British In Poland

With reports of anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million Poles now living in the U.K. it does indeed seem strange that I went “against the flow” and now live in Poland. But after marrying a Polish girl and becoming disillusioned with life in England we decided to make a change.

Not wanting to commute into london until I'm 65, getting burgled just before Christmas 2005 and seeing the groups of sometimes 30 or more hoodies congregating on street corners were the deciding factors. We looked at the possibility of moving to Poland and soon realised that with the equity in our house, we could have the same sized house mortgage-free in Poland. With no mortgage to worry about and very low living costs I realised that this would buy me enough time to try and start a business of my own.

So in 2006 I sold my car and bought an old van. In September we put the house on the market. In October we quit our jobs, loaded up the van and drove to Poland.

It took us a little time to get organised over here, but in 2007 we bought a house south of Kraków, we bought a car and in February 2008 our first baby was born. So everything looks set for the future.