Spending time outdoors is great. I love it. But I’m a pragmatist at heart. Suburbia and most orbital towns here suffer from about a 30 year backward shift in thinking and an an abhorrent social decay. On top of that as you get older your dependency on convenience increases rapidly. I’ve seen lots of older people move to their utopian retirement property in the countryside and end up completely isolated and in trouble. It’s not a nice way to live your life and I certainly wouldn’t want to force that dependency of care on my children one day.
Plus it’s about variety. I’ve lived in the countryside and there’s bugger all to do if you live in one place. Even the good bits get boring after a bit. Thus it’s better to travel to different bits from somewhere.
Ah OK I see.... you really like it where you are !
Great, I don't have to feel sorry for you then, and instead I can make fun of your tiny combined office/lab/bedroom, yeah !
The space issue will be solved as soon as your kids start leaving the house....
As for me I ahjd no choice but start life in the city, renting various flats ... it was hell on earth as we say... people just are noisy, sell drugs, shit on your car, scratch it, climb on it, piss on your windows (I was at the ground floor next the building's entrance... not good), stole my bike, twice. Party all night long all days of the week, etc etc... That's where I developed a strong repulsion towards human kind. I dreamed of only one thing : SILENCE AND PEACE !!!
So when I my employer, well ex-employer asked me again to move from one town to another... I though if I move I might as well try to find a HOUSE for rent this time, in a little village. Found one, old a crappy, inconvenient... but..... no drug dealers, no partying any more, just animals and PEACE. I could actually REST on my bed, any time of day or night, any day of the week.. I found this so priceless that any other material considerations went out the window ! I also grew fond of the little village this house was in, so in 2017 or so, when interest rates plummeted down to 1% or so, I was able to borrow just enough money to build a little house... and it so happened that the only place not too far from town, that had lands I could afford... was the little village I was actually renting in. So that's cool, I could stay in that village I like. I would rather kill myself than go back to the city in a flat.
It's win-win : I live far enough from the city to surrounded by nature, with everything I need (groceries, several doctors, pharmacy, baker...), yet only 5 minutes from the motorway, 10 minutes from the airport/Airbus/work, 15 minutes from town center if I ever need to go there...
I also have a fire fighter house in my village just 500m from my house...
Living far away in the country side I agree is a pain... be it when you are old because hospital and emergency services are too far away.... but it's also a pain when you are younger and still working, because the cost of petrol and car maintenance these days is astronomical, and living 50kms away from work would steal 30% of your salary. Not to mention the TIME you spend driving which is wasted ! You will never get it back !