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Ask HN: Who has moved from the U.S. to Europe?

181 points feraligators | 3 comments | 25 Jan 22 15:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.524s | source

I've long considered leaving this country for a multitude of reasons.

I'd be curious to hear some first hand experiences of those who've made the move to Europe and what you think of the process and considerations one should make.

A few questions to start the conversation:

- Where do you live?

- What's the biggest sacrifice you had to make (i.e. pay, housing, friends, etc.)

- What have you gained?

1. ArtWomb ◴[25 Jan 22 16:22 UTC] No.30073678[source]▶
Seriously considered moving to London around Oct 2019 (WeWork Waterloo). But am glad I stayed US based. Still maintain contact with many US ex-pats in UK & EU. Very few of them have cut all ties to their native homeland. And if you ask them to be honest, they will admit to making "emergency runs" back to the states several times a year for everything from pharmaceuticals to tacos to extramarital affairs. Europe is civilized. America is a wilderness. That is sort of the common consensus. But I personally enjoy being in pristine Nature. It's a blank canvas on which to build a New World ;)
replies(2): >>30073856 #>>30074166 #
2. xtracto ◴[25 Jan 22 16:33 UTC] No.30073856[source]▶
> Europe is civilized. America is a wilderness.

Funny that you put it this way. That's the reason why some of cousins came back to Mexico from the US: They feel the US is very strict and there's a lot of rules, while over here in Mexico you are free to do whatever you want.

3. rootusrootus ◴[25 Jan 22 16:52 UTC] No.30074166[source]▶
> Europe is civilized. America is a wilderness

Europe has 3x the population density of the US, so this definitely tracks. Europeans (and some US city-dwellers) have so much trouble understanding the popularity of the car here, because they don't get the scale of the wilderness. I routinely hop in my car and in under 10 minutes I'm in places that public transportation will never reach. I can't even fathom how terrible the quality of life would become for me if I had to rely on public transit. Great if I'm going downtown, but I rarely do...