Renae Wsik, her husband Pawel and daughter Rocca have left Hertfordshire for a Greek island village
Child Rocca choosing fruit (Picture: renaesmithmc/Cowl Pictures)
By the point the relentless rain-drenched winters, hovering family prices and perpetual gloom of life in Britain lastly took their toll, Renae Wąsik realised she’d reached breaking level. “I felt like I used to be going loopy,” admits the 43-year-old PR govt.
“Gray skies make me really feel unhappy, bleak and trapped. I did not need my child rising up in that.”
So final November, Renae and her husband Pawel took the plunge, abandoning their existence in Welwyn Backyard Metropolis, Hertfordshire, and relocating with their two 12 months outdated daughter, Rocca, to an obscure village unfamiliar to most Britons: Vasiliki, located on the Greek island of Lefkada, nestled between Corfu and Kefalonia. Simply months on, she describes the transformation as nothing wanting revolutionary.
“Within the UK, we have been paying near £3,000 a month simply to stay, that lined lease, council tax and utilities, for a suburban house with a tiny backyard,” she explains. “It was moist, depressing and exhausting. Now we’re renting an low season Airbnb for €800 (£690) a month, I can stroll to the ocean, and I get up feeling free.”
Renae, who established The Atticism PR and Model Improvement, has cast a formidable profession spanning greater than 20 years and incessantly paperwork her Mediterranean journey on TikTok, the place her content material has garnered greater than half one million likes. But her choice hasn’t been universally celebrated.
Whereas some followers fantasise about emulating her daring transfer, critics have branded her ‘privileged’, ‘out of contact’, and even accused her of ‘stealing housing from locals’. Renae firmly rejects such claims.
“Folks say it is ‘not that simple’ to stay and work abroad, and so they’re proper,” she explains. “It is not simple. But it surely’s additionally not unattainable. If it is really your purpose, you will work for it. Nothing falls in your lap.”
Renae Wąsik with Pawel and Rocca (Picture: renaesmithmc/Cowl Pictures)
She rejects claims that she’s merely taking benefit with out giving again in return. “We have been actually aware about contributing,” she insists.
“I work in PR and I assist get the island press publicity without spending a dime. Pawel is a painter and decorator and has been serving to locals who’re determined for expert labour. We’re residing in an low season Airbnb that sits empty all winter, and once we construct our home, we’ll rent native trades. This is not a ‘take, take, take’ state of affairs.”
The psychological transformation, she reveals, occurred immediately. “The second we arrived, my husband and I checked out one another and mentioned, ‘Oh my God, we escaped’,” she recalled.
“The UK seems like a rat wheel. You’re employed to stay, and by the weekend you are so exhausted you simply wish to order Deliveroo, which is so costly you need to work much more. Right here, the stress simply lifted.”
She characterises Britain as suffocating. “The sky feels low. Every thing feels heavy. Right here, I see the ocean and sky each single day. There’s house. I really feel calm. I can breathe once more,” she states.
Renae is raring to emphasize that Greek island residing is not some picture-perfect postcard fantasy. “In case you’ve completed Santorini or Mykonos and assume that is actual life, you are in for a shock,” she warns.
“It rains, loads. There is not any meals comfort. I’ve misplaced three kilos as a result of I can not simply snack each time I need. Generally I truthfully cannot have a look at one other courgette.”
Renae Wąsik with husband Pawel and child Rocca in 2024 (Picture: renaesmithmc/Cowl Pictures)
However she shrugs. “I sacrifice comfort for peace.”
An sudden component that additionally performed a job in her option to depart Britain was a sequence of profoundly exasperating encounters with the NHS, which finally drove her to pursue surgical procedure abroad. “I’ve had some ineffective experiences,” she states frankly.
“I used to be as soon as advised I might need breast most cancers after which needed to wait six weeks for a scan. Later, they mentioned one in every of my breast implants had capsulated and so they’d take away only one.”
When she requested each be taken out, even providing to cowl the associated fee herself, she was turned down. “They mentioned they’d take one out, sew me up, and I might must kind the opposite privately later,” she remembers. “It was insane.”
As an alternative, she travelled to Turkey, the place a guide found each implants have been compromised. “I used to be fortunate I went,” she displays.
“The NHS has potential, however the system is chaotic. I’ve had blood exams misplaced, appointments tousled, they even unintentionally deleted my daughter from the surgical procedure system whereas she had a 40-degree fever and refused to see us. It is simply been a multitude.”
For Rocca, the relocation has been life-changing. “The outside!” Renae beams.
“Sunshine, even in December. She’s not caught inside watching TV, she’s climbing rocks, enjoying with water, exploring. And she or he’s seen right here.”
In Greece, she explains, children obtain correct recognition. “In eating places, workers greet her, make a fuss, discuss to her. It took months for her to get used to it. Within the UK, she was principally ignored.”
Their day by day routine now strikes at a totally completely different rhythm. “We get up with out alarms. Espresso in mattress. We work till lunchtime whereas Rocca performs exterior portray or in her sandpit,” she explains.
“Lunch is easy, most days are spinach pies or salad. Then we discover: seashores, neighbouring cities, counting cats.”
The evenings are leisurely and convivial. “We prepare dinner early, eat round 5pm, perhaps take a stroll or learn. It is relaxed and peaceable.”
Renae Wąsik spent the final day of 2025 exploring the center mountain on their island (Picture: renaesmithmc/Cowl Pictures)
This is not merely a short-term escapade both. “Oh sure, that is without end,” Renae confirms.
“We have purchased a 4,600-square-metre plot of land overlooking the ocean for lower than the worth of a one-bedroom flat in Bedfordshire. We’ll construct our house right here.”
Beginning late March, the household will settle right into a two-bedroom property for €500 (£430) month-to-month, inside simple attain of ferries, seashores, a marina and contemporary fishing boats, full with a balcony laden with orange, lemon and mandarin bushes.
“Our neighbour offers us all of the olive oil we’d like, and we’ll assist him with the harvest,” she beams. “Everybody helps everybody. It is an actual group.”
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Renae continues to return to the UK for skilled commitments and visits together with her two elder daughters, aged 22 and 23, although Britain now not seems like house. “I am going to all the time come again,” she notes. “However this, that is the place we’re constructing our life.”
And for these observing from a colorless British sofa, pondering the feasibility? “I am not saying everybody ought to do it,” she asserts. “I am saying I did, and I am lastly completely satisfied.”
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