Best London Suburbs to live in.

Now if you’ve decided to move to the UK, the first thing you’re going to have to check off your London to do list is get yourself a dream home but it’s all pretty useless if you don’t know whereabouts in London you want to live. Hence the massive tube map behind me. Now as I’ve explained in transport, London is divided into zones. Central bay one. Outskirts bay 6. It is also divided into north, south, east and west. So what I’ve done is gone through a few suburbs in each area just to explain why you might want to live there, how to get there and what’s so great about them. Now I’ve taken you to central London, Notting Hill, Shepherds Bush and we’ve come down here to southwest London, Fulham, Hammersmith and Earls Court, taken you up to north London to West Hampstead and all the way down here to Clapham Common where heaps of Australians live. Now if I don’t go through the suburbs on the video, please check out our website www.moving2london.com for all of the other suburbs listed and why they’re so great.

Alright so you guys have heard about Piccadilly Circus, Soho, West End, Leicester Square, Oxford Street, Common Gardens, well this is where you’ve got to come, Central London, otherwise known as W1 in zone 1. Now zone 1 is a little bit expensive. It’s the Notting Hill type style. So if you’re going to stay here for a couple of years, depends on how much you want to pay but if you’re only here a short time, it’s a great place to come to get a great taste of London. Load of different people. Loads of things to do. Loads of different walks of live. It’s just a great place to get a bit of an eclectic taste for what London has to offer. Plus you get to check all those great places off your list.

Now Bayswater is another great place to live. It’s in W2 and that’s in zone 1 so rent is a little more expensive. Bayswater is on the district and circle line but it’s also only a block away from Queensway that way and Queensway is on the central line so you’ve got access to a couple of different lines if you need to get into the city or go to work. At the end of the street you’ve got High Park and that’s great in the summer. Just about a 15 minute walk away is Notting Hill and Portobello Market. Now Bayswater is a really busy place and there are a lot of different people living here and it’s quite a bit of fun. Lots of bars. Lots of pubs as every suburb in London has. There’s a shopping center called Whitelands and has everything you need to make your stay very comfortable.

Now what you guys are looking at right now is Portobello Road on a very busy
Saturday because it’s sunny and Portobello Road is in of course the infamous Notting Hill. Now this is probably one of my favorite places in London and it is just fantastic to go and spend a weekend down there exploring, going to the pubs, going to the coffee shops and checking out the antique market. You can probably find anything and everything that you’re looking for here. They have things for the wall, tea carts. They have pictures, old jewelry. They have old clothes. They have some new clothes as well. Another thing that’s great about Notting Hill is the Notting Hill carnival. This happens in summer around August time and it is massive. I think all of London squishes into Notting Hill and you watch a parade go around the streets of Notting Hill. It is all African American. It’s a big celebration of music and events and sort of straight life. It’s an absolute must if you’re going to be living in London over the summer time.

Now it is pretty expensive to live in Notting Hill. One because it is famous so everyone wants to live there. Two it is in the center of London. This is W1. This is expensive so if you can’t afford the rents there try and get somewhere close and around, near Notting Hill because then you can just walk there and walk to the markets on the weekend and you still feel like you’re living in a little bit of London paradise I suppose.

Looking for another great place to live, Hammersmith is definitely something you could look at. The rent is quite reasonable. We’re in zone 2 and there’s lots of access to different tube lines. There’s the Hammersmith and city, Piccadilly and district and circle lines so you can access a lot of different areas just from Hammersmith and they’ve got a really big bus terminal that has buses all over London. That’s always handy. The transports one thing here. There are loads of shops, it’s pretty self contained and of course loads of pubs. Lots of Australians live here so you can feel quite at home and it’s a pretty area too.

Ah good old Fulham Broadway, a great place to live and not only because I live here, I just think it’s really self contained. It’s got a supermarket just in Fulham Broadway, loads of restaurants, a cinema, gym, it’s close to Chelsea for some fantastic shopping and it’s got some great night spots. There’s also some great markets down on North End Road so you can find fresh fruit and veg. I know amazing to find fresh fruit and veg but you actually can because it’s fresh daily so good for cooking. There’s also a couple of recruiting agents which is always handy when you’re looking for a job and you can’t really be asked to travel 40 minutes on the tube to go to a recruiting agent.

Now Fulham is on the district line, which is south west, still in zone 2, rent is pretty reasonable and you can get some great housing here. It’s also close to Hammersmith, just a bus ride away and Hammersmith, as we’ve said, close to a few different tube lines so it’s pretty central and pretty easy to get to.

Okay, so Earls Court. Now Earls Court is in the southwest of London. It is near Fulham Broadway. You have to go through there to get to Patanin, south Kensington, Micelone Square. It’s a pretty popular place to live. It is quite cheap. They are a lot of budget hostels and hotels around in the area. It is a transport hub so there is access to the Piccadilly line, the circle and the district line so people like living there because you do have lots of options to get in and around London. It’s a little bit dirty and it’s a little bit run down because it’s had it’s day but I mean definitely worth going there because you will find cheaper places and I said it is really close to transport which really is quite important to some people because you can spend a long time on the tubes getting to and from work.

Okay, West Hampstead is a really nice place to live. It’s in zone 2 and it’s up north also on the Jubilee line. A little bit better than Wilson Green. Lots of Aussies live here and the best thing about it is it’s near an overland train which can take you to Hampstead Heath one of the biggest, nicest parks so that’s a great place to go in summer. So West Hampstead, rent is not too bad, great place to live.

Okay, I wanted to talk about Shepherds Bush. It’s not one of my favorite places in London but lots of Australians live here. There’s a Shepherds walk about that’s pretty much what’s famous and Shepherds Bush empire where a lot of great bands come to play so it’s a great place to come and visit when there’s great bands. Not quite sure why people live here. There are buses and lots of shops but a little bit dirty so in turn rents quite reasonable but you’ll find lots of Aussies here if you need some comforts of home again.

Now I’m standing in Clapham Common, a really popular area to live and I think it’s because of this massive park. It’s sort of in the center of all of Clapham. Now Clapham is made up of Clapham North, Clapham South, Clapham Junction and Clapham Common and they’re all relatively in the same area down south in zone 2. Now because they’re quite far down on the northern line the rent is really cheap so that’s why it is popular plus because it’s got such great parks, it’s a great area to relax and not really feel like you’re in true London and the hustle and bustle of it. I think that’s why it’s quite attractive. Plus of course being Australian there’s lots of places to go out, also very important. So Clapham Common, Clapham North, Clapham South or Clapham Junction is a really great place to look for a house.