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Top Tips for Moving to The UK From Abroad?

Angela Manning Travel , , , , , , ,
Top Tips for Moving to The UK From Abroad?

Moving abroad always brings a mixture of emotions. Moving is an exciting, wonderful but nerving and sometimes scary time, which is completely natural. Whenever you make a big life decision like this, there is no better way to feel safer in your move than by being prepared. To give you a helping hand, we’ve put together this article with some top tips to get you ready for your move whilst removing your fears!

Plan Ahead

As soon as you’ve decided to make the move, you can start planning. If you’re a ‘leave it to the last minute’ type of person, then you need to change your ways as this isn’t something you can wing. Seat leasing and planning ahead is definitely the best way to go, get plotting out your route, creating lists of what you’ll need and writing down everything you can think of such as what you need to do and what you need to get sorted as part of the move. In the beginning, just literally listing everything you can possibly think of and then formalise it into more of an order at a later date. You can put things into categories and begin to timeline when need to have things boxed off by. If it’s a route you’ll planning, there are some handy digital maps you can use that plot out the best route and how long it will take you. 

Visiting the Place for a Recce

If possible, it always helps if you visit your new location before you move. What can be good the first time, may not be as good the second so if you can make sure you visit the place multiple times before you make your move to your new home. If you visit at differing times, you’ll get a full picture of the place and get a feel for the people and place, making it easier to adjust in the long run as you’ll have an idea of what to expect.

Build A Network

If you move to the UK it’s crucial that you create a network of friends and work contacts. With mobile technology, you’d be surprised at how easy this can be. Through avenues such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it has never been easier to connect with people from afar that you don’t know. Start by performing a simple search for some local clubs, societies and groups that you want to get involved with when you’re over there. You can even get some events planned before you get there! This will mean that you can hit the ground running when the big day comes.

Get the Important Things Boxed Off 

So after the big news of Brexit, immigration has been a under the spotlight in the country. Therefore, it has never been more important to have your documents in order for when you move across. Make sure you have a valid passport, your visa or EEA family permit if you’re moving with the whole gang and any insurance you’ll need. It is the boring stuff but it is also the most important. If this isn’t your strong suit you can opt to speak to immigration lawyers in London as they’ll be able to provide you with advice suited to your situation – it’s better not to mess this part up so if you’re not the most organised, you should seek help.

Get Strict in The Early Days

Excitement is bound to get you through the early days, but you will need to be disciplined when the honeymoon period wears off. It is at this point you need to get strict. Get a plan together and stick to it. Start contributing to your new life, build that new network and immerse yourself into the community. By doing this you will get support at the toughest part of relocation and enjoy all the benefits it has to offer. Once you have established yourself as a valuable part of the community, you’ll settle in much quicker and you’ll get off to a flying start in your new British location!

Good luck!

Reasons To Visit London This Christmas

Angela Manning Travel , , , ,
Reasons To Visit London This Christmas

We’re approaching the time of year when everyone starts to think about one final mini-break before Christmas truly arrives. Those last two or three weeks of December always go past at a frantic pace, with little time to pause or relax, so many of us go away for a long weekend to charge our batteries before it’s too late.

There are plenty of places to go, both in the UK and abroad, but it might not always be wise or desirable to spend money leaving the country when you have the festive season approaching. You’re likely to be spending a lot on gifts and entertainment, so you don’t want to leave yourself short by blowing it all on a trip to Rome, even if that does sound wonderful.

The UK has plenty of destinations to choose from for a few days away. It sometimes feels like ‘the done thing’ is to head to the countryside for a while, and that can be a great choice. The scenery is beautiful, and it never hurts to get back to nature. At this time of year, though, it can be a little too cold and dark. So why not show England’s capital some love instead?

If you already live there, try Birmingham or Manchester instead. See what you can find further North. But if you don’t, then here are a few good reasons to consider London for a pre-Christmas visit.

See Hyde Park Winter Wonderland

If you’ve never been to Hyde Park, you’ll have no appreciation of the scale of us. Trust us when we say it’s a really big place. Every year, Hyde Park turns itself into a Winter Wonderland that would be the envy of any city in the world. The entire park becomes a living, breathing Christmas town full of entertainment and excitement.

There’s far too much going on for us to detail here, but just to give you the headlines there’s a magical ice kingdom, a full sized theme park, a Bavarian market, an ice bar, and a complete Land of Santa. There are ice sculpting workshops. There’s a comedy stage. If you could imagine such a thing, this is the Glastonbury Festival of Christmas. There’s entertainment and activities for adults and children alike, and plenty of it.

Hit The Casinos

Very few people don’t enjoy the thrill of an occasional flutter. Whether your chosen method is bingo, lotteries, roulette or slot machines, there are plenty of casinos to be found in London which should cater to your tastes. Recent years have seen a lot of gambling move online. While there’s no denying the sophistication and variety of Clover Casino’s Games and websites like it, with their range of online slot titles and friendly gaming environment, there’s still a lot to be said for visiting a casino in person every now and then.

London has quite the extensive range of them. Just standing in Leicester Square, you’re within walking distance of Horizons Casino, the Hippodrome Casino, The Rialto and the Empire Casino. With all the lights shining bright in the winter’s dark, it’s like you’ve somehow wandered into the middle of the Las Vegas strip. And who knows, you might even win yourself some extra Christmas spending money!

Walk The Kew Gardens Light Trail

Kew Gardens is a tourist attraction worth seeing all year round. The massive, beautiful botanical gardens hosts displays, lectures and events from all over the world. Guided talks can give you a sense of the history of both the gardens themselves, and the plants and features to be found there. The story of how the gardens were affected by both world wars is particularly emotional, but it’s the Christmas Light Trail you really have to see.

Every December, Christmas arrives at Kew Gardens, and the after-dark festive trail of lights become open for families to walk down. The incredible display features over a million individual bulbs. The woods become glittering canopies, as laser displays skip across the skies. It’s a truly awe inspiring experience which seems to get bigger every year.

Carnaby Christmas Festival

If you’ve never heard of Carnaby Christmas Festival, you’re in for a real treat. Carnaby Street is forever associated with the sixties, where the street, the bars and shops on it and the people who visited it seemed to sum up the entire era happening around them. It’s managed to keep its finger firmly on the cultural zeitgeist since then, and every Christmas it hosts a carnival.

The carnival looks like something that would be more at home in Rio de Janeiro in the peak of summer than London at its coldest. This year, the organisers have ordered in neon coconut trees, giant party poppers and exotic birds to give the street a Caribbean flavour, which should go well with the pop up food and drink stalls that always appear in the street this time of year.

All The Reasons You’d Go Any Other Time

Of course, you might want to avoid Christmas while you’re away. You’re going to have to deal with it when it arrives, so why not delay that for a little while and focus on something else while you’re away? So instead of doing any of these things – except maybe hitting those casinos – why not just do the things you’d do in London at any other time of year?

London doesn’t stop being London just because of the season. You can still visit Big Ben. You can still see the Houses of Parliament. It still has Tate Modern and the Southbank Centre. The Tower of London and the Natural History Museum welcome visitors all year round. You’ll definitely see Christmas decorations if you go to look at Westminster Abbey, but it’ll be so beautiful that you won’t mind. Go and take in the sights and sounds of a real East End market. Go to find out what all the fuss is about in Harrod’s, the world’s most exclusive department store. This is London. There is always something to do. There is always something to see.

If reading this has whetted your appetite, then why delay? Christmas will be here before you know it, and then it’ll be 2019. You deserve a break. Give yourself one!