This year has made us seriously question our lifestyle choices. With working from home continuing to be the new normal (and many of us hoping it stays that way), the idea of leaving London or another big city has never been more tempting.
Even if you grew up hundreds of miles away from the coast, there's something incredibly soothing about being by the sea, so it's no surprise that coastal towns are attracting more interest from people who fancy living somewhere more peaceful.
With this in mind, it's interesting to check out research highlighting the best coastal towns in the UK to relocate to. Obviously, what makes somewhere the perfect place to live is entirely subjective – if you have a strong emotional connection to your hometown, it's likely that nowhere else will ever quite compare.
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Still, the folks at Compare My Move have been as objective as possible by giving 150 of the UK's coastal towns a score out of 100 based on six key factors. These are: average house value, average full-time salary, average temperature, average rainfall, a beach review score our of five, and average water quality. (The latter will be especially important if you're keen to get into wild swimming).
The picturesque seaside town of Whitstable in Kent, which is about 1hr 15m from London by train, places top with an overall score of 81.91 out of 100. The average house prize there is £394,403 – quite a lot above the UK's national average of £231,185, but quite a lot below the eye-watering London average of £476,588.
Two towns on England's south coast – Seaford in East Sussex and Swanage in Dorset – place second and third on the list. The average house price in Seaford is £347,304, while in Swanage it's £375,818. The latter scores an especially impressive 4.9 out of 5 in the beach review category.
Camber in East Sussex, which is home to a very popular beach with stunning sand dunes, and has a relatively affordable average house prize of £288,227, also places high on the list. Check out the top 10 coastal towns to relocate to, as ranked by Compare My Move, in the table below.