I’m trying to make a move myself and am curious what worked and how well it turned out.
I moved back to my home country from the USA. So glad I did. We’re on the up and up and see no fascism in sight. We’re getting plenty of gentrification driving up prices and displacing our locals, though… 🙄
I would say it was worth it. I moved from the Netherlands to Germany for three years for a Master’s and then to Canada for a PhD and stayed there and got a job. It’s a great way to experience different cultures (though all Western of course).
For the move to Germany, it was really easy. It’s all EU so all I had to really do was register at the Kreisverwaltungsreferat. I had also applied for a grant to study abroad so that paid the tuition as well as the rent. Tuition in Germany is very low by the way. It was also a great way to build independence since I had to rely a lot on myself, having come all alone.
I did meet my lovely Canadian spouse there, so there was the opportunity to move to yet another country. Immigration is a massive pain, even when married to a Canadian, but it all worked out with student visa, permanent resident, and finally citizen. Took years!
The downside is of course being 6000km away from my family. Especially from my parents who are not getting any younger. So it’s hard to be there for them if something happens. But overall, I would say it was worth it. The experiences have been great and I get to spread ideas that work well from places I’ve been to my new home in Canada. The lack of proper licorice here is baffling though!
I live in rural Canada, our local (left coast) grocery has the palm-oil-free NZ licorice RJ’s, which is pretty good, and a specialty confectionery in the village nearby has some great icelandic licorice but it’s expensive.
But at 6K km I guess you are on the prairies, so good luck on the licorice hunt eh!
Heh, I rounded the number too much. I’m actually in Ottawa where there is a Dutch grocery store with a large selection. I’m just baffled why Canadians are so reluctant about that stuff. There seems to be only a 50% chance of people liking licorice. Weird! 😆
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Moved from the US to the Netherlands, it’s been great.
Upsides:
Downsides: Decidedly less pay (compared to American amounts, but pretty good by Dutch standards)With all those upsides it’s hard to imagine it not being great…
Haha sorry, I managed to submit that comment waaay too early.
Wasn’t sure if it was that or a joke that was just going a bit over my head 😂
I went to Pueblo Mexico at 18 on a youths mission trip. We worked at an orphanage, we dug/built a well and helped with a couple bigger projects like “renovation” a barn. We had learned some plays and songs and puppet shows and we performed for/with the children. It was with my church, it was Christian based. It was an amazing experience, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I also went to Peru and sailed down the Amazon stopping at villages performing skits/plays/songs and prayed and fellowshipped with the locals. Ive done local out reaches too, providing food and services for the homeless.
My Christian life has been about serving others. As it should be IMO. God provides literally every I need, anything extra I try to use to bless other people.
That is Christianity. Not to toot my own horn, I dont need to, God will toot my horn :). Loving God and loving each other are literally the 2 most important things in this life. Anyway. If you read this, God bless you.
I was able to move to the country my wife grew up in - she, as a citizen, sponsored my visa. We moved from an area with relatively high real estate cost (sold for over $1mil - we had a mortgage, but also significant equity) to an area where it’s much, much, cheaper (bought for about $100k currency corrected) so we could retire early - we’re both ~60.
I moved for work. I jokingly asked my boss one day if I could relocate and did not expect an easy yes. 2 years after asking, I was in another country. Was it worth it? Yes. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and not many people get the chance, so I took it. I didn’t even care what city I was going to end up in (we have multiple offices in across the country).
I did end up in a different city than what was initially planned, but for someone in my situation (wanting to get out of a 3rd world country), beggars can’t be choosers. I’ve since settled in with my wife. Assimilating wasn’t an issue because my home country is very exposed to western culture and we’re fluent in the language.
I’ve been a digital nomad for almost 20 years now as a software engineer. It’s by far the best way to live imo especially if you can have remote income. The world is incredible, there are so many places, so many cultures, so many people to connect with - living in a single location seems like missing out.
I had a good job for a few years and I spoke the language. I wasn’t planning it the whole time, I just tend to save money, and when the pandemic hit, I realized that living near my family doesn’t guarantee that I get to see them, so why not live where I want?
I had done one year of study abroad and a second year of being a normal student at a German university about fifteen years ago, and I’d wanted to live in Germany since. During the pandemic, I joined a discord server with some Germans, began dating one, and had time working from home to do a four hour intensive German class every day before work online.
I was able to stay with the person I was dating for a few weeks while applying to all sorts of internships, master’s programs, and volunteer positions that would give me a visa, and I sent my cat to a different friend’s house until I got into a program and moved into my own apartment. At the time, everything seemed far, far more complicated than it needed to be, and I definitely do still consider immigration in Germany to be kafkaesque, but I now realize how lucky I was that everything fell into place.
It’s now been over four years and I’m married to a (different) German, but I don’t think I’ll really fully unclench until I’m a citizen. I’m from the US, and it’s starting to look fucking terrifying, so I’m very glad that I’m here and that I’m a little more settled. I’m still slogging at my degree (I opted to take a full year of just intense German classes when I started, so it’s not quite as long as it sounds- unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to work during that time and they’re expensive as fuck) and my husband’s an apprentice, so it’s financially a little tight. I liquidated my retirement account in my mid thirties, which felt bad, but I’d like to keep an emergency fund and we’ll be able to save a lot more in a few years and we’ll be entitled to small pensions.
Don’t mind me I’m also looking through the replies, I’m not qualified to answer this question… I basically followed the trend and drifted from China to the US for education & thought I would have stayed permanently, but wow things went down the drain quickly (left before the ICE did their thing in Chicago…). I am still trying to figure out the new country (Belgium) I found a job and relocated to at the moment
Hope things are going well in Belgium!
I think the number one thing that made it possible was the willingness to try. Covid hit; very early in the cruise ships are staying out of port phase… my family decided it was time. We’ve always been rambling. But I was already ready to leave my job at the time.
Having sufficient education and experience helps to get a skilled work visa, but so does willingness to try and to take, in my case, a 50% pay cut.
It has been a great 5 years, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Thanks for sharing. I’m trying to acquire a critical skills work permit myself; I just need a company to sponsor me but I’m ~80 applications in with no responses yet.
I wish you luck. I applied one place and just got lucky.
Erasmus and no. Turns out all three countries I’ve lived in take away your pension when you’ve not lived there for a while.
Moved from EU to US during Trump1/just before COVID. Loved the pay check, the weather and the nature, hated the work culture, the food culture, the lack of culture, the lack of a social net and of social cohesion, the ingrained racism.
Moved from US to Germany, liked it but didn’t love it. Loved to social net and the beer gardens, the parks and public transport, struggled making connections and learning the language.
Moved from Germany to France, loved it. Great food, great weather, good work life balance, great social net, amazing food and good culture, people are friendly and welcoming (not in Paris or overly touristy places). Only downside is being away from family and having to build my social circle again.
You don’t think French do weird shit all the time?
Maybe you are French yourself.Not French, but from nearby. Culturally very similar. I really understood how much cultural expectations are deeply ingrained, and how much they play a tole in making me feel “at home”.
There are still things that French people do that I find odd, but not overly much, and more in a cute way than an annoying one.
Moved from the US to Germany in 2023 through my work (and the EU Blue Card). It has been life changing and I want to stay forever, eventually becoming a citizen and renouncing my US citizenship.
AMA
What has changed about your life?
So much!
The things that I immediately felt:
- I sold my car, I walk or travel by train/bus everywhere. It’s less dangerous, it’s more calm, I can write or read or game while going anywhere, and it costs me a flat €50 a month which is far less than gas+insurance+loan+maintenance of a car.
- related but I moved from a suburban environment in the US to a city environment in Germany. There are multiple grocery stores, restaurants, parks, and hobby spaces within 4 blocks and there’s not a single patch of harmful grass anywhere lol. Hated living in identical boxes with Monolithic grass borders and absolutely nothing nearby - felt like a constant reminder of our societal failings. Now I pick up groceries by backpack and recognize people in the city.
- as a renter I had to buy my own kitchen, sounds like a negative, is a negative in some ways, but now I have a well designed kitchen with an induction stovetop and a steam+convection oven. No more poorly designed kitchens maintained by landlords that don’t care with cheap appliances. No more forced gas stoves or electric coils. I cook nearly every day and the change in stove was a meaningful upgrade in my life, even coming from a kinda nice gas stove (cause gas is just that much worse than induction).
- I kept almost the identical job, my pay stayed the same and my purchasing power went up and my costs went down, I was automatically included in a union so my job security has never been higher, and I got 6 weeks of vacation automatically instead of the 3. I doubled my vacation! That is such an unbelievably life changing difference that I’ll do everything in my power to never go down from that value - and honestly make more major life decisions based around getting that number up. I feel like I work meaningfully less and have more time for hobbies and big vacations and if I could give one thing to every American for a year I’d pick this and I’m positive there would be a revolution within a week of it being reversed.
- I lived in KC. By car you could get to St. Louis or Des Moines, Topeka, Wichita, or Omaha within 4 hours of driving. If you’ve been to any of those cities, I’d argue (and I’m sorry about this) but only St. Louis really crossed the boundary of “worth it” as far as “places worth visiting multiple times”. Now I’m 3 hours away from Paris by train. Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich, cologne are all within 5 hours. Zürich, Hamburg, Amsterdam, I think are right on the cusp of that timeline. All by train, less than €100 tickets for all of them which again isn’t far off the gas I’d have paid for getting to St. Louis and back. To get to Paris for cheaper and quicker while being able to do things instead of driving the whole time… I mean that is just unbelievable. So weekend trips or day trips have vastly improved.
- booked multiple dentist appointments for cleaning and wisdom teeth removal. It has always been fast, free, and high quality. Nothing super remarkable because I had “good” “insurance” in the US but here it felt less like a capitalist racket and more like a neighbor who happens to be a dentist taking care of the city.
- Germany does this weird thing where Sunday everything is closed. It’s low-key annoying because that’s one of the two days you have off so like you want to shop and get groceries and what have you. BUT the benefit is nearly everyone has Sunday off so gatherings on Sunday have been Ultra-effektive. I have had multiple DND groups meeting regularly on Sunday, it’s made scheduling so easy.
- I’ve felt the news be slightly better with a functioning government. When I moved here, for the first two years A) things were passing their equivalent of Congress and B) those things were good news like easier path towards citizenship and weed decriminalization and investing in public transit. Now that was the traffic light coalition, which got back stabbed by the traitorous FDP Party (who are kinda likes tea party or free market Republicans, think deregulate everything and help the rich under the guise of being good people and trickle down economics). Unfortunately because of the SPD’s (their centralist Democrats) unwillingness to run on wealth inequality and general slow nature, we’re back to a CDU based government (their Republicans pre-trump) with the threat of the AfD looming large (their Republicans Post-Trump but also in some ways more extreme and in others less extreme (this comment may not age well with the US’s current trajectory)). So the news has once again turned sour and I once again feel like I’m in a country of people losing the information and class war and we’re hovering over the slow self destruct button. BUT FOR A MOMENT IN TIME, the first time maybe in my life, I experienced a working government doing generally good things for its constituents and it was inspiring.
Those are the things I’ve felt most readily. But there have been numerous statistical improvements that I want to highlight:
- odds of getting violently hurt in anyway plummeted. Of course gun violence went to zero.
- average education went up
- average age when married and having kids went up
- risk of bankruptcy for any reason plummeted
- risk of losing my job went down, but also my salary due to an accident, pregnancy (i can’t but just to be clear protecting women in the workplace is cool lol), major illness.
- cost of healthcare went down, I felt the lack of a monthly charge but taxes went up so it felt more like a wash which is why I’m including it here. The fact that every prescription has been free or less than €20 has been noticeable. Still I haven’t felt the lack of financial shock from a major illness or that whole experience so I’m placing it here.
All hoity toity now arentcha? We’re glad your quality of life improved. Dont assume just because moving to Germany was great for you, it would be everyone, not that you claimed that, but i will pretend you did and argue against that. It wouldn’t be so great for certain minorities, or any minority. Im a tone, handsome white male with a certain Germanic look, so, id be a perfect fit. Im what they consider an “übermench”.
I don’t know if I’m going for hoity toity, I apologize if I did. I will say I am going for, or experiencing and processing loudly, an angry place of “everything could be better if we got loud and violent” so there is a little intentionality to me being like “I got the same job at the same company in a different county and everything miraculously got better, imagine if you also formed a union and demanded things” or a basic and passive rebuttal to the "if you pay kitchen staff and waiters what they’re worth food prices would sky rocket and there’d be general anarchy and blah blah blah.
You’re right to say I wasn’t assuming it’d be better for everyone. I’m aware there is some problematic racism and sexism and classism here. That being said, statistically most people would be better off here even if dealing with those -ism’s. Not like the US doesn’t have its fair share of systemic and personal representations of those -ism’s. There’s plenty of Indian, Turkish, Asian, etc people here so it’s not exactly unlivable as you sorta suggest. Most people, regardless of color, religion, or sexuality do fine here and are safe. Always room for improvement and in this case (as in most countries everywhere right now) massive room. But that’s not here or there, I’m not recommending everyone move to Germany. I’m recommending everyone in the US read what I’m saying and realize that things could be drastically better and that it could happen overnight if the people fought for it. The fighting itself would take time of course, and this is an ideal thought experiment, but the point stands there is no reason the US doesn’t have an average of 30 paid holidays per worker, or free healthcare, or public transit, or or or… We have the technology and the money and will, we just need the power.
I agree, we should have free health, public transit thats worth a shit, free higher education. If it wasnt for greed, things could be/ would be so much better for everyone.
I live by Christian principles as much as I possibly can, and greed is obviously a cardinal destructive sin. Greed has been the root cause of so much suffering through out time and civilizations. Im always blessed and my needs are always met. I dont think its greedy to want to live nice and live comfortably, thats what God wants for us. He wants that we should be blessed more than we can even handle. But remember to have a giving spirit if God has given to you.
not that you claimed that, but i will pretend you did and argue against that
uh, what?
For the record, I’m German, and I am like a haircut and some gym hours away from being able to play the SS officer in a ww2 movie. That and I probably lack the acting skills of a christoph waltz.
That being said, I don’t think anyone left of the center (and, therefore, realistically, anyone on lemmy) would disagree with you, I am not sure what you are trying to argue then. Yes, we have widespread casual and institutional racism. Sexism is also still a thing despite decades of efforts. Surprise, people here are people, so they subconsciously prefer good-looking people that look familiar. Our government is corrupt and conservative-populist, the government before it was corrupt and “liberal” (in the US sense), our economy is basically clinging to combustion engines because they missed the jump to EVs, right-wing extremists are on the rise and are already winning local elections, and every now and then someone commits something bad enough to make evening news. We’re selling weapons to everyone who asks, bonus points if you promise to only hit the bad civilians with them. Oh, and if I’m lucky, I won’t have to worry about climate change as I’ll bleed to death in a trench in Poland.
Yeah, shit sucks. But that is not an excuse to not clean your own house. I believe that there are many good things here that the US should take some inspiration from. Our healthcare system is a bloated mess, but it’s miles better than the US. Workers rights, tenants rights, the welfare system (or whatever is left of it after the neoliberals and conservatives took turns gutting it for 30 years), a somewhat sane multi-party voting system, half-decent separation of powers, a constitution that is more modern than the 18th century, the metric system, proper gun laws (even a bit too strict in my opinion), an expectation of public transport (excluding Deutsche Bahn, they can go fuck themselves), just to name a few.
So, to cut a long ramble short, saying “this country has some good things, we should look into them in that other country” and “this country is perfect, nothing is ever wrong here” are two completely different sentences.
One question really
Our healthcare system is a bloated mess, but it’s miles better than the US.
Is this a first hand experience or just what you have learned?
I mean, have you experienced US Healthcare first hand?
Nope, I have never lived and worked for a longer time in the US, therefore, no first-hand experience. I have relatives who lived and still live in the US, and so far I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.
I did have the joy of almost having to pay a non-trivial hospital stay out of pocket here due to some insurance shenanigans, and a (iirc) 5-day stay with 3h surgery and a bunch of extras (due to “Privatversicherung” rates, difficulty, MRI, CT etc.) came out to less than 10k€. I don’t remember the actual costs, since in the end the insurances did finally agree on who had to pay, but it must have been something like 6-7k total. From what I heard, that is roughly similar to US out-of-pocket costs, except that due to insurance, I paid 0€.
If you have a good argument against my point, I’m happy to hear it. As I said, our health care system is a mess right now. The boomer generation retiring is going to make things very difficult. Bureaucracy is exploding, for several reasons. The two-class system with private and public insurance is disgusting bullshit and quite the opposite of what I believe “social democracy” should be.
I dont suppose I have an argument particularly. I can tell my experiences for what they are worth.
In 2015 I was in a traumatic car accident and a 3 month hospital stay, then 1 month physical rehab. I got a bill from the hospital for 250k, then a week later my insurance paid it. PHEW! So, I guess if I hadn’t had insurance id be paying that the rest of my life? Thats a terrible prospect. I also wonder, if I hadn’t had insurance, would i have got the same level of care in the hospital? I think maybe not… maybe.
Another story, this was like 20 years ago, but I was in Mexico and my thumb almost got chopped off my a machete… anyway, I went to the little clinic, and we called the Dr. Because he wasnt there at the moment, but he came in 10 minutes and cleaned and stitched the wound. He gave me antibiotics and it all cost me… 10$ cash!!
So, that said, if one wants good health care in America, one needs insurance.
Married someone from another country and moved to be with them. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Our familiy (2 parents and us 4 kids) moved from Russia to France. None of us spoke French. Worth it every second
