London leavers: 'Rent in Elephant and Castle was £1,200 a month — in Ramsgate we can save for our first home'

After being grounded by the pandemic, Scarlett Aldridge and her partner Jack Hancock were ready for a break. In late 2022 they treated themselves to a long holiday taking in South East Asia and New Zealand.

Scarlett’s family had emigrated from the UK to New Zealand when she was ten — she returned to the UK in her early twenties — and so the trip was in many ways a homecoming.