Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps the context of this thread has been lost. It started out with me asserting that you get poor return outside of London. Personally, I think there's little point in living in the UK outside of London. There's far nicer places to live if you're willing to take a hit in salary. (And no, I'm not British.)
What places would you suggest? My argument was a PPP and quality-of-life one, really. Moving to Edinburgh has worked out quite nicely in that regard.
I spend most of my money on travel, motorcycles, food and fine wine (in particular, aged fortified wines in the 3-digit price range). Food is the only one particularly affected by PPP. A typical meal out for two costs £60 to £200, depending quality and wine bought. I'll spend more on a special occasion. But living outside London, I'd have a harder time finding great places to eat. My experience from touring the UK is that there are more hearty, good value options especially as you go north, but fine dining gets scarcer.
Travel is really important to me, touring by motorcycle specifically. But the south of England is very flat, and the fastest way to the continent is a train to France. Once you land in France, you have to cross it to get to wherever you're going. Alternately, one can take a ferry and suffer excruciating boredom only marginally worse than a motorway.
Almost anywhere in central Europe would be better for biking - southeast France, northern Italy, southern Germany, Austria - or northern Spain, if I didn't want to leave the country for some of the best roads in the world. More snow in winter, mind, but I could live with that. Certainly, the roads in the UK are among the worst in western Europe, outside of Belgium and possibly Ireland - though Ireland has had a lot of investment, they've built some very odd roads.
I grew up on the west coast of Ireland. My willingness to tolerate rainy days is no longer very high.
