Why We're NOT Living in Cape Town Full-Time (Despite Getting PR)

If you've been watching our recent videos, you'll know that I've just received my permanent residency in South Africa. Now we own a home in Cape Town, we've spent significant part of our lives there, and we regularly tell you how much we enjoy the lifestyle. So why haven't we moved there full-time? Why do we still maintain a home in the UK, pay bills on 2 properties, and then travel between the 2 countries? Many of you have asked this question in the comments. You've told us how amazing the Cape winter has been this year, so we are wrong to avoid the Cape Town winter. Others think our concerns about South Africa must be greater than what we admit, or at least their concerns are. The truth is way less dramatic, but far more complicated. Permanent residency has given us the right to make South Africa a permanent part of our future. It hasn't told us whether living in Cape Town for 12 months of every year would actually suit us, and until we test drive that reality properly, we simply don't know.

For now, both South Africa and the UK still feel like home. We grew up in the UK, much of our shared history is here, and we have lifelong friendships that we cherish. And of course, our family and parents are still also in the UK, so being in the same country makes those relationships easier to maintain. The UK also gives us familiarity. We understand the humour, the culture, and how everyday life works, even though we complain about it. And at the same time, long term, we don't necessarily want the UK to remain our base for every Northern Hemisphere summer. We've been searching for somewhere that might eventually replace it as the place we physically spend those months. That doesn't mean replacing our family, friendships, or connection to Britain. It means asking whether another location might suit the retirement lifestyle that we want to plan for. And after exploring a number of locations in Europe, for the first time we are wondering if we've been ignoring what is right in front of our faces and now thinking that actually Cape Town could be that place. But truth be told, we've only experienced Cape Town during the warmer South African summer months. That means we're not yet really comparing a full year in the UK with a full year in Cape Town. We're comparing 2 selected versions of each country, and that isn't really a fair reality check. Now, before going any further, let me briefly clarify our position. James and I applied for permanent residency together in 2024. We understood it to be one joint application because we're married and our circumstances Our circumstances are closely connected, and so we applied as one joint family application.

However, unbeknownst to us, the Department of Home Affairs treats this type of joint family submission as 2 separate applications. And if you watched last week's video, you'll know that my permanent residency has been granted. After all the waiting, costs, and uncertainty, receiving that confirmation was enormous relief. But James is still waiting for his outcome. We have heard that a decision's been made, but at the time of recording it's not yet been communicated to us, and I guess it's currently winging its way from Pretoria to London, and we hope to hear within the next few weeks, and of course we'll let you know when we do. For us, permanent residency provides greater long-term security and just makes life simpler. Cape Town was already one of our homes. As I said, we've got a property, friends, routines, and responsibilities there. We know the neighborhood, we— where we shop, where we go for coffee, and what an ordinary weekday life feels like. Permanent residency makes our connection to South Africa less temporary, and it allows us to consider long-term choices with greater confidence. But here's what it doesn't do. It doesn't oblige us to live in South Africa throughout the year. It doesn't remove the costs of, of maintaining 2 homes, and it doesn't resolve the questions about healthcare, tax, yes, safety, insurance. and of course our UK ties.

Now we come to the part that is much less emotional, the actual real costs, because maintaining 2 homes might sound like the best of both worlds, but financially it means paying for both worlds at the same time. So over a typical year, our flights between the UK and South Africa for both of us cost around £3,000 to £4,000, and our combined fixed household bills including council tax or levies, utilities, internet, insurance, and the other unavoidable costs comes to roughly £860 or R19,000 a month, or £10,320 a year. And then of course you've got those irregular costs— something needs repairing whilst we're in the other country, a service charge increases, a flight becomes more expensive because the dates we wanted aren't available, or the exchange rate moves against us. That doesn't automatically make keeping 2 homes a bad decision, but it means flexibility has a real price. So does that cost genuinely buyers freedom, or are we paying a substantial amount to maintain a pattern that we haven't properly questioned? This is where our test drive philosophy becomes important. We don't believe that you can judge a retirement destination from a holiday. A place can be absolutely wonderful for a few weeks, and completely unsuitable for a long stay, and our recent Croatia trip reinforced that. We love many things about the country, but the summer heat, the crowds, the prices, and the practicalities of everyday life made us question whether we could genuinely live there, and the answer was no. Cape Town deserves the same honest test. Many viewers tell us the winter is mild and that we're missing one of the best times of year. We also have friends who stay throughout the year in South Africa, and they absolutely love it. They talk about crisp sunny days, quieter restaurants, uncrowded beaches, and just a calmer version of the city. But other people describe the rain, the wind, the shorter days, and how, how cold Cape Town homes can feel. You know, both versions of that can be true. A pleasant winter's day wouldn't answer the question, neither would one week of heavy rain. To test drive Cape Town as a genuine all-year-round full-time retirement base, we would need to experience an entire winter as residents. That means ordinary routines rather than sightseeing. It means dealing with the weather, heating the apartment, doing the shopping, and seeing how the city feels in the depths of winter. It also means discovering what we would miss about the UK. And would we miss the British summer? I mean, after all, it's been amazing this year. Would we feel too far removed from friends and family? With the financial savings of operating one principal home, Outweigh the loss of a UK base, or would we discover that Cape Town works perfectly well for us throughout every single season? So what do you think? Would you permanently trade a UK summer for a Cape Town winter? Do leave us a comment and let me know your thoughts. So why don't we live in Cape Town for the entire year? Because we don't yet have enough evidence that it would be the right decision, and the timing isn't right yet for us either. But it will possibly be in a few years' time. Permanent residence has removed one uncertainty while exposing several others. It gives us the security to consider Cape Town as a full-time retirement base, but it doesn't tell us how we would feel after a wet winter, many months away from our UK friendships and family, or a year without the familiar— familiarity of our old routines. Then there's the financial question. Maintaining 2 homes costs approximately £10,320, or that's R229,000 every year. This is a significant price for flexibility, but giving up a home that still matters to us would also carry a cost, even if that cost doesn't appear as a line on a spreadsheet. This is why we don't want to manufacture a neat conclusion to this video, as much as that would be good for clicks on YouTube. We may eventually discover that living in Cape Town throughout the year is the obvious answer, and in the next few years we will definitely road test this idea, but we also may find that dividing our time still gives us enough value to justify the cost and the inconvenience, and at the moment we just genuinely don't know. And for us that is the point of test driving retirement. Cape Town is one possibility for the Northern Hemisphere summers, But there are also still many other places we want to explore before we arrive at the right answer for us. Now, if you were in our position, what would you do? Would you keep both homes despite the annual cost? Would you get out of the UK base and test a full year in Cape Town, or would you go somewhere else? Do leave a comment and let us know, and as you know, I reply to every single comment. But as always, thank you so much for watching. And we will see you next Sunday.