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Comment by arrowsmith | Hacker News Reader

> I wish I could emigrate

What's stopping you?

My understanding -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- is that you typically need either wealth, higher education (masters+), or an in-demand trade in order to emigrate to another country on a skilled visa or similar. I have only a B.S., negative net worth, and no special skills except web dev (which is increasingly worthless these days). Are there other avenues to emigration that I'm missing?

Also, my partner is American and has family here. I keep trying to convince her to give foreign living a try, and she's traveled with me a bunch now, but it's still a lot to ask of someone who's only ever lived in their home country. Me, I've spent a lot of time traveling to different countries and have a pretty broad perspective to draw from. It's harder for someone who's never really done that. Still, I hope to coax her into it over time!

'Teaching English' isn't really just about teaching English anymore. In many parts of the world (especially Asia) there are bilingual or international schools that generally have an endless demand for native English speakers who also happen to be skilled in math, computer science, or whatever else. The pay will be completely abysmal relative to Western pay, yet enough to live a vastly better life than one would be able to in the West on the Western salary.

Depending on where you go to (and what type of institution) a bachelor's alone is sufficient. The more exclusive places might require a teaching certificate, but those are easy to get and, in any case, such requirements tend to be quickly relaxed when talking about harder to fill positions, like calculus teachers. You might find you enjoy this. If you don't, it can give you the foundation to find something else you might enjoy. Many companies are also constantly looking for skilled native workers. I've friends working in everything from web design to rehab counciling.

I'm not very happy with the current state of the US to say the least, but being born American and simply natively speaking this language is just an unbelievably valuable gift that one should never take for granted. It's really a gateway to the world, even if it's one hell of a scary gateway to step through the first time.

I lived in Southeast Asia for a few years in my 20s - not teaching English, mainly just scraping together a living through random Internet bullshit, but I had lots of friends who taught English, and I've seen what a good springboard it can be for global travel if you want to live abroad.

But the main thing I'd say to anyone considering moving countries is that most countries aren't highly desired immigration destinations like the US or Western Europe, and thus most countries don't have strict and tightly-controlled immigration systems like Western countries do. If you want to go spend a few years in Thailand as a Westerner, it's laughably easy - just buy a flight and you'll probably figure it out once you're there, as your Western dollars/pounds/euros will go a looooong way.

(I apologize to any Thai people reading this; I know that digital nomads and other wealthy foreigners aren't universally appreciated in the countries they park up in. Am just sharing my own experience.)

I wouldn't want to live in that part of the world for the rest of my life, but the time I did spend travelling was the best thing I ever did and I have no regrets. I wrote about it here if anyone's interested:

https://blackshaw.substack.com/p/digital-nomad

I'm not good with kids, but teaching English to teens/young adults sounds like a really interesting idea. I'm technically somewhat bilingual too, so that might help. Good idea, thanks!

(Edit: Wait, is there an actual pathway to permanent residency/citizenship this way, or is it only a temporary work visa?)

While this of course depends on exactly where you end up moving to, and you should check the specifics there, I can say that near to everywhere seems to have pretty much the same systems in place: 5 years legal residency enables one to apply for permanent residency/citizenship after passing a series of tests, usually basic language proficiency alongside laws/culture/history of wherever you're migrating to.

Until that point you'll usually have to do something like check in with immigration once a year, dependent upon what visa (work, education, tourist, etc) that you end up on. But like another poster said, you don't really need to worry about most of this to begin with, as at most places you'll be granted a visa on arrival that'll be good for more than enough time to find a job. The most you might want to do is drop by the embassy of wherever you plant to go to. They can give you more information, and also set you up with a visa that will generally last much longer than the visa-on-arrival if desired.

I know a lot of Polish people who came to the US are now going back to Poland for a better life. No doubt many have amassed some wealth from blue collar work for one or two decades and now can afford to have a better life back home, mainly raising kids peacefully and so on. It's hard for newer immigrants to make that kind of bargain in the US nowadays though, many new immigrants struggle with high rents and not being able to same much to return to their homes. Some of them are lucky and make it better but a lot of them live in the paycheck to paycheck mode with the vulnerability that if something bad hits them like hospital visit they're as good as homeless.

I'm not an immigration lawyer, but there are 193 countries in the world and some of them might be easier to move to than you think.

For example, Brexit made it harder for EU citizens to move to the UK, but it made it significantly easier for everyone else. To get a "skilled worker visa" you need 70 "points" in the new system, which you can achieve by speaking English (10 points) and getting an offer from a visa-sponsoring company (20 points) for a "skilled" job (20 points) that pays £25600 (~$31k) or more a year (20 points):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-points-based-i...

£25k/year isn't high; pretty much any tech or tech-adjacent job in the UK will pay more than that. And if you know how to do web dev then you're probably considered "high skilled", e.g. I see "Internet developer" and "Web designer" on the official list of eligible occupations:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi...

(Incidentally, this is why it's completely deranged and insane that the current British government is constantly accused of being "anti-immigration". Has no-one looked at the actual data? Immigration to the UK has never been easier, nor have rates of immigration ever been higher than under the current government. But that's another topic entirely.)

And the UK's not the only option. My wife and I looked into this a few years ago; iirc we could meet the points requirements to move to Canada or Australia pretty easily, and we're not exceptionally "high-skilled" (we're comfortably middle class but have very normal tech/corporate jobs.)

Moving countries doesn't have to be a permanent decision either. I lived abroad for many years, then I came home, and I don't regret either move.

Anyway, I don't know you and I'm not going to tell you to up-end your life and start again in a completely new country. Obviously it's a huge decision and everyone's personal circumstances are different. All I'm saying is that it might be easier than you realise.

This is a really good insight, thank you. I didn't realize there were points-based systems like that. Haven't done enough research, obviously!

I don't know that I'd want to live in the UK, but this makes me more hopeful about the possibility of moving elsewhere. Thank you.

I have many Russian colleagues that immigrated to the EU, some of them web developers like yourself. If that is your dream, you should give it a shot.

Can you recommend any particular countries in the E.U. to look into for this? I'll research more!

Portugal and Spain offer a digital nomad visa, if you can work remote. After a number of years, and other factors, you could apply for citizenship.

The Netherlands has DAFT, which take ~$5k and a business bank account (I think you also need to run a business, but freelancing web dev would count from what I've read) to get a visa, and after 5 years in country you can apply for citizenship

Awesome, thank you! I'll look into these.

Spaniard here. Be careful, the brochures do not tell the whole story.

If you move to any Mediterranean country, you will feel wonderful at first because our culture is so different, but for some people it gets tiresome and unbearable after some years.

Here you will find some more commentary about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiVV5udK_NM

Some more about the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMnUubH2X3o

Germany seems like a good option if you have no other EU ancestry that you could get a passport through: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/

They even have a specific page on that site for software engineers. It seems like as long as you get a job offer over a certain salary threshold and meet background check requirements, you can live there. I've heard a lot of jobs there operate in English, also.

Countries that I know some of them ended up in are Germany, Portugal, and Poland. I have no recommendations myself though. I live in the States and don't plan on moving.

> I have only a B.S., negative net worth, and no special skills except web dev (which is increasingly worthless these days). Are there other avenues to emigration that I'm missing?

The TN visa works in both directions - you can go work/live in Canada or Mexico. A BS is plenty; I'm not sure that "web dev" is a valid category, but you can probably find a job in either country that does qualify. And if it doesn't work out, you're just a quick plane ride home.

if you rephrase "web dev" into software development, that's often a special category of skill that makes immigration easier. If you really want to try, make an immigration official tell you your skill isn't special enough, don't prematurely disqualify yourself

Getting a permanent visa (or citizenship) anywhere in the world is generally extremely difficult.

Unless you get married, how exactly would you propose an average American emigrate to Germany or Japan, for example?

There's a ton stopping someone. It's not impossible, but it can take years of work, require a change of careers, and you have to say goodbye to a lot of family and friends.

I can't speak for him, but my disability precludes me from moving to most developed countries with universal healthcare. Many countries automatically assume I would be a burden to their systems, despite the fact that my medication is ~ $5 / mo and I'm (supposedly) a skilled software developer.

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