My lifestyle review of London

5 min readSep 19, 2023

After just over 3 weeks in London, I’m heading over to Denver to start the second city in my “Where do I want to live” tour (or more… what do I want in my future lifestyle). As such, here is my review of the city for me, and at the bottom the current scoreboard of where I am likely going to end up!

Affordability (4/10)

Many people I think would be surprised this isn’t 1 out of 10. However, coming from New York I found a number of things much cheaper (in part with the exchange rate). Accommodation is cheaper (it would be half the price to buy here), groceries are cheaper… somehow beer is more expensive (the opposite was true when I left!). Although restaurants feel more expensive, when you take into tip & tax, it is much closer than you’d think (though 12.5% service charge seems to be the norm now)

Friends & Family (9/10)

This is where London is great for me (and likely worse for you unless you are British!). Most of my uni mates are in London (or just outside), one of my sisters lives here, my old Google mates are mainly still in London and it’s only a 2 hour train ride and I’m at my parents house (which feels much closer now I’ve used Amtrak). The reason it is not a 10 is that I feel it’s harder to make friends in this city, and I’d miss my New York friends — I can’t see any city getting higher than this though.

Dating (6/10)

This is an interesting one! Most people don’t know but the reason I ended up getting to New York was partially due to a workplace romance gone wrong. New York felt like things would be easier with more of a dating culture, the British Accent and meeting new people being required so hopefully my love life would improve. London has more of a hang/meet through friends vibe, though the apps seem plentiful & i now have the confidence of US dating behind me that makes things better. Dating someone from the UK also has the benefit of a similar cultural background (or at least getting my bad jokes or references). On a speed dating night though, most people thought I was Australian and I only really connected with someone from Spain, so who knows how I’d really feel about this.

Culture (9/10)

London has silly amounts of culture as anyone that has been there knows. The museums, West End, just walking around and you see it. Since I left I feel London is even more commercialized… in a way that things are more accessible now. Also, the peoples culture is generally very similar to mine… but still diverse across the board as London is a hot pot of backgrounds and cultures.

Night life / logistics (8/10)

London is all about pubs, and I kinda love and miss that. I don’t care for the Nigtclub scene, but I do love a nice New York bar. I actually prefer the Jazz in London, though I am a bit biased there. The tube, overground, buses and trains are great, though a little pricey compared to New York. I actually found cabs cheaper though (blame the exchange rate for that thought though!). I was able to do mini golf in the city and saw pretty much all the novelty fun things that we had in New York (though I definitely want to do the crystal maze! A British Saturday night TV stable)

Health & Fitness (6/10)

I didn’t end up doing any activities that were overly healthy other than walking. London is a very walkable city. The food though seems by default to be more unhealthy (though you can find healthy food and people cook at home more). I love halloumi but it seemed to be in every vegetarian option. It does appear to have plenty of gyms and they are much more reasonably priced. It’s also pretty easy to escape to the country side as well which would help a lot.

Job & startup opportunities (5/10)

As a major city, there are definitely options here — Google still has a big presence (as does the rest of big tech), and there is still a big Ad, Finance and Entertainment scene . Alas with Brexit I feel the startup scene had been cut down a lot. If I was to start my own business, I would likely start a US company as the investment, hiring policies and customer markets are just much better there. Salaries appear to be lower here (again, exchange rate) which would take some getting used to.

Feel of the city (9/10)

Overall London has a great vibe. There is a base culture that I know, so connection can be easier than outside of UK, and London is pretty liberal (though I did have a greasy spoon chef say that I looked “straight” before I ordered a veggie breakfast). I felt I would feel a bit like a failure returning to London but I honestly feel it might be the city for me, especially at this stage in my life.

As such, here is my current chart of how I feel about cities through time…