Ask Lemmy

I do have that option and choose not to exercise it because it would take me too far away from my kids.

Only if the living wage is far better or the job market in that country is better, so I can find another job if things don't work out as expected.

Moving the country means I have to sacrifice some benefits that I already have like my family, dog, and house. Would have said yes in a heartbeat years ago, but not now.

North Americans, I'm one of you. You have to leave for a while. You gain perspective.

Back in '07, I left. I was in Australia in '09 and some Aussies asked me, 'what's it like living over there?'

The only thing I could come up with at the time was " causes neuroticism.' It's so much worse now that we have social media, smartphones, and a penchant for duelling forms of misinformation.

What I learned is that there are many ways to live. There are lots of goals people have — and can have — many of them are quite modest: a safe place to live, love, and feel part of community. There are much worse daily experiences than those we hear about in the news, or see on TV, or read about it books. There is truly grinding poverty and privation that does not translate well into a novel or an article — readership is fickle. Yet, from those ashes, there is still joy, levity, and grace.

So, we residents of the most powerful economies must see outside of our bubbles. We must see, first hand, how we are duped into believing there is only one set of goals, one North American dream, one prestige, and one centre of power. When you spend enough years away, you just might forget about homeownership, career-building, and fretting over retirement. You might find that life is about living, about doing good work, and about being with people you care to pass the time with.

At least, that's what 12 years outside of NA taught me.

US Here, I'd like to but not having the skill sets right now makes for difficult to move to another country.

Which leads to another problem, if I do I leave my entire social network behind to a culture that I don't know and trying to live there. While I'm not against that, I realize that can be VERY isolating so not sure where the place I'd want to go right now.

Off the cuff, yes...

Canada(West Coast)

Australia

Iceland

One of the Scandinavian countries. (Norway, Finland, Sweden)

I really love Belgium. It's a criminally underrated country with a silly culture and a pretty fun vibe.

The bad news is that I'm Moroccan, and not just any Moroccan, a QUEER Moroccan (even more specifically, an aroace gender non-conforming Moroccan man), meaning basically everyone hates me.

I need to get the visa which takes forever to get and I have a chance of getting denied.

Right wing politicians in the country are basically super racist and really hate the immigrants so much (most of the bad apples are second generation folks that literally act like they're having a stroke, even Moroccans hate them).

Housing is expensive basically everywhere. People in Belgium are pretty introverted (just like me), meaning they basically don't care of my presence, but it's much harder to make friends.

Everyone I know actively discourages moving there because they only know Brussels and... the snooze festival that is Charleroi or something, but they've never heard of Ghent or Hasselt or Bruges or Liège or Antwerpen (truly amazing cities) so they're basically untrustworthy.

I'm so disconnected from the country I live in that I genuinely don't feel Moroccan and want to get rid of my citizenship (spoiler alert: it's quite literally impossible). But is it really easy to convince people? Actually, my family gets very mad when I say this because they're super patriotic and shit.

I don't even practice religion. I've never cared about it. I do believe in God, but I really lack that spirituality and whatnot that would make me "religious". But unfortunately everyone would wanna kill me for apostasy.

I could go on, but we'd be here all day. Basically, I hate my country so much and I just want out so bad.

More and more I want to now. I'm growing to really have a high level of disdain for this country and it's lack of doing anything for the worse off.

I've already done it once. I have a list of countries that I'm considering just in case I have to do it again

If things get bad enough, yes.

100% if I could afford it.

I mean, I did. Highly recommend. Spoiler alert almost all the non-USA people places a multinational company would offer to post you don’t have guns

Circumstances today say no, but I would definitely consider it in the short-term, like maybe next year or so.

I'm likely to be forced to do so soon.

Steady on, I only just got to Australia!

But it’s New Zealand.

I don't know how.

Sure, but not because I dislike living in America. I just want to learn another language, and id do it best by immersing myself in that language.

Hmmm, I'd love to learn Portuguese or Chinese, so either place

My main problem is that I work in a healthcare role that doesn't really exist in other places besides the US

Anywhere that has quality public transit, reliable internet and is located near a beach.

If I was to move away from my region, I'd consider other countries on that list.

In a heartbeat if I could afford it

Quite a few places, particularly if it was coupled with a decent job. Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, S. Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and mayyybe the US depending on how enticing the job was.

Yes!

My friend and I are actually planning to start taking trips to find which country we want to live in later on (we're both single/childless). We've been looking around Europe and Southeast Asia.

My hand might be forced someday.

Otherwise, I'd need a specific destination and reason to want to live there instead of "I don't want to live here." I make a point to not have "grass is greener" syndrome, sometimes to a fault.

I would 100% pack up and move to either Finland or New Zealand, but that's about it. Unfortunately, both of them have exceptionally long quarantine times for animals, and I have multiple cats.

Wouldn't mind moving somewhere where the government gives a fuck but I do think the transition would be difficult for me. I was the "gifted" kid growing up so now anything I'm not instantly good at (like learning a new language) can be a struggle.

Maybe once my college is paid off, if that ever happens lol

About 10 years ago, I moved to Japan and don't regret it. The only real downsides are that my family is on the other side of the world and the yen is doing poorly against the dollar. Well, that and being a US citizen trying to do something silly like use Japanese retirement vehicles outside of pension (iDECO and NISA) is basically impossible because everything is considered a PFIC by the US, but that's true of many things in other countries as a US citizen.

Having recently moved to Europe due to the political situation and level of threat to me and my family back in my home country, I can definitely say it can work out extremely well.

I now live in the first world where I’m actually cared for as a human being by the laws and regulations.

But ultimately it’s your prerogative to determine the course of action that suites your goals and desires.

I did move within the EU for studying and for work and it was generally a good experience and I would do it again. Am German and have been in Ireland for studying and lived in the Netherlands and Slovenia for work (although never longer than for one year).