My wife and I want to move there because we want to be somewhere more English speaking. I speak German well enough, but she’s really struggled. Truth is, it’s really difficult to integrate into a society if you don’t speak the language at a high level. And after around year 2.5 or 3 I really started thinking hard about integration.
The political situation in Germany is a bit of a struggle, but coming from the US…this is a cake walk. I’m so happy to not have to deal with American politics on the regular.
Economically speaking, there are obviously way more opportunities in the UK, especially for my wife who works in HR given the language requirement. In the tech ecosystem in Germany, it’s two-tiered: The really good engineers make a wage comparable to the US. Think like tier 2 or tier 3 cities like Dallas or Miami. I says it’s about 70% of the Bay Area. But the VAST majority of engineers, working for German companies, make way less. Average wage is probably €70k?
Obviously, your euro goes massively further here as compared to the UK and US. My point in all this is that it’s really difficult to actually compare apples to apples, what your quality of life will be based on your salary and cost of living alone in different parts of the world.
There is a question how much it destroys other countries too, but the fall of us is pretty much granted.
If economic opportunity is your motivation then the U.S. is a much better place to be than the UK, but if you'd just like to live a normal life with healthcare and a house, the UK is a far better place to be than the U.S for most people. "Economic opportunity" as a motivator is itself a U.S. mindset.
Source: an expat living permanently in the UK.
Meanwhile America is being driven into the ground by Trump and Elon.
An immigrant is one who moves from a poorer country to a richer country. An expat is one who mixes from a richer country to a poorer country.
One cool feature of my definition is that it explains a lot of the cultural subtleties in comparing these groups: how immigrants adopt the local ways much more than expats do (expats retain that touch of superiority) etc etc
On average, every situation is different, this is just my general rule of thumb pattern I've observed.
Subjectively, I visited London twice over the last year and it felt fun and bustling.
I had to wonder why London would rated be above Tokyo and I had my answer immediately.
personally I think #1 is overdoing it even though I live there but probably top 5. Depending what you prioritize.
The first two sentences of the wiki reveal both the British nature of the publication and its focus not on great cities but on measuring how large cities are open to investment and trade from foreign markets.
This is as close to approaching no one’s definitions of a great city as I am aware.
Honestly, I wonder what people want or mean when they say a "health care system is amazing" -- I don't know if there is one that is such, and perhaps that's an antipattern if it is?
This is the exact reason why I left London. It's fine and good if you are by yourself or your partner. But once you have kids, it's very difficult to live in the capital. A lot of stabbing and anti-social behaviour. You'd need to live in the rich parts of London (Chelsea..etc) and even then it's not very safe.
On top of a full time remote job, I'm getting 4-6+ hours of quality time on my startup per day. I haven't quite hit this level of productivity anywhere else in the world, for a variety of reasons including distractions, transport friction, and even accommodation frictions like poor sleep due to noise or temperature or other reasons.
My days are literally: work dayjob, work on start up, exercise, sleep. Probably a 1.5-3x productivity improvement compared to my (large, Western) home city. I notice I'm improving much faster (productivity seems to have an exponential impact on mastery). It also feels pretty easy to do 12+ hour days, which, for me, underscores the value in fiercely reducing unnecessary distractions. Seemingly small distractions can add up.
I was living in a bubble (by choice), very efficient and very boring.
I had a pretty similar setup in Busan in South Korea, but the party scene was too fun. Much worse if you're trying to be "efficient".
+1
> very efficient
Strong agree. I'd also add 'comfortable'. For example, to contrast it with bali or vietnam, there's almost no physical pollution, air pollution, and little noise pollution. It's weird how these little things add up, but I have about 10% more energy here, which matters toward the end of the day when you can get more hours of quality work done (assuming productivity matters).
> Pool & gym in the building
Also fortunate to have this. They're a bit better quality than in most parts of the world. I think it has to do with low labour costs in Malaysia, so they're well enough maintained to be inviting and you're motivated to use them more (a very good thing).
Do you mind sharing why you think so? Thank you.
Unfortunately my parents, siblings, kids (and now grandkids) live stateside so I’m stuck staying here, because as much as I might value a place or a people, family connections are first for me. More so as I age.
(Disclosure, I did live in various places around Norway 1990-1991).
How do you manage?
It's not perfect, on local wages the housing market is a struggle, and it often feels like the country as a whole doesn't have quite enough resources to support things to the level of other western countries (hospitals, transport, that kind of thing). The flip side of that is that it doesn't feel so busy, there are fewer people everywhere.
I would agree with some other comments that the UK is miserable. You don't see it until you leave, but if you go back to visit it's remarkable. And I love so much of my British culture, which I'm sure is intermingled with that miserableness. I'm glad to be away from the place though.
I learned a lot, not just about other cultures, other ways of thinking, but most about myself. I met my now wife, I made great colleagues and friends for life along the way, I had my downs. It was an exciting time with a lot of growth. The agency expanded from initially 15 people to 130, and then into Vietnam and Indonesia as well. Even during Covid we kept operating - though on a slight salary cut.
Fast forward to 2023, I became more and more bored, asked myself if that is it, and most importantly I turned 36 and started to get worried about my wife's and my future, especially retirement. You know, Switzerland has a solid retirement system, social welfare etc. And all of this I gave up, because living abroad means you don't get those... So I convinced my wife to relocate to Switzerland - something she never intended to do. She has to learn a new miniroty language - German - a new culture, a different climate. And most importantly: Her decent office job in Bangkok is something she will have great difficulty to find in Switzerland.
We moved in 2023 and it hasn't been easy, especially for her. But we're happy to live in a safe country with great social welfare, low taxes, high income etc.
So far we had the chance to stay in Thailand every winter and work remotely. So it's kind of the best of both worlds and my employer is great, they allow this type of lifestyle.
What I learned about all this: Your dreams and your goals become irrelevant once you achieved them, either you constantly chase new ones, or you start being happy. And your favorite country always looks great as a tourist or short term visitor, I can really recommend to first try living there temporarily, be it on long holidays or whatever. And most importantly: Don't stay in the expat bubble, learn the language fluently if you plan to stay there. It's a sign of respect and one step towards integrating into society, you don't want to be the outsider forever.
If I did not have a family I'd consider
- moving over to my cousin in Canada to make twice as much as I do now
- or to Ukraine to help rebuild and also take advantage of what I see as an almost inevitable economic boom as soon as russia collapses
As if that’s going to be a good thing for Europe. Or anyone for that matter. Russia accounts for something like one third of global fertiliser production.
And, I mean, I can think of nothing better than a massive power vacuum in a state that has the most nuclear weapons in the world. Wile party, if you can get an invite. I suppose.
Imagine if, like, your opinion was wrong, or, let’s say, there turns out to be unintended consequences to the outcome you desire. Because there always is. The road to hell and all of that.
Then what?
Please specify exactly where this glee is supposed to be apparent.
I was originally only saying that I think there is going to be a big economic upswing in Ukraine when russia collapses.
But since you seem interested:
As for russia, that is just sad. I'm one of those who used to study russian back when the iron curtain fell.
But in the choice between:
- russia inevitably collapsing and utterly destroying other countries along with it
- and russia inevitably collapsing and only for a limited time damaging other countries in the process
I take the last one.
Edit:
As for the nuclear weapons, we can probably make a new Budapest Memorandum and russia can give the nuclear warheads to China as payments.
It worked so well with Ukraine.
Can't see any problems with that /s
I read that as something you’re looking forward to.
Happy to be corrected.
I'd much rather take advantage of Russia stabilizing and becoming a major trade partner to Europe.
That was my original motivation for trying to learn Russian 20-30 years ago.
(Trying to understand where the misunderstanding come from and I am starting to wonder if I misuse the expression "take advantage of". I've always thought there was a difference between "taking advantage of <someone>" which I thought was always bad and "taking advantage of <something>" which I thought could be good or bad depending on the situation.
If I have misunderstood, then apologies for the confusion.
Fun to watch from afar, maybe.
War is good for profit.
There is about zero good future with non collapsed Russia who is in addition supported by USA.
Russia will expand, until it collapses. And there will always be a war where they want to go next.
Ideally they could get a normal government rather than the current murderous dictatorship.
Largest mainstream newspaper in Norway had an article this morning that some of our politicians want to increase our support to many times what it is today.
Four unlikely allies want to increase. The two traditionally largest parties are on the fence and only one large party was clearly against increasing it as far as I saw and remember.
More interestingly a poll there indicated broad support (slightly above 80% at the time I read it) from readers that we should increase our support significantly.
As I mentioned our two largest traditionally parties are on the fence, but I guess they will land were the majority of the voters are.
And to be clear: our current level of support has broad support from every party represented.
The other issue is that if US supports Russia, the Europe has no chance. And Trump will be actively working on destroying Europe too - both economically and politically. Not because of Russia, but because that is wining for him and because he was successful at that his whole life.
I belong to subgroup that people like to pick on. I mean I lost two good gigs already thanks to media attacks.
Still no problems with that yet, not for me nor for any of my friends in the same situation.
It certainly helps that we are friendly people who go out of our way to help others so anyone who knows us personally doesn't attack us and it probably also helps that our kids are doing well in school and we do well in the workplace.
But I cannot shake the feeling that I can't be sure if we will continue to be safe. We have many friends, yes, but wave after wave of attacks in media does make me wonder.
Given all that. I’m quite happy not being back in the US. But I do long for an English first culture from time to time.
It is however one of the toughest countries to live in if you are not fluent on French. Germany is in yhe same league.
It has its own problems but for me it feels to be a much nicer place to live peacefully, raise kids and enjoy life
Every place has political issues, and you won't understand or participate in those until you've lived in a place a long time and learned the language. Many places do not have extreme political polarization. Safety and low crime makes a difference to me.
Economically the advantages and disadvantages will vary a lot based on your source of income and what kind of visa and residency you want. If you move around and don't stay in one country long enough to incur local tax liabilities you can possibly ignore taxes (except for Americans, who have to file and pay US taxes no matter where they live). Earning an income from your home country that you spend overseas can translate to a very different standard of living than getting a local job (and has tax implications as well).
Continual travel doesn't work for everyone. The grass only looks greener a lot of the time, every place has pros and cons. You take your problems with you, traveling changes where you live but doesn't magically change you into a different person.
After starting with just a backpack I've slowly accumulated a bunch of random stuff that I keep in a storage unit in Bangkok.
You are right that you take your own problems with you, but you can leave the problems of place behind. Like you say, many places have pros and cons, but if you're only staying for a short time, it's easy to ignore the cons and focus on the pros.
When you're settled in a place, I find it much harder to appreciate the pros and end up focusing on the cons. You can see many people here complaining about their home countries, but if you're there for only two months and aren't invested in the future of the country, it's much easier to enjoy it.
I was just talking to an expat friend about how many expats/immigrants we know in Thailand who seem to do nothing but complain about Thailand and Thai people. I wonder why they stay here. I can see the same problems they do -- crowded, loud, dirty, bad traffic, polluted -- but I don't react to those problems the same way. I grew up in Los Angeles, a city that seems dirtier than Bangkok, but doesn't have great public transportation like Bangkok does, and I certainly don't feel safe walking around in LA. I try to focus on the things I love about Thailand and not get stressed over the things I don't like.
We all bring our own preferences and perspectives with us. I think the successful travelers and expats adapt and learn tolerance and acceptance. The people I talk to who seem most unhappy always compare where they live with where they came from, focusing on the things they miss, and the things they haven't adapted to. I met an American guy a while back who complained that he couldn't get Pop-Tarts in Bangkok. When I told him about Villa Market and Tops (he had somehow not discovered those after over a year in Bangkok) he got visibly happier -- major life stressor fixed for him.
You can deduct taxes paid to a foreign country if the US has a tax treaty.
I never figured out the payroll tax thing. I was working for the overseas affiliate of an American company, but never had SS/medicare withheld for anything but my dividend income. I also paid Chinese payroll taxes, and they obviously don't have a totalization agreement with the US.
As far as state income tax goes, the only state you really need to worry about is CA, who doesn't recognize foreign residency as an excuse against paying CA tax, especially if they claim you are still a resident because you own a home in CA.
If you are an American, nothing saves you from American taxes anyway, which are, even if you don't live in any state (because abroad) so only pay federal taxes, still higher than in any of low-tax EU states, so you are more free in your choice of location, because you will be able to count your American taxes paid against your EU tax obligation, likely nullifying it. I probably recommend Portugal in this case, closer to America in time zones, and local population that's well-used to American expats and doesn't hate them.
To point to a specific example, Spain and Ireland recognised Palestine in a joint statement.
One of the reasons it isn't in schengen is it has free travel with the UK. You don't even need ID to cross the border and can stay indefinitely if an Irish/UK citizen.
perhaps that's just the bumbling American in me, but i love it! public transit access to Blue Mountains… wow!
love love love the aussies
Accurate though.
Caution, coarse language.
definitely greater Australia is quite gnarly. I'm from CA! it's Sydney or bust.
Avoid Tasmania, we’re full.
If you don't have a sense of humor, especially about yourself, you may find it difficult there though.
A big, dense, eclectic city that is hyper-functional is my dream. Actually having one of those in America would be amazing. sighs in New York.
Edit: Though, if we did it again we might consider Lisbon. I'd never been until recently and it's pretty awesome. And there are other benefits/ease.
Otherwise, i agree with you. Portugal is a better place to live than Spain. I actually recommend people - and several has followed my recommendation - to firstly get a residence permit in Spain, then go to Portugal and apply there, and live in either country until Portuguese one comes out.
This is a common misconception. For almost all residency permits, you must apply from the United States. You are not allowed to apply while in Spain. There are exceptions, but not many. Though, with the new digital nomad visa which did not exist when I moved, it is possible to apply while in Spain. But, it most likely will not be issued within 90 days. I have many friends that have done so and are forced to live illegally for a period before it gets approved. I've never seen a single residency permit get issued within 90 days (other than student visas). The Govt. is EXTREMELY slow. Much more so than the U.S. even. Even our renewals have taken much more than 90 days each time. The easiest option that some people do when in a bind is to enroll in Spanish classes and get a student visa--that one can be applied for in country and is relatively 'fast' (in Spanish terms).
'to firstly get a residence permit in Spain, then go to Portugal and apply there, and live in either country until Portuguese one comes out.'
For most residency permits (in Spain) you have to physically be in the country for more than 183 days (half of the year). So this is not possible (unless you want to switch back and forth). Your renewal would not be approved.
I'm from Greece and I've always dreamt of living there, but through the various turns of life I ended living for almost a decade in the UK first, so now I'm looking to make the move.
(So if anyone from Switzerland is reading this and is looking for an SRE from an EU country, feel free to reach out at cv@ my username.net)
Lately though I've been thinking about Norway as well, though I feel that transition would be much harder.
I've visited 25 countries. Been to Antigua 4 or 5 times and it's so beautiful with the volcanos and the cobblestone streets. High enough altitude to not get a bunch of bugs and low enough to have pleasant weather nearly year round.
I'm from Colorado USA.
So far, my top 3 are: Japan, Israel and UK. Then Ireland, The Netherlands, Switzerland.
However, I haven't been to some of my potential candidates yet: USA, Canada, NZ, Australia, Singapore, Malta
A wealthy country, great opportunities in tech, beautiful mountains, direct democracy (a system I'm more and more envious of as a EU citizen). Unfortunately I cannot move right now because of family reasons but hopefully in the future.
Given all that -- probably Norway, or Ireland.
I think with all its problems US is still the best country in the world, but moving there is not an option for me. Even with a H-1B visa or whatever that's called, I don't like the idea of being tied that tightly to my employer. The US is still the source of innovation (imho for cultural reasons). I feel like my spirit is closest to the American one. Love for freedom, self-sufficiency etc.
Since the USA is not an option I'll settle for one of the European countries. Candidates are Spain, Switzerland or Austria.
Reasons are: Spain has cheap properties and amazing nature, Switzerland has an extremely high quality of life and wealth, and Austria is close to my home country.
Of course other countries could be another option but I have only been 1 month
The coastline - beaches, boating, food, scenery. The stately homes - every 5 miles there is a huge house that now has open gardens and serves tea. The seasons - count em all 4 although true that summer can be very iffy. Travel - cheap package tours anywhere in Europe. Sport - soccer, rugby, cricket for those that suffer from insomnia and many great golf courses.
My only issues with it are cost of real estate, and distance from the US where my people live.
There really wasn’t a legal vector for immigration and I wasn’t from a wealthy family, and I didn’t like the idea of illegal immigration, and living without a social safety net. And I’m a bit of a punk when it comes to commercial capitalism, which turned out to not be a winning disposition.
I settled for New York City. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Already submitted my EOIs to the 189/190 black box; waiting for an answer over the last year and a half.
I would have loved to live in NYC for a while, but MAGA seems intent on killing the country dead. I see no bright future here. Maybe things will look different in a decade or two.
the world is big and i respect other countries for sure. see my other comment about my loving Aussies.
But there's something real important and real deep about being born in USA. it's a designed shit show.
"give us your weak and poor…" . this is by design. we want the smoke. All cluster fucks of freedom of thought is the point. it's hard to get along.
ok so USA looking real brittle right now. i'm not naive.
but i was raised in this. i love other countries but Ill never shake being a brown boy upper middle class software engineer without college degree in the US of A
I’d rather stand and fight for NYC than move. It may not be for everyone, but it’s the only place for me.
I want to live in a city that: - Is highly walkable with excellent public transportation infrastructure - Prioritizes safety for women - Has clean air and good environmental standards - Functions as a major hub for either tech or finance industries - Ideally offers: * Good work-life balance * English-speaking environment * Strong expat community * Easy travel connections
> Based on your criteria, Amsterdam stands out as a top contender. Here’s why:
Walkability & Transportation
Amsterdam’s compact, historic center makes it extremely walkable, and its extensive cycling culture—as well as an efficient network of trams, buses, and trains—ensures that you can get around easily without a car.
Safety for Women & Clean Environment
The city is known for its progressive, inclusive atmosphere and strong safety standards, which contribute to a secure environment for women. Additionally, Amsterdam places a high priority on sustainability and environmental standards, so you’ll enjoy relatively clean air and plenty of green spaces.
Hub for Tech & Finance
Amsterdam is a major European hub where both the tech startup scene and finance sectors thrive. Many global companies and innovative startups are based here, creating ample professional opportunities in both industries.
Work–Life Balance, English-Friendly, & Expat Community
With its relaxed yet dynamic work culture, Amsterdam offers an excellent work–life balance. Even though Dutch is the native language, English is widely spoken—making it very accessible for expats. The city also boasts a robust expat community, providing a welcoming network and plenty of social opportunities. Moreover, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport offers excellent travel connections to destinations around the globe.
Overall, Amsterdam ticks all the boxes for a walkable, safe, environmentally conscious, professionally vibrant, and expat-friendly city.
Nobody really prefers to move to a country whose common language they do not speak, where they don't know anybody, and where they will forevermore be treated as second-class (due to being an outsider/immigrant) for the rest of their lives.
If they're leaving, then this is precisely the opposite of what they wish for. They will as matter of course carry with them the habits and preferences of their previous life wherever they go. No matter the distance traveled, no man can escape himself. But they want as little to do with their own nation's government .
> take the newly acquired land for themselves (for free or at best a pittance),
>pay token tribute / taxes to the country they're already in (because taxes are inevitable),
Who on this planet doesn't like cheap land or paying fewer taxes ?
> and then have their government leave them alone.
This contradicts the first point. Just like natives who we ould like to be left to their own devices almost as if they're normal adults.