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Have you moved or considered moving out of your home country? Why or why not?

I know a couple people who are considering moving out of the country (I too am considering this), and the reasons vary widely. As for me, I'm considering moving out of the United States because I love experiencing new and different cultures, and what better way to experience a new culture than to move there? I'm not one to like living in one place longer than a few years anyway. My biggest fear is dying feeling like I didn't see or do enough, so moving out of my home country seems like a good step in keeping that fear from being realized.

There are also a whole lot of political and socioeconomic issues that don't seem will get fixed anytime soon, so I would also be an IRL version of leaving reddit for me.

Countries I've considering moving to include:

  • basically all of western europe

  • scandinavia

  • Japan

  • Argentina

  • Australia (I too, like to live dangerously)

  • Morocco

  • Cuba (something I'd consider if the communist government were to fall)

Anyway that's enough about me, I'd like to hear from you guys now!

8 years ago by KingAztek with 17 comments

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  • Autumnal
    +6

    Oh yeah man, my wife's Canadian, and I take any excuse to go North. I'm freaking obsessed with Canada. Even their rest stops are amazing, no joke.

    • MrY
      +2

      Booyah, some love for us up North :)

  • Csellite
    +4

    I would really like to when I'm older. The united states higher education is amazing. Many people from other countries come to the US for this reason. I think once I've retired I'd like to move to Iceland.

    • NerfYoda
      +3

      Iceland's absolutely lovely, but my friends who moved there quickly got cabin fever and moved back to the states after a year or two. There's only so many places you can go on a small island before you need to fly somewhere.

      • Csellite
        +3

        I get that but maybe I only need a year or two there. I would like to travel and see the world. I've barely seen anything at all. I am about to take a trip from NY to CA though and driving to see the states. Once I've seen this country I would like to move on to a new one.

  • Traveler (edited 8 years ago)
    +3

    I moved to the US from the UK about 35 years ago. At that time there were significantly better prospects for me here in the US. In the 90's I went back to Europe as a US expat for several years, during which time I lived near London and traveled on business throughout Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and South Africa. Additionally a few years ago I contemplated retiring to Ecuador, and visited Cuenca and Quito to evaluate

    Some things I've come to learn from these experiences:

    - it takes a long time to truly understand a 'new' country

    - the 'old' country will not be the same when you go back

    - it is very complicated to get a true comparison of cost of living

    - living as an expat is not the same as living as a local

    - most (if not all) magazine and online articles fail to paint an accurate picture of moving to the 'new'country

    - things change over time ... what is an attractive proposition today might not be the best long term choice

    - there are long term financial implications (and complications) of changing countries

    - living elsewhere provides insight and perspective on myriad topics (e.g. health care)

    - nowhere ever seems like 'home' - you are always a 'stranger'

    • KingAztek
      +2

      Thanks for the insight. I've been trying to keep the possible cons in mind as I consider this, so this is of great help

  • jmcs
    +3

    Yes, and I did, from Portugal to Germany, for professional reasons (the Portuguese economy is crappy, the corporate culture is even worse), I have some American colleagues and they seem to like Berlin and Europe in general.

  • spaceghoti
    +3

    Have done, may do it again.

    In 2000 I met a lovely lady from Australia, and after a year together we decided to move back to her country and get married. Unfortunately it didn't work out well for me as the tech bubble burst shortly before I arrived and I couldn't find steady employment. So I ended up moving back to the States and she decided to stay there.

    Lately I've been looking at the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island across the bay from both Seattle and Vancouver. I really don't like cold weather but the Pacific Northwest is much more temperate so the winters wouldn't be as cold as I'm used to here in Denver. Plus, Canada is a far more sane country than the US has been lately, and I wouldn't have to sell my oldest child just to afford basic medical care. So we're contemplating moving out of country again.

    • KingAztek
      +2

      Other than your unfortunate employment situation, how was your experience in Australia? Did you like living there in general?

      • spaceghoti
        +1

        If I could have found work to support myself and my family I never would have left. It was warm, never snowed, the people were friendly and attractive, it never snowed, the ocean was beautiful, it never snowed....

        /ahem

        I may be a tad obsessed on certain topics as well.

  • Fuyu
    +3

    I definitely would like to move out of the United States, but I really just have no idea where. The more I look into a country, the less appealing it looks, such as with Japan and England. Canada would maybe be nice, but it feels a bit too close to home and I've heard from Canadians that a lot of the United States' dumb actions bleed into their own politics.

  • cunt
    +2

    I always wanted to move to Australia - stupidly before going there. I arrived back on home turf three weeks ago after spending a month in Queensland/Sydney. In short it's a nice place but I wouldn't want to live there. Australians say everything is expensive - well for me - it was cheaper than my city.

    I had a chance of hitting Cuba when I was younger but stupidly decided against it.

    Now as I reach the older years and there is a recession I can buy retirement property in either Ireland or Spain for next to nothing(a nice 1 bed flat is easily £150, 000 where I live - it's not London)

    Now I've decided to move south to another city. A nicer city, a cleaner city(Dundee) until I can pay for a house in Spain in cash.

  • xg549
    +2

    I'm mostly just scared of the direction america is going. I see us getting more paranoid and the government getting more controlling to a point where it becomes difficult to live comfortably. Just based on inspecific trends that I've noticed since the turn of the millenium.

    So yeah, I'd like to get out eventually. It's going to be a while before I'm financially stable enough to try it, but I definitely want to try maybe 10, 15 years down the road. Lately I've been interested in the Netherlands - I'm a student in audio production and Amsterdam has a pretty sweet music scene. I know a guy from there and he really has no complaints about his country. Only thing that would be off-putting for me is the relatively high taxes compared to america, but that's something I could adjust to. Plus, Dutch seems like a pretty cool language.