Rosie Percy, a 33-year-old audience development editor, swapped south London for the Kent coast two years ago and has never looked back.

Here she explains why moving from the city to the seaside is the best thing she ever did...

When a friend relocated to the Kent coast from Brighton in 2017 I had two questions.

Why were they moving when I loved to visit them there from London? And where on earth was Folkestone?

They proved their point quickly on my first visit, showing me their favourite places – the Triennial artworks, the Old High Street, the Harbour Arm – and after just 24 hours I said: “I could see myself living here."

But this was long before working from home was a thing, and I still needed to be in a Shoreditch office five days a week.

So in the meantime I started an Instagram account called @CoolAsFolke, to document my visits to Folkestone, and all the things I loved about this town I’d previously known nothing about.

Fast forward to 2021 and I was fully remote, so said goodbye to my draughty flat in Crystal Palace and finally moved to Folkestone.

Renting was incredibly competitive – even more so than my eight years on the London rental scene – due to people doing the same as me, and leaving en masse after the pandemic.

It was around this time that I first heard “DFL” – meaning Down From London, applied to the city-dwellers relocating to the seaside.

There was a little resistance at first, and I could see why. Rents were rising as landlords took advantage of an influx of London salaries, and some older businesses closed following the initial wave of gentrification.

The change was tough for some and took some getting used to, but generally, I feel welcomed as a DFL.

The term is only used playfully now, rather than begrudgingly – even one of my favourite Kent-brewed beers has been named after DFLs.

I knew that moving to Folkestone would mean adapting, but I had no idea how much being a full-time DFL would change everything.

My friends were no longer on my doorstep, and dropping into the pub for someone’s birthday drinks took precise planning and a train fare.

Making new mates was tricky too – it’s not as easy as asking someone to be friends like we did in the playground.

I also worried about missing out on the culture I’d gotten used to while living in London, with an endless choice of restaurants, galleries, museums, and live music to pick from on any day of the week, that I could get to with just the tap of an Oyster card. How would I fare without my like-minded community around me, and all of my favourite places to go to?

Luckily, I didn’t have to worry for long. I leveraged the Instagram account I’d created to show off the town to introduce myself and share honest snippets of adjusting to my new life here, and it resonated with a lot of people.

As the account grew, more people got in touch who were going through the same thing (or just wanted a recommendation for really good pizza), and I started to form a network of new friends.

I went to gigs with people I’d not met before, grabbed a morning coffee with neighbours, and sat in a pub for hours learning about my new pals. It didn’t take long for my circle to grow, and now I feel a sense of community I never quite had in London.

I love the city still, and the people I know in it, but in Folkestone there’s an intangible sense of togetherness that I can’t really explain. Perhaps it’s the sea air or the smaller town, but there’s a sense of letting our walls down, softening the edges of the hard shell that stressful London built around us, allowing us to truly be ourselves, and open-minded to others.

Missing out on culture wasn’t a concern either. Folkestone’s food and drink scene features the Grace Dent-approved Folkestone Wine Company, dive bar burger joint Lucky Chip (voted as one of London’s best burgers), locally-sourced Marleys, and new wine bars Pulp Fiction and John Dory.

Some places are local staples but others are new additions that are opening all the time, meaning my only problem is picking which one I want to go to.

Folkestone’s creative scene satisfies all my art needs too – the regeneration of Tontine Street into a hub of galleries, workshops, and exhibition spaces means there’s always something to experience, and the triennial installations around the town include work from world-famous artists such as Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, and Gilbert & George. Granted, there’s not quite as many options as there were in London, but with all of this being just a 10 minute walk from my front door, I can’t complain.

It’s not just my friends and social life that have changed: I have too. I used to Uber everywhere and was scared of seaweed, now I go wild swimming in winter and think a long walk is the sign of a good weekend.

I can tell that I’m kinder, more myself, and genuinely who I want to be. And despite the occasional blip, my mental health has never been better, after a long battle with anxiety.

I’ve even managed to buy my first home, which was something that would never have been possible in London, without a Bank of Mum or Dad to fall back on.

It’s now been two years since I left London for Folkestone, and it’s still the best thing I ever did.

I’m not sure on the statute of limitations on when you stop being a DFL and just a local, but I feel like I’m on my way.