifestyle choice and the environment is much better, in my view, for raising children. Only my view of course, but in this case "better" means things like more green space, less pollution, less crime etc.

It's not been 100% plain sailing. I have had to overcome a language barrier (not fully achieved that). I do feel culturally adrift sometimes. And Brexit seems to be trying to screw everything up.

However, I still don't feel like I'm back to square one.

[hycaria]

Don't you worry about the objectively lower education for your children there ? As much as I dislike cities, I can't imagine raising children somewhere else. Education, culture and network potential (through friends) is just not the same.

[phillc73]

No, it's not something I worry about at all. I'd be interested to know why you think the education would be objectively lower.

I'm still living in a city, just a small one. Having checked Wikipedia, it tells me the population is officially 320k. There are six Universities and the city is UNESCO listed as a Cultural Heritage site. I just don't see this location disadvantaging my child. In fact, I think it's a location with a pretty good mix of culture and nature.

Nothing is perfect of course, but I think we're in a better position than if we'd stayed in London.

If we were to move back to the UK, I'd be looking at somewhere like Cambridge or Edinburgh perhaps.

[lostboys67]

both of those are also very expensive areas to live in in the UK

[flak48]

Cordoba?

[mcjiggerlog]

As someone from the UK, this is surprising. In the UK the worst schools are generally in cities, and much better in smaller towns.

[jbb67]

I was going to add this. Education for possibly future children is one reason why I would move _out_ of London

[jarvist]

I think your perception is incorrect. It is now well recognised that London has the highest quality teaching in the country: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jan/20/top-local-...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/07/london...

https://www.teachers.org.uk/expert-view/why-attainment-highe...

[lostboys67]

err no the top selective schools in the UK are in big cities the Oratory (London) and King Edward VII (Birmingham)

[mastazi]

Not sure where are you from but in Europe many cities smaller than the one parent settled in have their own universities and significant cultural scene... Basel, Perugia, Lille, Salzburg are some examples of cities with less than 250k residents where you would have all of the above.

[toomanybeersies]

250k doesn't seem to be small enough to have a serious negative quality of education.

I grew up in a city of 100k, and I had all the opportunities that someone growing up in a bigger city would have. The quality of teaching was fine too. I did go to a larger school, with 2300 pupils though.

[yakshaving_jgt]

What makes you think London is at the forefront of educational standards?

(I'm originally from London, and I also live in a smaller European city).

[mantas]

In my country, a public school from 5th largest city, with population of less than 100k, routinely makes it into top-3 high schools. It gets worse only when population is < 10k or so and can't fill a full-blown school. On the other hand, quite a few schools in big cities are notoriously shitty...

[jakobegger]

He said he moved to a mid sized city with 250000 people — I expect that most European cities of that size have decent public schools. Even a lot of small cities often have a good school. And even if that‘s not the case, in most places your kids can just take the bus to a school in the next city.

[richardknop]

Lot of top universities around Europe are in smallish cities (200-300k people). I don't know why you think top universities are only in London/Berlin/Paris. That's not true at all, especially in Europe. Not sure about US.

[bboozzoo]

Or even smaller than 200k people, try KU Leuven for instance.

[cyphar]

There are many "mid-sized European cities" that have better education than London. Most of Estonia is an obvious example. And a city of 250k people is still large enough in my book to allow for a large enough pool for networking.

[andruby]

Which city did you settle in?

[pdimitar]

> competition for ... spouse

> In particular, finding your long-term partner can be a huge struggle in a big city in times of Tinder where nobody is committed anymore

You're projecting here -- the article never mentioned anything related to a partner. Also, wait what? COMPETITION for a spouse? If you look at your desired gender that way, I think it might actually do you good to live as a nomad for a while.

"Nobody is committed anymore" -- change your social circles. Go attend local events related to your work and hobby. Go hold a lecture somewhere and have drinks with a few of the studens.

You can do a heckload of things to change your environment even without moving away from the city. You sound bitter, you need to work on some change in your life.

[earlybike]

Think you misunderstood. My message was that people who do this nomad thing are doing this because they struggle with city-life and my bullets were examples why they might struggle. I just said finding long-term relationships got harder because of Tinder and the current zeitgeist. I didn't say that I struggle: I didn't bail out and went the nomad route. I know that it's tough but once you got used to it, you learn, adapt and improve.

[pdimitar]

Thank you. I still think "Tinder and the current zeitgeist" is a status quo isolated to certain circles (although big ones). There are still tons of people out there who bond and click pretty naturally.

I for one am not very happy in my current city anymore but that might be because of shitty rented flats. Currently actively seeking my own place but my internal voices never give me a moment's peace because I think I want to live by the sea, which is practically impossible in my country because the "cities" there are awfully small, boring, and have mediocre Internet.

Oh well.

[simonbarker87]

If they have kids, the types of people who choose the nomadic lifestyle are probably more likely to question norms and pre-determined life choices, therefore less likely to have kids.

[teekert]

First: Not everyone wants or can have children. Second: You may be back at geographical square one but you have picked up a lot of baggage in the form of knowledge and emotions that probably changed you (hopefully for the better, I'm betting it does) forever.

Also, this life style is nice for getting to know yourself, what do you really want? Maybe you thought you were a city dweller but now you know you feel better closer to nature. You also learn that you don't need much as a human, that is a very comforting though that can get you through difficult times.

Changing your lifestyle may not always be pleasant (at first) but you learn about yourself. For example, I though I was a real backpacker, turns out I get very stressed when I have to get in random taxis and I convince myself almost everyone wants to screw me (in the bad way) and I have constant inner dialogue about why I would care about being screwed for a couple of euros. Now I plan thing differently, maybe I someday really learn to relax. But it won't be by sitting at home, I know that for sure. For now, I have kids and already learn that I don't like my life style to adventurous (maybe I'm not even that adventurous without kids), and I'm ok with that... even though that took some time to accept.

[earlybike]

Maybe you are right, maybe not. I just think those stories where people worship their nomad life represent not the entire truth.

It's not because nomad life is so great, often it's because they struggled because--again--life in developed areas is tough and so they opted for the easier way.

Moreover, those have still some home base in an developed country, a back door where they can always settle again, so it's not really nomad, it's just a long vacation labeled as something adventurous.

For us from developed countries, it's so easy to take our backpack and travel dozens of countries and just spent a fraction of what we would spent in NY, London or Berlin. You know it's really nothing special or something people should admire. Everyone from a developed country can do this. But nobody from not so developed countries could and want to do this. I personally would miss a goal and again the challenge. I can just buy a ticket in 5 minutes and go, find some remote work and live for peanuts. Where is the problem, everyone can do this There is no risk and no goal. And because your FB friends got tired of all your useless and boring nomad posts you need to write now public blog posts and spam social news sites telling people that what you do is great justifying your goal-less endeavour to yourself.

So, another popular reason of being a 'nomad' might be: I am struggling with the high competition in my current environment, want to save money or spent a fraction in an underdeveloped country and live like a king. But not like I want to know who I am (maybe they know it afterwards but I think it's rather unrelated).

[victornomad]

Ok, here one of those nomads for already mmm... 12 years?

Not all of us want to escape. We just want to see the world and learn. I grew up in a small town, I dont have a place I could call home apart the earth...

On the other hand, I know there is an increase of people that want to escape, but maybe they have a reason to do it. City life is not for everyone. Many of us want to have a slower life, cherishing small things in nature and learn about the world directly, without intermediaries.

And I dont think is about struggling with the high competition or have a cheaper life somewhere else. Some of us just prefer to have a different life style. Some people chose to have 2 cars, a house and lots of stuff inside, some others just prefer to have only one backpack with their belongings in it and move slowly around the world...

[teekert]

Hi, I have a question, maybe too personal, feel free to answer or not... Do you have children? I do and many rules are inhibiting nomad life (even shortly). Kids are obligated to go to school for example. If this was more relaxed, I'd love to go away for several months at a time (I have a small caravan with a bunk I made for the two kids). I'd love to teach them about everything while traveling Europe. But the kids have 6 weeks of vacation at most during the summer.

[victornomad]

I dont have kids yet. I totally acknowlede that its quite a different thing when you have kids and this lifestyle becomes quite impractical (not impossible though). Probably the day I have kids I will do similar to what you do :)

My point is that there is not one way of living. I was raised in a way where I had to follow just one path but seeing people living differently made me realize the diversity of lifestyles and made me aware of so many options in life.

[mantas]

> of us want to have a slower life, cherishing small things in nature and learn about the world directly, without intermediaries.

Which is exactly what small town life is. No need to go nomad for that. In my experience, backpacking is neither slow life, nor cherishing small thing. It may be compared to multi-million city, but it's not compared to living in small town or village.

[victornomad]

I didnt go nomad because of been raised in a small town. I went nomad because I like it :) I just mentioned that to contrast the first comment where suggested that people from big cities become nomads to escape from them.

Backpacking is not black or white. There is backpackers who multihop cities every couple of days to get laid in backpacker hostels, some others travel slow, some to remote places, some others move where there is food and work, some others follow adventure, some others backpack while volunteering...

[mantas]

I get it that backpacking/nomading crowd is diverse. It's just weird when people attribute living slowly to that. I know some backpackers do embrace living slowly. But their lifestyle look too similar to small town (or even backwoods) living. Well, aside from the part how they got there. And likely not-so-slow period of change to move to next slow destination.

[richardknop]

Just my two cents but there are a lot of people who don't have problem with competition in these big cities (can outcompete majority of people and are top 1% earners in NYC/SF/London etc) but they don't find the office/corporate/busy life fulfilling so they decide to go and travel around or work remotely for few years.

I know couple of people like that. Just to make a point your argument about these people trying to escape because they can't make it in a big city is not necessarily true. At least not universally true, there might be people that fit your description.

[jlebrech]

If you can convince an employer to let you work remotely and maybe let you fly in for monthly meetings you could move to a satellite city that has cheaper rent

[tonyedgecombe]

You can do kids on a budget, plenty of people do.

[unixhero]

Yeah. That happened to me. Cannot recommend this. AT ALL.

[jlebrech]

you have to home school to be on budget, otherwise they come home from school wanting new things. which also means your partner cannot have a full time job or has to work remote too.

you could start a remote business and make the hours longer allowing for kid related interruptions.

[tonyedgecombe]

otherwise they come home from school wanting new things

Indulging them is probably the worst thing you can do, just say no.

[jlebrech]

i guess being told 'no' is part of the learning experience.

[kbart]

In most European countries your children would be taken away by the responsible institutions if you tried to raise them in a trailer.

[madeofpalk]

I feel like there's a middle ground though between spending lots of money raising kids in a London penthouse, and raising them in a van.

[jlebrech]

manchester council house. if you have children you'll get the house.

[jlebrech]

the only way to find a "long term partner" is to start a business, sex and children is no longer a partnership thing.