Speaking Part 2 · PlacesIn the Sep–Dec 2026 reported set
Describe a Home You Like to Visit but Would Not Want to Live In
In short
“Describe a Home You Like to Visit but Would Not Want to Live In” is a common IELTS Speaking Part 2 cue card. You get 1 minute to prepare and should speak for 1–2 minutes, covering all four points below. This page gives you a Band 9 model answer, an idea map so you can make it your own, the Part 3 follow-up questions with answers, and the vocabulary examiners reward.
The task card
Describe a Home You Like to Visit but Would Not Want to Live In. You should say:
- •Whose home it is
- •What it is like
- •How often you go there
- •And explain why you would not want to live there
Band 9 model answer
The home I want to talk about belongs to my aunt and uncle, and it's a converted farmhouse about three hours north of the city, in a valley with essentially nothing else in it.
It's a beautiful building, and I say that as someone who doesn't normally notice architecture. It's around two hundred years old, built from a grey local stone, with walls thick enough that the windowsills are deep enough to sit in. There's a wood-burning stove that heats about half the ground floor and an enormous kitchen table that everything happens around. Outside there's a garden that runs into a field, and beyond that a hillside with sheep on it and no other building in sight. At night it's properly dark — you can see the Milky Way from the back door, which I'd never seen before I first went there.
I go about three times a year, usually for a long weekend, and once for a week in summer. It's far enough that you can't drop in, which I think is part of why it feels like such an event.
But I'd be miserable living there, and I've thought about why fairly carefully, because on paper it's everything people say they want. The practical objections are real — the nearest shop is a twenty-minute drive, the internet is dreadful, and my uncle spends what seems like half his life maintaining the place. He's currently on his third winter of a roof problem.
The deeper reason, though, is that I'd miss the incidental contact with people. I don't have a busy social life, but I like the fact that walking to buy bread means passing forty strangers. There's a kind of low-level company in a city that you don't notice until it's gone, and after about five days there I start to feel it quite sharply. My aunt says it took her two years to adjust and that she'd never go back — so clearly it's a matter of temperament rather than the place being wrong.
So I suppose I'm glad it exists and glad it isn't mine. Visiting gives me the silence and the stars and the fire, and then I get to leave before the roof becomes my problem.
Make it your own: three angles
A relative’s house in a remote or rural area
The cleanest fit — the fourth bullet writes itself through isolation and practicality, and you can be very positive about the place while still explaining the objection.
A very large or grand home
Good for contrast: impressive to visit, impractical to run. Lets you use a lot of descriptive vocabulary before turning the argument.
A friend’s flat in a lively part of the city
The inverse of the usual answer — wonderful for a weekend, exhausting as a permanent home. Fresh, and easy to make specific.
What the examiner is listening for
This card has a built-in contrast, and the contrast is the point: candidates who only praise the home never answer the fourth bullet, and candidates who only criticise it never answer the second. Signal the turn clearly ('But I'd be miserable living there') and give a reason that is genuinely yours rather than an obvious one — the model's 'I'd miss passing forty strangers' is the sentence that would lift this to an 8.
Part 1 warm-up questions
- Do you live in a house or an apartment?
- Do you often visit other people’s homes?
- Would you prefer to live in the city or the countryside?
- What is the most important room in a home?
Part 3 follow-up questions & answers
What makes a house feel like a home?
Mostly the traces of the people in it — things that have accumulated rather than been chosen all at once. A home tends to have a bit of wear, objects that are there for reasons rather than for looks, and some kind of gravitational centre, usually a kitchen table. Show homes are instructive on this: they're beautifully designed and they feel like nobody has ever been happy in them.
Do people in your country prefer houses or apartments?
Most people say a house, but a great many live in apartments, and the gap is essentially about money and land. Houses mean space and a garden, which people associate with family life. Apartments mean being near work and paying less. What's changed is that the aspiration hasn't shifted much while affordability has, so a lot of people now live in something they regard as temporary for twenty years.
Is it better to live in the city or the countryside?
It depends enormously on what stage you're at. The countryside is generally better for children and for anyone wanting space and quiet; cities are better for work, healthcare and for anyone who needs options. My own view is that people romanticise the countryside from a distance and underestimate how much of its appeal depends on being able to leave.
How have homes changed over the last fifty years?
They've become better equipped and, in many cities, smaller. Central heating, insulation and appliances have transformed how comfortable they are. But rooms have lost their separate functions — the formal dining room has largely gone — and the home has absorbed work, entertainment and shopping, so it does far more jobs than it used to while often having less space to do them in.
Why do some people move house frequently?
Work is the commonest reason, especially where careers require relocating. Beyond that there's the ladder logic — buying small and trading up as income rises — and in rented markets people often move because they have no choice when a landlord sells. I'd add that frequent moving has a real cost people underrate: you never accumulate the local relationships that make somewhere feel like home.
Should old buildings be preserved or replaced?
Preserved where they're genuinely distinctive, because once they're gone the character of a place doesn't come back. But I'd resist blanket preservation — it can freeze a neighbourhood, block badly needed housing and drive prices up, which tends to benefit the people who already own property. The sensible line is protecting the buildings that matter rather than everything that happens to be old.
Useful vocabulary
| Word / phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| a converted farmhouse | a farm building turned into a home |
| off the beaten track | far from busy places |
| cosy | small, warm and comfortable |
| to drop in | to visit briefly without arranging it |
| upkeep | the work and cost of maintaining something |
| isolated | far from other people |
| a stone’s throw away | very close by |
| to put down roots | to settle permanently in a place |
| character (of a building) | its distinctive, appealing qualities |
| a temperament | a person’s natural disposition |
More cue cards
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