Grass not always greener

DunDarach said:
Yeah, but all owned... at least you can walk on some private property to some extent.
Click to expand...

My point was privately owned and unavailable for recreation...
Let's face it, it's not quite Canada, USA or Australia (or even New Zealand) in that regard.
Exploring, hiking, adventure racing and mountain biking... places you can do that sort of thing. Like Africa, there are limited areas you can get away from people without paying a big fee.
 
Last edited:
DunDarach said:
My point was privately owned and unavailable for recreation...
Let's face it, it's not quite Canada, USA or Australia (or even New Zealand) in that regard.
Exploring, hiking, adventure racing and mountain biking... places you can do that sort of thing. Like Africa, there are limited areas you can get away from people without paying a big fee.
Click to expand...

Have you any direct experience of the facts you are stating?
 
DunDarach said:
My point was privately owned and unavailable for recreation...
Let's face it, it's not quite Canada, USA or Australia (or even New Zealand) in that regard.
Exploring, hiking, adventure racing and mountain biking... places you can do that sort of thing. Like Africa, there are limited areas you can get away from people without paying a big fee.
Click to expand...
Even London has a ridiculous amount of large open green spaces. Hyde Park, for example, is the size of a couple of nature reserves I've been to in SA. And it's in the middle of a city.
 
Dave123 said:
Have you any direct experience of the facts you are stating?
Click to expand...

Yes, visited 20 countries in the last 12 years including US, UK, Dubai on the developed side and a bunch of developing countries in Africa, Caribbean , South America and Middle East. You don't have to go there to know this stuff though. I'm talking about wilderness, where you can travel for hundreds of km without seeing another person. Not "they don't have electricity or tarred roads" yet. Besides, 65 million people, 250k sq km. Just saying.
 
Just touching on the degree and experience thing. Most countries require a degree to get a work permit or residency permit, if you don't, it just makes your life difficult, companies will have to jump through hoops n stuff and the majority of them couldn't be bothered unless your really valuable to them.
 
DunDarach said:
Yes, visited 20 countries in the last 12 years including US, UK, Dubai on the developed side and a bunch of developing countries in Africa, Caribbean , South America and Middle East. You don't have to go there to know this stuff though. I'm talking about wilderness, where you can travel for hundreds of km without seeing another person. Not "they don't have electricity or tarred roads" yet. Besides, 65 million people, 250k sq km. Just saying.
Click to expand...

You're still showing your ignorance there...

You realise visiting a country is nothing like actually living there? what parts of those countries did you visit? how long did you live or stay in those regions?

I think it's safe to say you've gleaned your knowledge (or lack thereof) from what you've read on the internet...
 
Dave123 said:
You're still showing your ignorance there...

You realise visiting a country is nothing like actually living there? what parts of those countries did you visit? how long did you live or stay in those regions?

I think it's safe to say you've gleaned your knowledge (or lack thereof) from what you've read on the internet...
Click to expand...

Nope, your standards and mine are clearly different.
By all means go find a remote spot on Google Maps for me and let's debate that.
While I accept that I'm not going to go snake hunting and game spotting is limited, I do prefer knowing there's proper open space where you're not 30 minutes to an hour from the nearest pub, cafe, motel or dwelling by road. That's just my preference.
 
Last edited:
DunDarach said:
I do prefer knowing there's proper open space where you're not 30 minutes to an hour from the nearest pub, cafe, motel or dwelling by road.
Click to expand...

With the exception of desert areas you'll be hard pushed to be more than an hour from some form of inhabitation in most first world countries.

Maybe Alice Springs is the place for you...
 
Dave123 said:
With the exception of desert areas you'll be hard pushed to be more than an hour from some form of inhabitation in most first world countries.

Maybe Alice Springs is the place for you...
Click to expand...

One of the nice things about living in a 1st world country is also that you are more likely to be able to afford to do outdoorsy things via travel. It's not for me personally, but I have colleagues that will hike through the local national parks: Yellow Stone, Glacier, Yosemite, etc. - when I say local, they still have to go on a long road trip or flight to get there, but they can easily afford it - the more adventurous have hiked through the Yukon and Alaska, through the northern parts of Norway, Peru, and/or even Antarctica (that's a thing now). This is generally considered a cheap holiday. Obviously doing the weekend lost-in-the-wilderness thing isn't so great in the UK, but it opens more possibilities to do it globally than living "two hours south of Foknaai" :)
 
cguy said:
One of the nice things about living in a 1st world country is also that you are more likely to be able to afford to do outdoorsy things via travel. It's not for me personally, but I have colleagues that will hike through the local national parks: Yellow Stone, Glacier, Yosemite, etc. - when I say local, they still have to go on a long road trip or flight to get there, but they can easily afford it - the more adventurous have hiked through the Yukon and Alaska, through the northern parts of Norway, Peru, and/or even Antarctica (that's a thing now). This is generally considered a cheap holiday. Obviously doing the weekend lost-in-the-wilderness thing isn't so great in the UK, but it opens more possibilities to do it globally than living "two hours south of Foknaai" :)
Click to expand...

Indeed, people in the UK have similar options being right next to mainland Europe.
 
Dave123 said:
With the exception of desert areas you'll be hard pushed to be more than an hour from some form of inhabitation in most first world countries.

Maybe Alice Springs is the place for you...
Click to expand...

650 people per square mile in the UK, you can bet that's easy to beat in the developed world.
At least 12 states in the US have less than 20 people per square mile. The national average is well under 100. The point is you have loads of choices to see enormously vast natural diversity without having to leave the country or use a passport.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Commons#/media/File:USA-2000-population-density.gif
Yellow = 1-4 persons per sq mile, light green = 5-9.

Australia stands to reason:
http://i.imgur.com/CtSPoGP.jpg

New Zealand is around 15 per square km with the majority of those by far in the Auckland region.

Canada is similar...
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-402-x/2010000/chap/geo/c-g/map1-eng.gif

But before you come back to me, don't forget I'm simply stating my preference here. I'm sure you like the UK and have every reason to.
 
You know @The Voice covered the population density argument for the UK many posts ago? It's pointless rehashing the same facts over and over...
 
Dave123 said:
You know @The Voice covered the population density argument for the UK many posts ago? It's pointless rehashing the same facts over and over...
Click to expand...

@The Voice's point had little to do with mine, I really don't understand why you feel you have to convert me to your point of view when we're talking about different things. Nothing's been rehashed, just an attempt to be more specific.
 
DunDarach said:
@The Voice's point had little to do with mine, I really don't understand why you feel you have to convert me to your point of view when we're talking about different things. Nothing's been rehashed, just an attempt to be more specific.
Click to expand...

You misunderstand, I'm not trying to convert you to any point, merely discussing the points made.

No ones opinion is right or wrong, it's their opinion.
 
Visited London as a tourist, was pretty disappointed (yes I visited Paddington station but didn't see Paddington bear walking around). You couldn't visit any tourist hotspot without being crushed by other tourists (doh), and in the end once the novelty of paying for things in pounds wore off ... it just seemed pretty claustrophobic. I was happy to end my UK holiday off with a roadtrip north to Scotland ... taking a ferry trip on Loch Lomond was night and day from the bustle of London, so that fleeting experience certainly confirms what the posters here have been saying.

That was a relatively short trip though (just a few weeks): I got the opportunity to stay in Romania for a couple months, and that was an eye-opener too. You have a vague conception of what it's like to be in a country that has its own language, but nothing reinforced that for me than walking into bookstore after bookstore in Romania and the only English books were inevitably on a little dusty shelf labelled 'foreign languages'. I ended up buying an English book just to read it on my holiday, to consume English ... everywhere else I was dependent on my wife (who is Romanian) to translate. It's a deeply humbling experience when you cannot even order a burger in McDonalds (and I really expected I'd at least be able to do that) because even there everything is (doh) in Romanian.

All that said, I'm deeply fascinated by these threads because I'm also getting to the age where emigrating is seeming increasingly attractive, and I've worked my way into a job level where I have a hope of finding something reasonable overseas. I've also lived in Cape Town, and moved back to Gauteng (I'd previously lived in Johannesburg) to accept a great job offer in Centurion ... it feels safer than Johannesburg, but nowhere near as safe as the UK OR Romania for that matter.

I'd give a lot for safety, but I've also worked my ass off my whole life to get where I am now, and I'm not going to throw it all away to be just another number overseas (hell, I'm practically just another number in South Africa anyway already - but at least I'm another number that has a network of sorts). My goal is to emigrate in another year or two, I'm just paying off the last of my debt in South Africa first.

Good luck to anybody who either returns to South Africa or who leaves her - I can see both sides of the coin, but as long as BEE exists in South Africa no white person can ever call this country home. Sure, 'reverse Apartheid' makes sense in a big picture way, but in my day-to-day personal life at a small picture scale all I want is to feel at home in a country that is happy to have me. You'd have thought it'd be the country I was born into, but in South Africa I don't see that ever being the case (or maybe not for another 100 years anyway).

What we need is another America, back in the early days, welcoming immigrants with open arms to start a Brave New World. Anybody know of anything like that?
 
Foxhound5366 said:
What we need is another America, back in the early days, welcoming immigrants with open arms to start a Brave New World. Anybody know of anything like that?
Click to expand...

That was a made-up romantic story alas. Greed is everywhere, as is hate. So is love and acceptance, you just need to look in the right places. I have a friend living the dream - with a coffee shop and roastery in Panajachel, right on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Beautiful place. I'd try Aus over the UK personally.
 
DunDarach said:
That was a made-up romantic story alas. Greed is everywhere, as is hate. So is love and acceptance, you just need to look in the right places. I have a friend living the dream - with a coffee shop and roastery in Panajachel, right on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. Beautiful place. I'd try Aus over the UK personally.
Click to expand...

I'm actually seriously considering starting off in Romania, working for an international company (the one way to get a decent salary there). It really is a beautiful country that has a vast number of parallels to South Africa: tense political backdrop, stark divide between the 'haves and have nots', and friendly people. Once I've got an EU passport I can look a bit broader in Europe. The UK (God save the Queen) doesn't want me, and frankly I don't want it.

Guatemala does sound awesome though, but my theory is that if my wife and I go anywhere in the world, it'd be nice for at least one of us to truly be at home (and my wife still has a social network of friends in Romania). Having both of us strangers in a foreign country would be a bit too hardcore ... different strokes for different folks I guess.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
I'm actually seriously considering starting off in Romania, working for an international company (the one way to get a decent salary there). It really is a beautiful country that has a vast number of parallels to South Africa: tense political backdrop, stark divide between the 'haves and have nots', and friendly people. Once I've got an EU passport I can look a bit broader in Europe. The UK (God save the Queen) doesn't want me, and frankly I don't want it.

Guatemala does sound awesome though, but my theory is that if my wife and I go anywhere in the world, it'd be nice for at least one of us to truly be at home (and my wife still has a social network of friends in Romania). Having both of us strangers in a foreign country would be a bit too hardcore ... different strokes for different folks I guess.
Click to expand...

I've heard good things about Eastern Europe. People are very friendly, mostly and there is some stunning scenery.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X