Phil & Kathy - Relocating from Hong Kong to Guernsey

After nearly thirty years in Hong Kong, Phil & Kathy decided to make the move to Guernsey with their family to enjoy the safety and stability of island life.

Guernsey is quite a change for us compared to Hong Kong, although we were familiar with the Island from a short visit in 2017 to research the background of my great-grandmother, who left Guernsey for Australia in 1886, never to return.

Perhaps it's due to having a distant Guernsey ancestry, but for some reason it very much feels like home already. We grew up in Perth, Western Australia in the 1960's and in those days people didn't lock their houses, there was a lively community spirit and it was common to meet people you knew in the street and engage in lengthy conversations.

We'd wondered if the weather would be difficult to adjust too, but that has not been the case. Kathy's visa was very slow to issue and we arrived in December to a rather bleak and cold landscape. However since then we have been impressed with the number of sunny days, and how the town comes alive with a splash of sunlight on it. The architecture is quite beautiful and in driving around one delights in the beauty of some of the buildings, how pretty the gardens are, and all the little architectural flourishes that make Guernsey stand out from many other places. So we're very excited at the prospect of spring flowers appearing and temperatures rising to the point where picnics beckon.

Why Guernsey?

Life in Hong Kong became very difficult and uncertain. As we are at retirement age we decided there was no future for us there and started looking elsewhere. Our check-list included such things as personal safety, quality of life, ease of access, the ability to settle permanently, a reliable civic infrastructure and an open and welcoming local population. Not many places can tick all those boxes, so Guernsey scored very high marks on our list of possible destinations.

From our previous visit we were aware of some of Guernsey's quirks; the extremely narrow roads, the unreliability of inter-island transport at certain times of the year, the higher cost of living etc. What we weren't expecting were the many hidden delights one finds on such a small Island. Substantial retail shops tucked away in obscure country lanes, interesting and unusual local businesses, restaurants in unexpected and out-of-the-way places. We keep discovering such things!

Settling into island life with the help of Locate Guernsey

Locate Guernsey were most helpful at every stage of our move. Some of the immigration formalities were rather confusing and they were able to clarify them for us. They also introduced us to a number of helpful people on the Island and even invited us to a newcomers party to help us get started here.

Perhaps the most surreal part of our journey was being invited to a Christmas party at a local farm just a few days after our arrival. The ancient stone cottage was submerged in the pitch black of the countryside on a very cold and windy night. But once inside we might as well have been in Chelsea; it was beautifully renovated, warm and somewhat crowded with a most interesting group of local residents. The party was in full swing when we were ushered outside into the darkness, and led by a few intrepid torch-bearers to a nearby crossroad to await the annual tractor parade.

Imagine our surprise as seventy of Guernsey's finest motorised behemoths sped by, all decorated with flashing lights and Christmas decorations, many carrying passengers waving and tooting horns before disappearing into the inky blackness from whence they came. What a fitting introduction to this truly lovely little gem of an Island that continues to surprise us daily.

Thank you Locate Guernsey for all your assistance and encouragement!