If yes, where would you move to?
If no, why not?
I ask this as someone who has moved around a lot (5 states) for better working opportunities. I often hear people say they wish they could leave their current city/state/country, but money is often (understandably) an issue.
Absolutely. Ideally one of the Nordic model countries, but the issue there is more than just money, it’s linguistic and bureaucratic as well.
I think I have both your problems solved. If money isn’t an issue the bureaucracy is a nuisance but not inhibiting as you can pay someone to file all the appropriate paperwork. The language barrier is even easier. I have been to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland and did not meet a single person that didn’t fluently speak English. Not saying they don’t exist, but operating in most any western European country is very easy as an English speaker. Also you’ll pick up the language over time. Immersion is the best way to learn a language, or so I hear.
Hey, sounds perfect to me! Now if only I could make that “money isn’t an issue” thing a reality, I’d really be set!
But, for a country like Norway, I personally would like to continue to work as a Paramedic. That language barrier is a big deal. I’d need to pass a language test and then 3 medical exams in Norwegian.
Unless this post implies that I’d be so wealthy I don’t have to work after I relocate.
If literally everyone speaks fluent English (which is true), then you will not “pick up the language over time” by immersion. There are a ton of Anglo expats in Scandinavia and the Netherlands who do not speak the local language, for just this reason.
Hah good username.
Thanks gancho!
Same! And honestly, its looking like I should really put in some time to figure out what would need to happen for me to do so in a hurry. This country is…
Well, people need to vote. We should have a go fund me specifically for people who would to vote if not for their job/childcare etc. I know most people aren’t awful, but they don’t get out and vote and so I’m forced to worry about having to leave in a hurry.
And the cold dark winters 🥶☹️
Come to France instead !
I did this.
I used to live in Seattle. It’s a pretty progressive city but the police are very bad there. Outside the pocket of liberals and progressives, once you start driving east or even west across the sound, things then to be more… Homogenous… and even a bit racist. Plus the gun culture/violence is just too much for my family.
We moved to Taiwan during the height of the pandemic and during chap or whatever thing that the Seattle police was doing to the local people. We had enough and put everything in storage and left .
Living in Taiwan feels like how America used to be. Being a very young democracy, people here are hyper focused on freedoms. The government here is super focused on social programs that help people.
Things like, expecting mothers and families with kids under 6 have special parking in all malls and public parking. Breast feeding rooms everywhere. You get financial support for having kids, not just a tax break. Just a straight direct deposit into your account.
Universal health care. The medicine is highly subsidized(usually free)Ambulance rides are free. Shoot once you get to a certain age, the government helps pay for your stay at home nurse.
Things like this reminds me of the American 40-50s. When freedoms matter and people matter.
Obviously there are some drawbacks living here, but it’s overall positive.
Was it difficult to emigrate from the US to Taiwan? Are there stringent requirements?
Honestly it was quite easy. I came from the USA so YMMV. You basically need to get a Gold Card which is a green card from the United states. As long as you’re making an income that is a certain level, you get it. I want to say it’s 65k.
Or you can come here and work in the in demand industries like renewable energy. Those you don’t even need to be making that much and you instantly get it. My friend works for a wind farm and got his gold card within a year. Even his wife, who doesn’t even work, got the gold card.
I think after about 6 months, you get all the benefits I described.
College and schooling is very inexpensive. I know student visas are quite simple too. I have a friend from Jamaica that got his doctorate here and married a Taiwanese wife. He said he had zero chance to get this far ahead in Jamaica.
Nah, California is pretty great. I’d say it would be the place I’d move to if money weren’t an issue. As long as you can afford it, CA is an amazing place to live with widely varied culture, fantastic weather, and an incredible number of things to explore and experience.
You can find every biome across the state, and you can literally go surfing in the morning, drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and through beautiful, lush valleys, in perfect 72 and sunny weather, on your way to snowboard in the mountains for the afternoon, into a nice chilly overnight at the lodge, and back down the coast the next day, because the weather is perfect again.
That’s just one of the countless things to do in California. You’ll also get clean air, a comprehensive interstate highway system, better public services, a near infinite variety of food, and generally better quality of life than many other places.
CA isn’t perfect, but I can’t think of anywhere else that could ever match it for me.
I lived in San Francisco for a few years and I do occasionally miss it. Granted, SF is a major city and not completely representative of the entire state, but I miss the food (the freshest fruit you ever had, even if you bought it at the corner store).
My home state. I never feel more comfortable than when I am back in Northern California. Last time I was there I came down through Donner and I started to smell the sage through the car’s vents, which lifted a burden from my existence. It may have been the fact that I had been driving for 15 hours and deep into sleep deprivation, but I felt a euphoric peace coming home. I love California.
That being said, I could never live there again because of economic and political considerations. It hurts me not being able to live where my home is, like missing a piece of myself. I miss looking in the distance and seeing topography. I desire the cool mornings and warm evenings. I ache for the smell of the ocean blowing up the valley when the wind turned just right.
Sometimes I walk into a house that is done in the California bungalow style, see a radio tower disguised as a tree, or meet a fellow Cali refugee and we trade stories of what we miss so dearly and the longing to be back home burns so deeply that it hurts.
I can’t live where my heart is and I am incomplete in my existence because of it. Colorado and Utah were so close to scratching that itch, but I know that no place on this Earth will be close enough for me to feel as complete as I do when I am home west of the Sierras.
I’ve gone wakeboarding in Morgan Hill and snowboarding in Tahoe on the same weekend. :-)
Well, Massachusetts has enough options to be similar. Awesome beaches. Then technically you could zoom a couple hours into NH or ME for skiing.
Bonus, zero strong earthquakes and very rare severe forest fires.
Same. I love traveling. With unlimited funds, I’d happily spend months at a time in second and third homes, but I’d always be just as happy to return.
In a heartbeat. I’d take almost anywhere in Europe with a proper democracy than the corrupt and authoritarian hole I’m in right.
I would move from solid to gaseous state if given the choice.
Instantaneously?
Definitely. I’ve been farting up a storm for years now and have made very little progress.
You need nuke!
Probably Iceland. Try to get some land, plant some trees and start a forestry business or a small farm. Ideally close enough to existing geothermal networks that I could still take advantage of the dirt cheap hot water. Enjoy the rain and fog and natural beauty of the place. Would be lovely.
I’d probably pick Iceland too. But I wouldn’t do forestry because trees take too long to grow.
Instead I’d sit in a hottub all day, looking at the fjords and doing absolutely fuck all.
Where I live in germany there is a saying: “Anderswo is auch scheiße”. Literally translates to “Other places are also shit”. So I’m currently not considering moving into another country. Though I often ask myself, what I would do if germany goes the nazi route again. The AfD is real scum.
The grass is always greener on the other side…
There are very fine bullshits on both sides
Hahaha, I feel that quote a lot myself. Always see a bunch of rich kids saying they’re going to leave the US, shit hole of a country, and out of their million dollar home and rich parents. I’d still love to travel since other places are a different flavour of shit, to break up the monotony, but I don’t think I’d leave the US. Not until something bad happens (which may or may not be after 2025)
100% I don’t want to live in the USA my whole life, big world out there.
As an American, fuck yes, absolutely, 100%.
As a Texan, fuck yes, absolutely, 1000%.
The wife and I are already considering leaving the state. Prices for everything are rising to ridiculous levels.
An apartment I could have afforded on my own a decade ago would require three incomes, and the neighborhoods are no less violent and crime ridden. Food deserts, lack of health care options, lack of gainful employment in that geographic area, all deterrents to paying more than I do now for a mortgage.
If I thought I had the skills and wherewithal to strike out and homestead I would. Alas, I do not.
I long to leave “the grid,” but require medication to function as a normal human being. As such, I am beholden to the system. I must cooperate against my better interest to attain medication to live. I am, for lack of a better term, a slave to it.
Before anyone comes in calling a race card play, or any other shit, I am a cis het white male. In theory, I am the problem, and yet I suffer the same.
I decided at the age of seven that life, as we know it, was not worth living. 30 some odd years later, that has not changed.
But where can you go? The Midwest is full of Republican whackjobs, the southern states are going backwards, California is on fire, and everything up north is covered in ice 7 months of the year.
Learn to like being cold
I like the cold
everything up north is covered in ice 7 months of the year.
Heh. If that’s what you think, I’m not tellin’ ya otherwise. Enough people are moving here already!
Yes. I live in Texas, and the heat makes me sick. I’m literally planning on being too sick to work or anything three days next week because its going to be unseasonably warm, and the central AC hasn’t been kicked on yet.
Also, whatever the fuck is wrong with our state government. We made abortion illegal BEFORE Roe was overturned.
I had great privilege in having a father who owns his own custom home building company. My then-wife and I bought a house from him at cost, meaning we had over $20k in equity right after signing the papers. We lived in the house for 10 years before separating, sold it, and took a very nice chunk of change from the sale that allowed us to become debt free. Even paid off my student loans.
I am right now preparing to move halfway across the country this summer. Texas is a dumpster fire of willful ignorance, sheer xenophobia, and unapologetic bigotry; after having lived her for over 40 years, it is my sincere pleasure to put this motherfucking state in my rear view mirror for the sake of my kids, one of whom is wanting to transition. The state I’m moving to is much more progressive and has gender identity protections written into law. Plus, the governor there isn’t doing as Greg Abbott is doing by siccing Child Protective Services on parents of trans kids, so that’s nice. #DIAFABBOTT
I wouldn’t move to a different state.
I would move to a different area in the state.
In general, I like where I live. However, when I moved here about 5 years ago, it was a peaceful quiet area. my back yard was a couple acres of minimally touched nature (little cluster of trees, massive green field of mice, spiders, gophers, grasshoppers, and the occasional deer).
I loved it. Then the city decided to turn half of that field into a community center whose entire side facing my house was glass, leaving me to feel like a zoo exhibit.
That wasn’t good enough though.
The city claimed the remainder of the field, bulldozed and chemically treated it, and put in annex parking for the community center right up against my fence. Mind you, my backyard is TINY. Maybe 40x20 ft. Slightly more than you would expect from an apartment. They literally paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
In between the annex parking and the community center, they put in a playground. Now my once peaceful, zen, soul charging slice of heaven is constant mobs of screeching children and idling cars during the day and rotating groups of 16-23 year olds drinking, doing drugs, selling drugs, and all around loudly and aggressively delinquenting by night.
If I could, I would just like to live somewhere quiet and private again.
Why does it seem like the US is highly allergic to underground or multi story parking?
Is it that exotic?It’s expensive.
And maintenance.
Portland is full of parking structures. And they are crumbling.
It’s low key terrifying to park in them.
Don’t see this issue happening in Germany? Maybe some parts of the US should use the materials used for parking garages what they use for skyscrapers instead of cardboard /s.
I dream of being in New Zealand or a Nordic country, but I’m a broke American loser who’s too poor to even go visit those countries, and so they don’t even want me there in the first place. I will keep dreaming, and die with my dreams unfulfilled. Maybe next life.
@shadowSprite surreal to see this comment.
New Zealand is on one of its periodic kill the poor phases at the moment, the government has made massive cuts to welfare and intends to give retrospective tax cuts to landlords.
It’s also scrapped all its environmental protections.
That’s why I’d only go there if money wasn’t an issue :) otherwise I’d rather be in a Nordic country. It’s a shame to see countries look at the US and think we’re something to emulate.
@shadowSprite in NZ’s case we’re emulating ourselves circa 1986.
Idk I’d rather be somewhere where they treat people well even if it doesn’t affect me personally.
Well, crap. I really want to go somewhere far from the global conflicts that might arise in the future but still live in a relatively modern and developed country. New Zealand seemed like it would be a desirable destination, but if it’s on the same trajectory as the US, UK, and Canada, I guess it wouldn’t be an upgrade.
I really want to be as far from likely military (particularly nuclear) targets as possible. I feel like we’re on the precipice of something truly awful.
@slingstone I worry about that too. But NZ is unfortunately a 5 Eyes country and has a lot of oligarch/billionaire prepper bunkers in it.
New Zealand is very weird for an American. Its miles away from everything and the cities are tiny, of which there aren’t many.
The culture seems to be quite grating for Americans. It’s hard to get a lot of things and stores and such close early, doesnt fit well with American consumerism.
People are nice but not terribly friendly or social even in small towns. A lot of people do quiet activities like solo hiking.
American here, and FUCK YES I’d love to leave this shithole and never return until they have laws against convicted rapists being eligible to run the show.
I’d move to a country without a US military base.
You trying to get drone striked??
I’m trying to escape association with a nation that seems to be actively looking for enemies.
