I've spent around a fifth of my life in the south west, on and off (most of that in Somerset) - and I just returned here again from Norwich because I find I get on better with people down here than anywhere else in the country.
Supportive evidence of this: I've been here around 7 weeks, and in each one of these weeks, I made more new friends than I made in the entire year I was in Norwich! People down here are chilled out and friendly, especially outside of the biggest cities. I think if you go anywhere
really rural in the UK, you'll encounter more dug-in prejudice against "the outsiders" of whatever kind, but there are parts of rural England that are much more accepting of strangers and of diversity, and Devon is definitely one of them.
I'm living on the back of a pub in a small seaside town, and so far, everyone's been really nice and friendly, in spite of dungarees and wacky earrings and sometimes very orange hair - of course, I haven't started sprouting boobs yet, so we'll see how they cope when I start to change shape more
.
