Ramsgate, England: Could we live here? Retired nomad couple traveling the world, one month at a time

hi and Welcome to our retired Nomad Adventures I'm retired Rick and I'm Daphne and today we're going to go over with you uh whether or not the place that we first came to for our first month of our Nomad Adventure so for our first 28 days in a uh long-term Airbnb um we want to let you know if this is some place that we could consider living longterm and when we say longterm we mean uh 90 days uh so when we say long-term that's kind of what we mean when we first started out uh our our goal well when we were going to retire we're thinking we are going to move to Portugal so that was our mindset at first and then we decided let's just travel the world first and see if there's a PL uh place that we would like to live so we were doing a month at a time and then as we're in this journey now uh it's exciting and we just can't wait to see what the future has for us but like dney was saying um kind of looking towards are there's are there places that we would like to be at for a 3-month period and then go back home so we're just kind of uh evolving as we do all this so we'll just see what the future has for us so we chose this place Ramsgate in England so it's a little Seaside coastal town uh and it's about two hours uh by train a little over two hours by train past London uh we chose this place because we were already at England visiting family and we knew that our first place we wanted to go for our long-term slow travel was Portugal but we could only be in Portugal for 90 days so we needed someplace outside of the shenen zone um to fill in that extra time so we looked on Airbnb and found um uh really we were looking for an Airbnb that was someplace that we would want to be and then we looked at the town that it was in to see if it was a town that we thought we could keep ourselves busy uh for those 28 days and so Ramsgate seemed to tick all the boxes we hadn't heard of it before but um it looked cute and it looked it was a Seaside town which we love uh and it looked like some place that we would have fun in um since we've been here we looked up the population and the population here is just under 40,000 we had to figure out if that was a small town or a big town turns out that's a small town um and then their main industry here is um tourism and fishing and fishing okay okay so our first category that we were going to look at is the climate so the climate here what would you say well it's nice right now it's it's there's some area so it's about 72 74 degrees since we've been here uh it's been nice it's been rainy a couple of days which from California we like that so uh we didn't mind it at all so we don't know what the winter months how it feels but our time here has been really good it's been really nice uh we've been able to lay out at the at the beach and it's kind of weird to say that you got a sunburn in England so we got a sunburn so uh so it's been nice since we've been here we just really been lucky lucky with the weather yeah and the month that we're here is their summer month um uh and we did look up though so in September the typical temperature here in September is about 64° and then in January the typical temperature is about 46° so that's the climate so if we came back here in the summer this ticks all of our boxes for what we look for uh is it near a beach or water yes it's a little Coastal uh Seaside town and um they have a beautiful um the only Royal Harbor I guess uh it has a nice Marina you have different beaches that you can choose from here like they had uh it's just when we go outside and we we we walk we go out of our Airbnb and we head down towards the walking area which is is about two blocks from I guess two blocks from the sea from the beach so you have different uh types of beaches you have sandy beaches you have the rocky Beach um you have a nice walking path above the beaches over the cliff so it's it's really interesting uh the layout they have here yeah you kind of go from one area to the other and it's different we find seashells in one place we find uh uh beach bars in another place and uh tide poles and all kinds of things so uh so we definitely love the beach area here um is it walkable definitely it's walkable that's that's all we've been doing is walking yeah so uh we even walked uh there there's a there's a town next uh nearby that you can walk on the street or you can walk on the beach When the tide is down so we've done that a couple of times it's it's uh it's about a two mile walk one way so it's it's not bad yeah it's a little town called broadstairs uh and it's very bustly and busy uh um it's also really cool here they have like um not Carnival activities but kind of Carnival activities for the kids like there's uh bouncy things the kids can go on rides they can ride all on the beach and so we have some of that here on our local Beach but in broadstairs it's like uh uh on steroids it's bigger bigger and better um okay how about public transportation yeah def uh definitely they have a uh it's called the Margate Loop uh bus that you can go from broadstairs to Ramsgate to Margate other places in between um margate's about four miles away so uh it's a nice Loop uh to to go on we didn't go on it we've got the information on how to do it it's just a a um touchless or um uh yeah I guess a touchless where you just touch your credit card and get on and think it's uh what they say for the day I want to say it was like 550 550 each and you could ride the bus and it takes you to all the sort of main locations but in addition there's all kinds of uh bus stops for just the regular public transportation and then they even have their own train station here yeah and the train station uh like we said we walked uh to our A&B our Airbnb from the train station and we also uh can walk to the train stations about a mile away and it's very easy uh there's a couple platforms and it's just easy to navigate uh easy to buy the tickets online so that part the train system is really easy and clean well and we bought for the United Kingdom we bought a TW together rail card so as long as we're traveling together we get a 30% discount on any train travel that we do which is really great so like we went to canterbary yesterday which was a 20-minute train ride from here no stops for us no chain or train changes and it was $113 round trip for both of us to go to another really beautiful little town and it was super simple and easy and they also have lots of people posted everywhere so that if you weren't sure you could stop and ask somebody very easily and with and with that uh yesterday when we went uh we did not know we picked some to leave but uh that was non busy day or something like that so we were able to get on uh start our Our Journey Anytime whenever the train left and when it returns just we didn't have a set time to return so that was really nice and we didn't know about that until we already purchased a ticket so we're because we thought we had to pre-plan our times and know what time we wanted to leave and it turns out we left at an hour and there was a difference of an hour between the time we actually left and the time that we scheduled so that was nice because it was during non non- peak hours um okay so the proximity to an airport so the airport is not super close so the airport we have at 89 miles uh away from Ramsgate so it's not uh prohibitive but it's not super close but you have several ways to get there uh one of the ways is by train which is really easy just walk down on the train get on um with with that uh transportation to the train is about 167 no Transportation uh oh to the the airport from the by using the train is about $160 $166 but also we found and then with that you uh have to change trains or change stations at one point and it's about 2 and 1 half hours to get there and then we found that there is a uh car service or a service to take you to the airport and that's about an hour and a half and it's the same price so exactly the same price when we figured out the conversion it was $166 uh to take the private transport and it saved us an hour in time plus we don't have to change trains or any of that go anywhere to meet the the so as long as they show up to get us it should be good we'll let you know so that is a little bit of a con that the airport is not uh um a half an hour or so away okay activities what is there to do here I mean I feel like uh if you wanted to golf you would have been able to golf there's a golf course local yes uh they have clubs for everything and we've seen them out and about um we've seen running clubs we've seen Lawn Bowling what's the other they're uh shuffle board they're just yeah there just all sorts of things to do it's just like a a typical City that's uh involved and they want everybody involved and there's you you can just do anything uh they have a like a super active Facebook page where they tell you about all the things that are happening but like okay so sailing there's there's scuba diving there's height surfing there everything you can everything you can imagine uh uh I know several of you are um uh what's that not tennis pickle ball there's pickle ball there's all all the things you can even go uh kayaking jet skiing um so this is a very active Community they also have a super active like theater and dance community and so there's a little bit of everything and they have all kinds of parades and celebrations and fairs I mean that's one of the things we love about when we go walking there's something going on somewhere out here that's different from yesterday and so there's always something going there's always on the street there's always some type of what we would call a farmers market where they have fruits and vegetables they have food they have knickknacks to buy they have what whatever you can think of is there for people to sell and then it's there for a few hours and then it's gone how about uh for us like we come from Southern California and so we think it's a very dog dog friendly place that we come from but it is nothing compared to the dogs here uh in Ramsgate they are a dog loving community and they are out and about everywhere walking them taking them with them to the restaurants like uh uh it is a dogly even at Thea resturants or outside of uh shops uh businesses they have uh uh dog water bowls that they put out there and it's just it's just a nice thing to see and and everybody has a dog yeah everybody has at least a dog but most people have multiple dogs uh so so that's really wonderful to see uh okay so culture I would just say they uh like I said very active Facebook page there's activities going on they do have a local community theater actually yeah I would say it's a community theater where they have have events um um musicals plays uh concerts all kinds of things happening there uh they have quirky museums and lots of uh history and a very uh active community and then nearby so um probably the biggest city is London that's near to here um but that is a 2hour about train ride away um lots of day trips because the train station is local so you can go all kinds of places from here and then um there are plenty of other Seaside towns that you could get to either on the bus or for us we just walk to them right okay uh oh even what we didn't do but we talked about doing you could even go to a town called do which you could get to on the bus um and then from Dover you could take a um a ship or a boat over to France so you could spend uh you could leave one beach in Dober and head over to another beach in France um and you could do that as a day trip so we talked about that but we didn't do that uh how about the food scene uh very good a lot of fish and chips we probably ate more than we should I do feel like we've eaten we always we always tried to like in the states where we're at we we'll get fish and chips and it's it's good but it's it's nothing like here like the portions the portions that we've found so far are huge and uh it's really good and there's different uh types of restaurant we went to a a Thai restaurant that was fantastic it overlooked the marina it was beautiful it's been here forever and came highly recommended and uh we also went to an Italian restaurant that was very good delicious um Indian and and then what's funny about the Tha restaurant is I was telling daffne you can make any restaurant nice if you put chairs outside and let people sit on the sidewalk and it was just fantastic to be able to sit outside drink a a Thai beer at the Thai restaurant it was it was it was really good yeah I do feel like any kind of food you want you can get here so there is definitely a food scene going on here um of course they have the big pubs uh where we've gotten lots of full English breakfast they even have the largest weather spoon in all of the United Kingdom so they have uh it's called The Royal Victoria Pavilion uh it's beautiful and it sits right on the beach and so uh it's just um weather spoons are like an English uh Pub um but this is um um the largest one in the United Kingdom it's also really beautiful so I feel like you will not go wrong with food here anything you uh want you can get and there's some really nice restaurants um okay Healthcare can't speak too much to it thankfully uh we didn't have to use it uh you know they have the National Health Care System here but specifically in Ramsgate um there are two medical centers but the nearest hospital is in the next town over and it's about 15 minutes away all right how about here's here's uh how about crime well we looked up crime and it it came out of six out of 10 and so we thought okay it's just like crime is everywhere and uh you you look up the the average crime that that that is reported here and it ended up being violence and and which was unusual cuz you tend to think of like theft or pickpocketing or or something like that I don't know that's I I tend to think like that that it's probably some kind of um theft but no violence was the um the number one sort of crime um and I would say that when we're out and about like it just feels like any normal City it just um we've had a couple of moments where there's uh um just out at an odd time and there might be an odd group that we've kind of gone oh let's let's let's walk over here but nothing uh nothing to indicate that you would need to be frightened here right so it's just a typical it just seems like a typical City yeah okay um and then the next so I would say that that crime six out of 10 isn't the best but you know uh it it is what it is and we haven't felt unsafe no um uh okay and then the cost of living here so this cost of living so the average salary when we looked that up was just under 40,000 uh dollars per year uh a typical teacher they said uh makes about $35,000 uh per year and then we looked at rental so we're renting an Airbnb which is a higher cost than if you were renting something like you need something for a year so we looked up some uh rental cost and so it looked like you could get a studio for about $845 a month you could get a two-bedroom detached home and all of these were really cute places that we totally would go to um a detached home for about $1,100 a month and then a three-bedroom detached home for about $1,800 a month so so it's better rental cost than what you could get certainly in uh where we were at in Southern California so the actual housing was cheaper um so and then we had some typical costs um so like a glass of wine out was anywhere from $8 to $12 um for a glass of wine depending on the size of the wine a beer so you like um like the Guinness yeah have Peroni here and so it's like $6.75 is what we figured it at and then a full English breakfast was about $15 coffee about $450 so so the prices are are pretty much the we we're finding out it's kind of the same as from where we're at but then we're also in a tourist area next to the beach so it was like okay that's not too bad but then uh when we went to canabury uh cheap just you know 20 minutes away they were a little bit cheaper so they're not right uh canterburry isn't on the beach or anything like that but uh it's about 20 minutes away and it was a little bit cheaper so that kind of makes sense so the cost of living here for everyday stuff is about the same as what we were paying in the United States for where we live yeah and where I'd say the United States is expensive I would say that here has um been expensive so now we've never lived on a $5,000 a month budget but that is our budget right now and so we are trying to stay under $5,000 a month so that I would say that the cost of living here is probably the biggest negative for um me right and then also um so could we live here longterm what would you say uh longterm no we couldn't live here long term but we could be here if this is a spot that we need to be at for 30 days in order to be able to stay in the shangan area a little bit longer so this be outside the shangan area so this is would be a stop over like we're using right now and be perfect and I would not mind coming back here again me either I've been really happy here I feel like uh this little town has had so much uh for us to do that we haven't had the itch or the urge to go a bunch of other places um we've been super happy and so I would come back here in a heartbeat for um a time outside of the shangan um and so the big deal thing would be the weather so we'd have to time it right we'd have to be here in the summer months again and then we just have to know that um you know we'll have to watch our budget when we're here and uh so that would be a no for long term but an absolute yes we're super glad that we got to experience this and we would encourage anybody to come here um for a vacation or if you were looking for a place to come outside of the shangan Zone this is a great one all right so we hope that you'll join join us next week where we go over our budget uh we're going to detail for you all of our expenses yeah cross our fingers we'll detail all of our expenses for our time that we've been here and let you know if we made that $5,000 budget or not so we hope you'll join us it's close y all right bye-bye bye