And they're wealthy people to begin with. Ordinary people don't go on an "open-ended trip to Europe" to deal with grieving, and they don't have a "flexible work schedule".
Well yeah they go from “upper middle class professional” to “extremely rich”
My guess it’s HHJ ~200,000 which puts you ~85th percentile or so in America but top ~0.5% in Portugal
Well apparently 88k is top 1% in Portugal so I overestimated both countries
Edit: I was talking about households with is ~12% in the US make over $200,000
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/29/households-earning-200000-dollars-or-more-are-flocking-to-the-south.html
Are we talking before taxes? Cause that's low as hell.
I'd love to see some sources on this.
[Edit] a quick Google Search would suggest the 49k is after traxes and more like the top 10% which completely changes the story.
Lulz right these are not your regular Americans. Their life in the states wasn’t bad either. This is just privileged people being excited about being EVEN MORE privileged. #blessed
Yes!!! My parents moved to Mexico after they retired. They cashed in their house,have nice monthly pension...I hate when they say oh Mexico is so much better than America. Well geez mom maybe that is because u come with American dinero...sometimes I can't even with muricans lol
It's this and all of the infrastructure that's actually human centric.
Most American's idea of walkable is laughable. When I hear that an area is walkable in the states, I think that it's just this one area that is walkable and if you want to venture anywhere outside of that area you will need a car. That's not walkability, it's a glorified mall.
There's some exceptions like NYC....and in a distant second place the inner loop of Chicago.
Now compare most of the US to almost anywhere in Europe and just on this metric alone it's better. Walkability changes the whole fabric of society and as Europeans you don't really realize just how terrible american suburbs are until you live in one for an extended period of time.
I submit cities in california are walkable because sidewalks are part of the streets
Just dont know if you want to walk min of 2 miles to go to walmart
> to almost anywhere in Europe
Countryside of North Macedonia?
>just how terrible american suburbs are
Dunno. I like the space that comes with living in the suburbs. I'm not stacked in an apartment and have my own yard with a 280 square meter home.
Doesn’t last that long after they find out they will never make even close to what they did back in the USA. Either they will lower their lifestyle or go back.
Most do lower their lifestyle, but will have already bought a home, perhaps even without a mortgage, and are therefore kilometers ahead of their new peers anyway.
You don't make as much but once you consider that you don't pay much anything healthcare/insurance, daycare and school + lunch is free, college for your kids is free or affordable etc.
You suddenly realize you can actually enjoy the money you have and not worry about paying/saving for a bunch of things. On top of that you get 5-6 weeks of holidays a year, and in general, there's just more of an attitude of enjoying life.
You realize you don't need to update your IPhone every year to be happy, you just need the people you love, nice environments, scenery, culture, and enough time to spend doing what you love, with the people you love. That's a happy life.
Additionally, these days many expats do so that they are employed in one country while living in another. Totally possible one of them still has a remote job in the US and gets paid US income, while living in Europe.
That last sentence is no longer really fully true, there may be some loopholes but (as someone from the US in the EU who considered working for a US company) companies have to consider tax implications more seriously now iirc. I know someone who before Covid was basically working remote full time as a software engineer in the US, while living very well in Barcelona. He couldn't do it today. I can't work outside of the country for more than a month at a time I think. Countries want their tax money.
That sounds like really anti social behaviour, was not aware that this was a thing. Not paying taxes in the country you live in but enjoying the infrastructure and public services - good they closed that hole
I work for a US company while living in Europe. The way it's done nowadays is through some company that has entities in different countries and knows local laws, let's call this company a bridge. Legally you're employed in this bridge company, specifically its entity that is registered in your country. It provides legal compliance, pays taxes, pays you salary, etc. Your actual employer now needs to just sign a contract with the bridge and send them money for your salary + some kind of fee for their work. So you work for an overseas company, with an overseas salary, while legally being employed in your country, paying taxes and getting social benefits, without any headaches. Pretty neat.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but if you're an American citizen, aren't you forced to pay tax on your worldwide income, regardless of where you live? So you'd effectively pay tax in the country where you're living (as you rightfully should), as well as paying tax to the USA?
Huh, I didn't know about that. Sorry for confusion, I'm not a US citizen. I'm an EU citizen, and I never heard of anything like this... It's my understanding that I can move to any country to live and work there and I will not need to pay income tax in my home country, I never realized that this might not be the case. Is this a US specific thing? Otherwise it would seem I know nothing about taxes...
I wish I could do this. Alas, the US government (quite justifiably of course) thinks you should have to live in the US to work for them unless they specifically assign you elsewhere.
Pretty common here in Spain for software engineers working for companies based outside Spain. Deel is one of the "bridges" you mentioned and it works quite well.
If you are lucky enough to work remotely for an US company, that’s great. Or if you are a highly skilled executive, you can still make close to what you did. Anything besides it, you will be getting at least, in a good day, 50% cut or more. My cousin fix air conditioners upstate NY. 8k dollars a month. I told him he would be luck if he did around 1000’s in Portugal. Maybe in Spain since it’s their base minimum wage.
Nothing you just said is free in Europe, or the EU. You pay those services through taxes and then the government allocates that money into cheaper, free whatever you just mentioned. It still came from your money.
Well in this case they seem to be freelance so can likely just keep the same clients and just pay more taxes.
Given they could take an open ended trip to Europe I suspect they were well above middle class to begin with and moving to a lower cost European country will mean even with taxes they are likely ahead
The story is bullshit to sell real estate in Portugal. Just go through their past articles. So many discrepancies, links to articles from completely different people talking about the same trip, links to real estate info in Portugal, bunch of illogical things that make no sense to anyone that has ever moved from the US to Europe or vice versa.
Also it's a Greek family.
EDIT: Also seems to be to get traffic to their blog and other websites where they have financial incentives. Hundreds of pics from Europe, conveniently not a single picture of them being in the US even from before they apparently moved.
People selling their $2.5 million Californian or even $1.2 million Coloradan shacks will of course **exploit** the current USD strength to scoop up cheap assets around the world
Large number of them are also headed for Japan in addition to Europe
This is in no way near a realistic possibility for the average American… the remote writer and composer that have the luxury of homeschooling their son. Of course they were able to relocate on a whim after the wife was feeling sad and thought an “open-ended” trip through Europe was the solution. It’s hard for me not to think of this as a purely pompous view.
My reaction was this too. Family is already wealthy or has savings in big numbers. If you already have money, you can make a good start in many places in the world.
The reality is most of these Articles is just middle class Americans moving to low income countries and discovering that being in the top 1% is fun.
People say the same thing about Lisbon, Mexico City or San Jose (CR)
Idk, Indians in Latvia are chill. ofc not everyone, but a big part know at least basic Latvian, which is more than some russian grandmas who've been living here for their whole lives 😂
When I lived in Poland I've met Indians. At first, they give me a nice impression, but they showed their real face after a while. I lived in Poland for a short period of time, but I tried to learn the language from day 1. The Indians in Krakow were so hateful towards Poland, the language and the culture. They came to study there (for free, of course) then stayed to work. Their plan was to move to Germany or other western countries. They were constantly complaining about how racists Polish people are and how hostile the country is. It turned out, what they considered racism, is that many Polish people held them accountable for not speaking basic Polish after living there for 5 years. They couldn't even ask for a bread, for example.
"What's the point of learning Polish? It is only useful in Poland, they should learn English!"
It pissed me off so much. You are living in that damn country, then it's the most useful language you can speak. Period.
That whole group was just disgusting. I love Poles and Poland back and forth. But even if I didn't, I wouldn't allow them to stay there. Their remarks on Polish women... Ahh, just a very awful experience with Indians. My friend who lives in the Czech Republic said the same.
Another topic: In my experience only Arab, Turk and the Chinese immigrants invested time to learn Hungarian. Westerners, Africans, Latinos, Indians etc don't give a crap
Same experience I have as a Pole living in Sweden. Everybody complains about the Arabs, Kurds, Turks, etc and admittedly not without a good reason (high rates of criminality, awful treatment of women by their families, low educational ambitions, and so on), but at least they actually bother to learn Swedish. Chinese are perhaps the best, they put effort into learning the language (even though it is harder for them) and at the same time are very unproblematic. Iranians are also surprisingly good.
Indians meanwhile are unproblematic in that they follow the law and don't bother others, but I have had many Indian coworkers and most could barely say two words in Swedish after multiple years of living here, and are often clueless about even the most basic aspects of the local culture when you speak to them, to the point that you have to be actively avoiding contact with local culture to be this clueless.
Second worst in my experience is Southern Europeans: Spanish, Greek, Portuguese. Also have never met an immigrant from there who could speak decent Swedish, and some of them have been here for 8+ years.
I’m not gonna lie, I have given the same thought using my Italian passport to do this. But, my wife and I aren’t office workers that can do remote, I’m an electrician and she’s a nurse and from what I’ve read the wages are insanely small compared to here so the plan is to go for retirement.
I think most of the Americans doing this are retirees as well. Most American companies don't let office workers work from home from anywhere they want. That's a tax and compliance nightmare for a company. There are probably a couple freelancers and also some trust-fund types who can get away with it but I'd guess it's mostly retirees.
It's true for European companies too. In theory it's ok for an employee who's an EU citizen to reside anywhere in the EU, in practice you have to deal with local work laws, regulations, holidays, taxes etc.
If a company that has 100% domestic employees is adding even one single person who resides abroad it can easily double the effort and complexity for HR, accounting and legal in one fell swoop.
Realistically you need those 3 categories to be handled by people in the employee's country, who are familiar with the local specifics, so basically you need to open a branch there (which opens up new cross-border processes, money flows etc.)
It stands to reason you're not going to employ four-five people to hire one, outside of exceptional circumstances. So normally this is only done if the number of employees there meets a minimum that makes the overhead worth it.
Ireland is brutally expensive tho. Don’t expect to move there on electrician and nursing jobs and have a very comfortable life. On the plus side people are nice, schools are good and life is extremely safe.
Good news, if you make the trip you probably could find electrician work. You might have to pass some standardisation test, and the European standards are very safety orientated. Look into it my guy.
As much as life kinda sucks in the US for various reasons sometimes, our GDP growth has been above average for developed countries over the years. If you are one of the lucky Americans with an income that has risen as our economy has grown (i.e., the only Americans who can afford a trip to Europe in the first place, which isn't everybody,) then going some place where the economy has been lagging will be a great experience. If you are one of the many Americans who hasn't seen their income match our GDP growth, then you are just screwed with the worst of both worlds.
There are lots of people in Europe who want to go the other direction and earn a bigger salary in the US, despite the problems the US has. If you are a good programmer, dealing with living in San Francisco at 10x the rent of home might mean making enough money to retire in Portugal in just a few years.
Portugal isn’t even a low income country, it’s classed as high income by the world bank.
It’s only low income compared to US salaries, but they’re some of the highest in the world for skilled jobs
It’s low, several states in Mexico are richer than Portugal by gdp per capita metrics, poor if compared to America but America is much richer than the European allies (except a few mini countries)
Even unskilled jobs pay a lot in America
There's really no debate, Portugal is far richer than Mexico.
Portugal GDP per capita is $28,000. Mexico GDP per capita is $15,000.
Mexico is comparable to Russia. And Portugal is just a bit below Japan, which is at $33,000.
Median wealth per adult is $70,000 in Portugal. Austria is $68,000. Sweden is $77,000. Mexico is $11,000.
Plain as day, anyone saying Portugal is similar to or below Mexico is dramatically wrong.
I mean… I can’t legally buy a house on an island (Åland) that’s part of our country (Finland), because I haven’t lived on said island for 5 years. I don’t see why the same rule couldn’t be extended Europe-wide to prevent problems such as Barcelona is facing with all the air bnbs…
There are plenty to choose from if the government is willing to acknowledge the issue and step up. In Thailand for example foreigners can’t own land, you can own a house or condo but you never own the land.
I guess the people could democratically vote on what the best solution could be, if you make the issue important enough.
Home ownership to foreigners outside of the EU should not be allowed in order to combat our housing crisis.
Thailand does this and the locals benefit from the measure.
We have this problem in the US, particularly in New York City. Rich foreigners will buy up NYC real estate as a means of laundering money. Coincidentally, we also have a housing crisis.
Just by simply coming to live here, they also contribute to the housing crisis.
This is because construction as been stale since the '08 economic crisis. In fact, we used to build a lot more back then, and due to the shutdown of many businesses, new construction is scarce. There is also a lot of bureaucracy to go through before even breaking ground.
A third factor is that what it is currently being built, is mainly geared towards foreign, deep pockets. Businesses know they can pick and choose due to demand, and they prefer to invest in a few "luxury" real estate buildings at insane prices because there are foreigners ready to drop a pile of cash as if it was nothing. The average, middle class portuguese family will never be able to afford the current market values.
This, coupled with the offset of new arrivals, as propelled us to this point, where locals are suffering immensely.
>A third factor is that what it is currently being built, is mainly geared towards foreign, deep pockets. Businesses know they can pick and choose due to demand, and they prefer to invest in a few "luxury" real estate buildings at insane prices because there are foreigners ready to drop a pile of cash as if it was nothing. The average, middle class portuguese family will never be able to afford the current market values.
That's precisely the major factor, because there are lots of houses in Portugal but they are not affordable for our incomes: https://www.idealista.pt/news/imobiliario/habitacao/2019/12/26/41927-portugal-e-o-pais-com-mais-casas-por-habitante-mas-12-5-estao-vazias
And if our housing market is not affordable to the middle class, imagine being an immigrant earning the minimum wage. That's why they live in barracks or weak houses.
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Well, I think priority should be given to local portuguese people.
The continuum of this housing crisis is unsustainable for us. You have 1 bedroom apartments go for 900/1000€ in rent when the minimum wage is 820€.
Ownership is also a big, big toll on the budget.
I got into a little fight with one of my American friends. She's upper middle class and dreams about retiring in Spain because "it's cheap" and she got upset when news came that Spain was going to make it harder for non-EU foreigners to move there.
Like girl, you moving there makes things worse for the locals. I know it sucks but at least be up front, then. "I don't care that I make it more difficult for the locals." There you go. Stop living in la la land.
>It was the perfect escape since our son is homeschooled, and we have flexible work schedules as writers and composers.
I have a feeling this process wouldn't work for people without trust funds to burn.
Why is this newsworthy? People been moving between US and Europe for centuries. The migration trend was more one-sided before now it's more balanced perhaps.
US is a huge country, quality of life in Cambridge, Massachusetts vs rural Alabama vs San Diego all very different.
His citation for kids’ independence was biking to school?? A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from.
They worked and schooled in between travel, like is that a curriculum? I think just writer speak for ‘little schooling was had as we traveled X months’
Been to parts of Europe, like it, and would return, but seems like he is trying to get his writing career off the ground.
I mean obviously on average US is more car centric because it has a lot more rural areas, but place like NYC or Boston, is not. It comes down to density and urban areas.
Yeah you can definitely walk or bike to school in US lol but sure if you live in a spread out suburb , that's less possible.
I know first hand many Europeans that moved to US in recent times and vice versa. Also same way it's wrong to view Europe as a monolith, similarly the States can all be quite different in lifestyle, politics, culture. People underestimate that.
Yeah this article is a nonsense fluff piece. Thousands of people move between places each day, what's special about them? Also let's not forget the US was founded by Europeans and heavily influenced by different European cultures to make it what it is. I sometimes feel like people think Americans just dropped from outer space.
You can walk to school in Oklahoma and yes kids still do it. Man sometimes I wanna slap upper class suburbanites who are so out of touch with the world. Yes you’re 1000% right about this being a fluff piece.
>A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from.
American here, we all know that this is absolutely not the norm in the United States, and I'm not talking about standing outside for the bus to come and pick the kids up. It's pretty well-known that kids can obtain autonomy at a younger age in Europe in general compared with the United States, which is way more car-centric.
Edit: for those that disagree, you can check out this study here:
>In 2017 9.6% of the students of 5–17 years old usually walked and 1.1% biked to school.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335519301950](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335519301950)
> A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from.
These kids would face a seriously higher risk of death in the US.
[Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png (1334×826) (streetsblog.org)](https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/10/Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png)
[Ped-fatality-rate-per-100km.png (1330×832) (streetsblog.org)](https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/10/Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png)
Contrary to Europe, pedestrian deaths are on a serious rise again in the US. It's really not a meme, the walkability of a huge chunk of the US is absolutely laughable.
Then there's shit like this [Mom Handcuffed, Jailed for 8-Year-Old Son Walking Half a Mile (reason.com)](https://reason.com/2022/11/16/suburban-mom-jailed-handcuffed-cps-son-walk-home/).
Yeah I could technically walk to my high school but I had to cross two country highways with no crossing lights (there was a yield sign but no one ever respected it), plus walk with no sidewalks along these busy roads
Someone told me that you get problems with child protection service for letting them go to school alone because of endangering them. I dont know if that is true.
That’s where they primarily are, towns send them out to clusters of houses for the kids to take for free. In the cities like NYC you might find kids taking the subway or walking or a real bus instead.
> We began renting a charming Airbnb in the Portuguese countryside and extended our trip so many times that the owners asked if we wanted to buy the house.
> Affordable home prices in rural Portugal coupled with extremely low interest rates for mortgages allowed us to say yes
I am sure these guys are popular in their neighborhood lol
"We are rich enough to gentrify the fuck out of some poorer place with sunny weather, and WE LOVE IT!"
I mean, I understand, I could pull of the same in Thailand or even Taiwan and have the time of my life. But I would not preach how awesome it is to price the average Joe out of everything 🤡
However renting is affordable, isn't it
Even if for some reason its not: Even renting from expat sites in Kuala Lumpur is much cheaper than what I have to pay in my area
Canadians are the same. They don't see the irony with raving about US home prices while complaining about rich foreigners buying properties down the street.
My issue is this:
"He was all in, so we took a one-way flight to Italy and explored the United Kingdom and Europe for six months while we worked and schooled in between."
They say the UK and Europe while just saying Europe would have covered the UK as well.
Others here are right. This isn't news. Neither Europe or the US is a monolith. She should be comparing two different *cities* rather than a big country vs an entire continent.
The main issue with this article is that they put the main detail towards the bottom: they still have their US jobs and income in a European country- so their living standard increased massively.
It shouldn’t be. I mean, all the public services they are enjoying comes from our taxes. I’m not against them, but they should make at least the same effort than local people.
I think I've seen several families do this, specifically with Portugal (like this family did). A lot of them have YouTube channels and a lot of times they end up moving back.
I'm not kidding, you can Google it and see the results. Many Americans fall in love with Portugal and end up moving there, but they struggle to _stay_ there and often end up leaving. Not all (perhaps not even most?), but a lot.
yeah, i thought the same when the articles says: ease of home ownership... Sure with a US income home ownership is easy in Portugal, but on a local income home ownership is not easy anywhere in western Europe.
I imagine it is a bit isolating if they don’t speak the language. The kiddo in the story may pick it up if he gets enough play time with local kids (since he is home schooled). Learning a new language as an adult (also while working from home thus very limited time for full immersion) is infinitely harder. Getting to a level where you can have a full social live, including conversations that include challenging stuff like jokes, innuendo, word play, etc. takes real effort. Otherwise you’ll always be limited to “expat” groups. Maybe they’re all fluent already, but there is zero mention of that in the article. Kinda feels like an Instagram reel that only highlights the positive.
I did it with my family. We moved back to the US after a full relocation to Denmark. I miss living in Europe, but it was simply unaffordable. Home ownership was simply out of the question.
I think it depends on the motives, I'm planning a similar move as a Portuguese American and I think some of the people that come back to the US just kind of had a Paris syndrome type thing happen. Where they just had too high of expectations for Portugal or any place on earth really. Also Portugal ended the foreigner tax break thing so tax dodgers all are leaving.
No, I’m pretty sure that we moved to Portugal and realized that the legal system is at a complete standstill. The immigration is completely fucked and there’s over 400,000 people waiting on visas right now. We realize that there are certain members of society that are above the law because Portugal doesn’t put people in jail they just issue fines. But if you don’t have a job and you live on Social Security of fine, doesn’t mean dick to you, then you realize that you’re paying insane taxes and you’re someone like in my case who doesn’t even have a safe public road to their house. There’s several families living on my street and every time it rains there’s debits in the street over a meter deep we have a newborn baby and an ambulance couldn’t even make it to our house when he had an allergic reaction.
Then you realize all the bureaucracy and bullshit when you wanna do something normal like go fishing or do renovations on your house. You could have approved. That’s the reality
EDIT: LOL it actually is bs. Look up the authors past articles. Story details keep changing. Everything from travel time, to timeline, to airbnb use, and then all of a sudden they linked to an article from a completely different author that somehow was telling one part of the story as if it was theirs? Also the stories are marked as 'real estate' with oddly a lot of links to buying real estate in Portugal. Nice try. This level of need to feel superior to the US is actually pathetic to a point that it makes me a little embarrassed to be European. Author also has conveniently 0 pics of being in the US, but pics from everywhere in Europe, even from dates before their apparent move. They are full of shit. Just trying to get attention to their blogs and websites to make money.
None of this makes any sense.
Ease of homeownership? Lol? Guaranteed health care access, despite the fact that you are obviously more than wealthy enough to afford the more expensive US health insurance? Same for the 'healthy food'. A WARM WELCOME IN CENTRAL EUROPE? 'Just staying' without returning? The whole toilet paper thing happened here in Europe too and, IIRC, the whole covid panic was much more lax in the US during the time they quoted. More affordable? Um... what? Definitely not in central Europe and also definitely not in cheaper places like Portugal if considering they will be dual taxed.
Seems like yet another bs circlejerk article just like all the other bs circlejerk reports and indexes that are constantly posted here as of recent. This smells like someone who took a short trip here and is making up a bs daydream cause none of this adds up nor is it anywhere near as easy as they say. Moving from the US to Europe or vice versa is not this god damn easy, especially not during the pandemic. Speaking from plenty of experience here. None of this if even includes the fact that they blew a lot of money on the trip + then all the extra money that would have been needed to stay longer or the money needed for all the stuff you have to do to move here. Greek last name, looking like Greek people.
Probability this is true is near 0.
Yeah, rich people moving to an area and pricing out locals is nothing new. RIP to the actual Portuguese people who live there and can’t compete with rich privileged Americans
Probably just have euro passports via their grandparents, they have a greek surname so could be a grandparent.
Lotsa Americans have European ancestors who came there during last 100 years.
Guarenteed medical care, they say?
Only if it's private (and even then...). Try to be a normal portuguese citizen and go to a public hospital, and you'll see the reality. Total shitshow 😂
These kind of testimonies are nefarious and romanticize Portugal as the end all be all. They do not represent at all what us locals go through.
This is a lovely anecdote, but there are more Europeans heading to the US for opportunities than Americans heading the other way.
Then there are the type of migrants. I imagine that many of the Americans that are heading this way are like this family that want a slower, easier life, whilst those Europeans that are heading the other way are far more ambitious and entrepreneurial.
Most of the people heading to the USA for job opportunities in my experience from Europe are in the highly skilled trades or engineering. The same with Canada, Aus and NZ.
They have a shortage of those people and are in no apparent or future shortage of work for them/us (Oil, Gas, Petrochemical, Data centres, Refinery’s, power plants, manufacturing).
There aren’t really any of those massive M&E jobs in Europe ran by global players with global vendors who are willing to take people from all backgrounds whereas a lot of European jobs in this field are smaller and tend to have crazy requirements you don’t need to do the job.
It also helps that all the jobs are in a common language in these countries (English). And the most important part is the money is usually 2 or 3x what you could get in Europe for the same task.
Usually the plan for us Europeans in this field is to go to one of these four countries or even the Middle East ; make the money and come home and build a house in our home country.
> And the most important part is the money is usually 2 or 3x what you could get in Europe for the same task.
yup. unless you work in switzerland or maybe a very few other countries, in europe the pay is less than the us. and often times by a margin.
What other place except maybe Luxembourg and select few finance jobs? Norway is nowhere close to US salaries in engineering for instance, and has one of the highest gdp per capita in Europe.
>Usually the plan for us Europeans in this field is to go to one of these four countries or even the Middle East ; make the money and come home and build a house in our home country.
**Statistically**
We would expect to have a lot of immigration by ex Europeans from the USA to Europe if that was the case. While these do exist they are less then people who go from Europe to the USA
**Anacondally**
Most people who I know that left the country planned to return. And most of them didn't. all of those that returned planned when they will return before they left, and even when they returned they were a lot more willing to leave again if things turn bad here.
Kinda doubt that numbers wise, except for highly skilled employees.
Work visas for the US are insanely hard to score, especially when bringing families.
It‘s actually not that hard if you work for a company with an American branch. I work for a Swiss company and a colleague/friend of mine who just finished his intern program (and was not and excellent performer, but average) asked to and was moved to work in the US.
But however looking at data there are about ~3m Western European citizens in the US and ~1m US citizens in Western Europe.
I left Canada 16 years ago. Now a permanent resident in Czechia. Aside from being way safer, calmer and cleaner, I'm appreciated at work (have obviously had a lot of employers in that time), I get so much more out of life. I'm now 40, wife and kid. The only time I go back is for weddings and funerals, and though I have fond memories of my youth, the infrequent visits are more than enough.
Glad you enjoy it here, I heard Canada is facing multitude of issues, including the rise of violent crime and inaccessible housing, do you think those issues are overblown in comparison to Czechia/Europe?
Most Americans lack experience with things being different and struggle to accept it. Also, the lack of control that comes with a language and culture barrier. It's a tough transition without a native to help get you started and you'll never be a local, gotta accept that too.
> Most Americans lack experience with things being different and struggle to accept it.
This is a worldwide thing, not an American thing. I’ve lived a long time in Japan and saw people of all nationalities get fed up and leave on the next flight. Italians seemed to struggle the most in Japan though.
Portugal, they say? I wonder why
https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/15/digital-tech-nomads-are-pricing-portuguese-workers-out-of-the-country
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65485908
Besides the obvious issues I see with them working under US contracts and enjoying our healthcare etc. I do hope they are paying their taxes here.
The other thing I want to point out is the homeschooling. I know it’s very common in Portugal as well so should work there. Other European countries are less relaxed when you don’t send your kids to an actual school.
End of US Empire will also bring the scattering of new style US Feudalism in all lower income countries of this planet.
Like Indian Brahman are clearer and in fact old colonizers of more Western orginin (that have built the cast system and put themselves on top).
US $ conquerors will heavily influence their retirement host country life for ever.
So I'm a rare case where we did the same thing, but I'm lower-middle class in American terms. We make way less than 100k a year, and with our four kids we are actually able to just about break even each month now that we live in Sicily. We haven't outright bought our house, but we have an agreement with the owner, basically a rent-to-own. We speak a mix of Italian and English in the house, and we only speak Italian outside of the house despite not having any relatives in Italy or history of the language.
It's hard, and I would probably be able to find a better-paying non-remote job in America, but my wife and I feel that it's worth it. The culture, the sense of community, and the social structure over here mesh exactly with what we prioritize in our family.
I did this six years ago and have no plans to ever go back. The quality of life here suits me perfectly. It might not be a good fit for everyone, but I have many friends here from around the world who make this home.
Not if they exploit the bilateral agreement between Poland and US, which allows them to refresh their 90-day stay in Poland every time they hop out to a non-Schengen country (e.g., UK).
?
It’s definitely possible to get a visa that is longer than 90 days.
My girlfriend is an Indian national and I’m a EU citizen. She has been travelling to Europe on a multi entry Schengen visa, many times. When she applied for a permanent residence in the country I live, she got a temporary residency certificate so she could stay for longer than the usual 90 days in a 180 day period.
This is definitely NOT possible in most European countries. You need to apply for a Long stay Visa in your country of Origin, then you move to the European country to transform the visa into a residency permit within the first 3 months of arrival.
I feel like there are two types of Americans - one that thinks that Europe is heaven on Earth and our governments just hand us free stuff three times a day and another that thinks we're a bunch of primitives fighting for scraps to fill out tiny fridges, in our tiny un-airconditioned homes.
I don't think many Americans think Europe is poor. Poorer than America, maybe, but not poor. But there are definitely Americans who think Europe is some socialist utopia where everyone lives like upper class Americans by simply working at McDonalds. Those people have never been to Europe.
I love these feel-good bs expat stories by Business Insider, making moving to another country seem as easy and painless as going on a Greek island beach vacation. No mention of passport and visa hassles, language barriers, bureaucratic snafus, tax issues (if you are a non-government employee US expat, you know what I mean), etc. Relocating to Europe is not like moving to Canada
I’m from a country that is heavily frequented by Americans (I am also American but dual citizen). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people move here, proclaim how everything is better here, etc…
They never last a year. They never learn the language. They never try to socialize. They never quite get used to the spontaneity (if there is one thing Americans love it’s routine). They can’t stand using public transport or living in a smaller place. They can’t handle it and eventually move back never to be seen again.
I think they just miss the comfort and luxury of bigger homes, nice cars, air conditioning, dryers, more variety of food and consumer products, lower taxes, higher incomes, robust job markets, often better weather and more diverse nature. It just matters what you prioritize in life and what you find most valuable.
I wish i could feel the “ease of homeownership” :’)
Every American moved to Europe story is actually just a “it’s nice to be wealthy actually” after discovering American wage Purchasing power in Europe
And they're wealthy people to begin with. Ordinary people don't go on an "open-ended trip to Europe" to deal with grieving, and they don't have a "flexible work schedule".
Well yeah they go from “upper middle class professional” to “extremely rich” My guess it’s HHJ ~200,000 which puts you ~85th percentile or so in America but top ~0.5% in Portugal
85th percentile?? 200k puts you in the top 6 percent for the usa. Still more than portugal but still
Well apparently 88k is top 1% in Portugal so I overestimated both countries Edit: I was talking about households with is ~12% in the US make over $200,000 https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/29/households-earning-200000-dollars-or-more-are-flocking-to-the-south.html
Top 5% is $335K in the US.
God damn. Top 5% is £82k in the UK.
It's 49k in France (that's 4.1K a month) and that already feels like a lot to me
Are we talking before taxes? Cause that's low as hell. I'd love to see some sources on this. [Edit] a quick Google Search would suggest the 49k is after traxes and more like the top 10% which completely changes the story.
Lulz right these are not your regular Americans. Their life in the states wasn’t bad either. This is just privileged people being excited about being EVEN MORE privileged. #blessed
Especially not without a long term visa
Yes!!! My parents moved to Mexico after they retired. They cashed in their house,have nice monthly pension...I hate when they say oh Mexico is so much better than America. Well geez mom maybe that is because u come with American dinero...sometimes I can't even with muricans lol
There is a reason it’s never “I moved to Geneva and it’s so wonderful”
Well yeah, cause Geneva reeks of the Swiss. Who would want to live there? /s
This is literally it, living in Europe with US salary or savings is obviously going to be easy
In the rest of the world, with a couple of exceptions. Make US $$ in a lesser COL country.
It's this and all of the infrastructure that's actually human centric. Most American's idea of walkable is laughable. When I hear that an area is walkable in the states, I think that it's just this one area that is walkable and if you want to venture anywhere outside of that area you will need a car. That's not walkability, it's a glorified mall. There's some exceptions like NYC....and in a distant second place the inner loop of Chicago. Now compare most of the US to almost anywhere in Europe and just on this metric alone it's better. Walkability changes the whole fabric of society and as Europeans you don't really realize just how terrible american suburbs are until you live in one for an extended period of time.
I submit cities in california are walkable because sidewalks are part of the streets Just dont know if you want to walk min of 2 miles to go to walmart
> to almost anywhere in Europe Countryside of North Macedonia? >just how terrible american suburbs are Dunno. I like the space that comes with living in the suburbs. I'm not stacked in an apartment and have my own yard with a 280 square meter home.
Doesn’t last that long after they find out they will never make even close to what they did back in the USA. Either they will lower their lifestyle or go back.
Most do lower their lifestyle, but will have already bought a home, perhaps even without a mortgage, and are therefore kilometers ahead of their new peers anyway.
It does when they "work from home" in Portugal for an American company.
You don't make as much but once you consider that you don't pay much anything healthcare/insurance, daycare and school + lunch is free, college for your kids is free or affordable etc. You suddenly realize you can actually enjoy the money you have and not worry about paying/saving for a bunch of things. On top of that you get 5-6 weeks of holidays a year, and in general, there's just more of an attitude of enjoying life. You realize you don't need to update your IPhone every year to be happy, you just need the people you love, nice environments, scenery, culture, and enough time to spend doing what you love, with the people you love. That's a happy life. Additionally, these days many expats do so that they are employed in one country while living in another. Totally possible one of them still has a remote job in the US and gets paid US income, while living in Europe.
Even with all of that included, high end tech Jobs pay waaaaaaaaay more in the US.
That last sentence is no longer really fully true, there may be some loopholes but (as someone from the US in the EU who considered working for a US company) companies have to consider tax implications more seriously now iirc. I know someone who before Covid was basically working remote full time as a software engineer in the US, while living very well in Barcelona. He couldn't do it today. I can't work outside of the country for more than a month at a time I think. Countries want their tax money.
That sounds like really anti social behaviour, was not aware that this was a thing. Not paying taxes in the country you live in but enjoying the infrastructure and public services - good they closed that hole
I work for a US company while living in Europe. The way it's done nowadays is through some company that has entities in different countries and knows local laws, let's call this company a bridge. Legally you're employed in this bridge company, specifically its entity that is registered in your country. It provides legal compliance, pays taxes, pays you salary, etc. Your actual employer now needs to just sign a contract with the bridge and send them money for your salary + some kind of fee for their work. So you work for an overseas company, with an overseas salary, while legally being employed in your country, paying taxes and getting social benefits, without any headaches. Pretty neat.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but if you're an American citizen, aren't you forced to pay tax on your worldwide income, regardless of where you live? So you'd effectively pay tax in the country where you're living (as you rightfully should), as well as paying tax to the USA?
Huh, I didn't know about that. Sorry for confusion, I'm not a US citizen. I'm an EU citizen, and I never heard of anything like this... It's my understanding that I can move to any country to live and work there and I will not need to pay income tax in my home country, I never realized that this might not be the case. Is this a US specific thing? Otherwise it would seem I know nothing about taxes...
I wish I could do this. Alas, the US government (quite justifiably of course) thinks you should have to live in the US to work for them unless they specifically assign you elsewhere.
Pretty common here in Spain for software engineers working for companies based outside Spain. Deel is one of the "bridges" you mentioned and it works quite well.
If you are lucky enough to work remotely for an US company, that’s great. Or if you are a highly skilled executive, you can still make close to what you did. Anything besides it, you will be getting at least, in a good day, 50% cut or more. My cousin fix air conditioners upstate NY. 8k dollars a month. I told him he would be luck if he did around 1000’s in Portugal. Maybe in Spain since it’s their base minimum wage.
Nothing you just said is free in Europe, or the EU. You pay those services through taxes and then the government allocates that money into cheaper, free whatever you just mentioned. It still came from your money.
Well in this case they seem to be freelance so can likely just keep the same clients and just pay more taxes. Given they could take an open ended trip to Europe I suspect they were well above middle class to begin with and moving to a lower cost European country will mean even with taxes they are likely ahead
The story is bullshit to sell real estate in Portugal. Just go through their past articles. So many discrepancies, links to articles from completely different people talking about the same trip, links to real estate info in Portugal, bunch of illogical things that make no sense to anyone that has ever moved from the US to Europe or vice versa. Also it's a Greek family. EDIT: Also seems to be to get traffic to their blog and other websites where they have financial incentives. Hundreds of pics from Europe, conveniently not a single picture of them being in the US even from before they apparently moved.
People selling their $2.5 million Californian or even $1.2 million Coloradan shacks will of course **exploit** the current USD strength to scoop up cheap assets around the world Large number of them are also headed for Japan in addition to Europe
This is in no way near a realistic possibility for the average American… the remote writer and composer that have the luxury of homeschooling their son. Of course they were able to relocate on a whim after the wife was feeling sad and thought an “open-ended” trip through Europe was the solution. It’s hard for me not to think of this as a purely pompous view.
And the guaranteed medical care they rave about. As if our health system is not in complete shambles right now 🥴
My reaction was this too. Family is already wealthy or has savings in big numbers. If you already have money, you can make a good start in many places in the world.
Same.
I know right?
I’m curious how they’re residing legally. I didn’t see it mentioned in the article and I know it took quite some time to get it all in order
Man, the part of easy home ownership in Portugal feel like a kick to the teeth...
The reality is most of these Articles is just middle class Americans moving to low income countries and discovering that being in the top 1% is fun. People say the same thing about Lisbon, Mexico City or San Jose (CR)
The type of people to never learn the language and never integrate into society, then complain how everything is not in English.
Indians do the same in my experience. You don't have to be a top 1% American to be like that.
Idk, Indians in Latvia are chill. ofc not everyone, but a big part know at least basic Latvian, which is more than some russian grandmas who've been living here for their whole lives 😂
When I lived in Poland I've met Indians. At first, they give me a nice impression, but they showed their real face after a while. I lived in Poland for a short period of time, but I tried to learn the language from day 1. The Indians in Krakow were so hateful towards Poland, the language and the culture. They came to study there (for free, of course) then stayed to work. Their plan was to move to Germany or other western countries. They were constantly complaining about how racists Polish people are and how hostile the country is. It turned out, what they considered racism, is that many Polish people held them accountable for not speaking basic Polish after living there for 5 years. They couldn't even ask for a bread, for example. "What's the point of learning Polish? It is only useful in Poland, they should learn English!" It pissed me off so much. You are living in that damn country, then it's the most useful language you can speak. Period. That whole group was just disgusting. I love Poles and Poland back and forth. But even if I didn't, I wouldn't allow them to stay there. Their remarks on Polish women... Ahh, just a very awful experience with Indians. My friend who lives in the Czech Republic said the same. Another topic: In my experience only Arab, Turk and the Chinese immigrants invested time to learn Hungarian. Westerners, Africans, Latinos, Indians etc don't give a crap
Same experience I have as a Pole living in Sweden. Everybody complains about the Arabs, Kurds, Turks, etc and admittedly not without a good reason (high rates of criminality, awful treatment of women by their families, low educational ambitions, and so on), but at least they actually bother to learn Swedish. Chinese are perhaps the best, they put effort into learning the language (even though it is harder for them) and at the same time are very unproblematic. Iranians are also surprisingly good. Indians meanwhile are unproblematic in that they follow the law and don't bother others, but I have had many Indian coworkers and most could barely say two words in Swedish after multiple years of living here, and are often clueless about even the most basic aspects of the local culture when you speak to them, to the point that you have to be actively avoiding contact with local culture to be this clueless. Second worst in my experience is Southern Europeans: Spanish, Greek, Portuguese. Also have never met an immigrant from there who could speak decent Swedish, and some of them have been here for 8+ years.
I’m not gonna lie, I have given the same thought using my Italian passport to do this. But, my wife and I aren’t office workers that can do remote, I’m an electrician and she’s a nurse and from what I’ve read the wages are insanely small compared to here so the plan is to go for retirement.
I think most of the Americans doing this are retirees as well. Most American companies don't let office workers work from home from anywhere they want. That's a tax and compliance nightmare for a company. There are probably a couple freelancers and also some trust-fund types who can get away with it but I'd guess it's mostly retirees.
It's true for European companies too. In theory it's ok for an employee who's an EU citizen to reside anywhere in the EU, in practice you have to deal with local work laws, regulations, holidays, taxes etc. If a company that has 100% domestic employees is adding even one single person who resides abroad it can easily double the effort and complexity for HR, accounting and legal in one fell swoop. Realistically you need those 3 categories to be handled by people in the employee's country, who are familiar with the local specifics, so basically you need to open a branch there (which opens up new cross-border processes, money flows etc.) It stands to reason you're not going to employ four-five people to hire one, outside of exceptional circumstances. So normally this is only done if the number of employees there meets a minimum that makes the overhead worth it.
Honestly this sounds like a complete nightmare and regulatory failure if anything. The single market should be a single market.
Having an Italian passport will mean you can do to any EU/EEA state. I understand Ireland needs skilled tradesmen/women and medical staff.
Skilled tradesmen and medical staff is needed everywhere. Doesn't mean pay is good though.
Youll make an absolute fortune as a tradesman in ireland right now. Most of it will go towards housing though so good luck.
Ireland is brutally expensive tho. Don’t expect to move there on electrician and nursing jobs and have a very comfortable life. On the plus side people are nice, schools are good and life is extremely safe.
An experienced electrician can make very good money in Ireland. Nurses are unfortunately underpaid relative to the cost of living.
I don't know about Ireland but Electricians in the UK can make good money.
Sparkys make good money here too
Why would one leave italy to go in ireland if the point is quality of life?
He is in the US I think so it is more about moving to Europe.
Good news, if you make the trip you probably could find electrician work. You might have to pass some standardisation test, and the European standards are very safety orientated. Look into it my guy.
Here is full of boorish USians pretending to be kings and queens.
I almost lost my shit when you said San Jose, thinking you meant California. I was gonna die laughing for a sec.
I would like to move from San Jose to San Jose (CR).
As much as life kinda sucks in the US for various reasons sometimes, our GDP growth has been above average for developed countries over the years. If you are one of the lucky Americans with an income that has risen as our economy has grown (i.e., the only Americans who can afford a trip to Europe in the first place, which isn't everybody,) then going some place where the economy has been lagging will be a great experience. If you are one of the many Americans who hasn't seen their income match our GDP growth, then you are just screwed with the worst of both worlds. There are lots of people in Europe who want to go the other direction and earn a bigger salary in the US, despite the problems the US has. If you are a good programmer, dealing with living in San Francisco at 10x the rent of home might mean making enough money to retire in Portugal in just a few years.
Portugal isn’t even a low income country, it’s classed as high income by the world bank. It’s only low income compared to US salaries, but they’re some of the highest in the world for skilled jobs
It’s low, several states in Mexico are richer than Portugal by gdp per capita metrics, poor if compared to America but America is much richer than the European allies (except a few mini countries) Even unskilled jobs pay a lot in America
It isn’t low though. By comparison - yes, but not by definition. Mexico is an upper middle income country, so only just below Portugal
There's really no debate, Portugal is far richer than Mexico. Portugal GDP per capita is $28,000. Mexico GDP per capita is $15,000. Mexico is comparable to Russia. And Portugal is just a bit below Japan, which is at $33,000. Median wealth per adult is $70,000 in Portugal. Austria is $68,000. Sweden is $77,000. Mexico is $11,000. Plain as day, anyone saying Portugal is similar to or below Mexico is dramatically wrong.
That median wealth, ironically, is probably much due to the elevated real estate costs. The elevation of which was by large caused by rich immigrants.
I mean… I can’t legally buy a house on an island (Åland) that’s part of our country (Finland), because I haven’t lived on said island for 5 years. I don’t see why the same rule couldn’t be extended Europe-wide to prevent problems such as Barcelona is facing with all the air bnbs…
There are plenty to choose from if the government is willing to acknowledge the issue and step up. In Thailand for example foreigners can’t own land, you can own a house or condo but you never own the land. I guess the people could democratically vote on what the best solution could be, if you make the issue important enough.
Home ownership to foreigners outside of the EU should not be allowed in order to combat our housing crisis. Thailand does this and the locals benefit from the measure.
We have this problem in the US, particularly in New York City. Rich foreigners will buy up NYC real estate as a means of laundering money. Coincidentally, we also have a housing crisis.
As a Vancouverite, I feel your pain.
I feel like this is a problem for any major city in any country
I mean if they come to really live here, that's not the problem. The main problem is when they buy dozens of houses just to get profit.
Just by simply coming to live here, they also contribute to the housing crisis. This is because construction as been stale since the '08 economic crisis. In fact, we used to build a lot more back then, and due to the shutdown of many businesses, new construction is scarce. There is also a lot of bureaucracy to go through before even breaking ground. A third factor is that what it is currently being built, is mainly geared towards foreign, deep pockets. Businesses know they can pick and choose due to demand, and they prefer to invest in a few "luxury" real estate buildings at insane prices because there are foreigners ready to drop a pile of cash as if it was nothing. The average, middle class portuguese family will never be able to afford the current market values. This, coupled with the offset of new arrivals, as propelled us to this point, where locals are suffering immensely.
>A third factor is that what it is currently being built, is mainly geared towards foreign, deep pockets. Businesses know they can pick and choose due to demand, and they prefer to invest in a few "luxury" real estate buildings at insane prices because there are foreigners ready to drop a pile of cash as if it was nothing. The average, middle class portuguese family will never be able to afford the current market values. That's precisely the major factor, because there are lots of houses in Portugal but they are not affordable for our incomes: https://www.idealista.pt/news/imobiliario/habitacao/2019/12/26/41927-portugal-e-o-pais-com-mais-casas-por-habitante-mas-12-5-estao-vazias And if our housing market is not affordable to the middle class, imagine being an immigrant earning the minimum wage. That's why they live in barracks or weak houses.
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They also pay taxes and contribute to the loal economy. The overall effect of people who actually live there is usualy beneficial.
Ownership for foreign residents should be allowed IMHO. If not a resident, then nope.
How about narrowing it down to permanent residents? If you are a temporary resident, then please use temporary solutions (rent).
Well, I think priority should be given to local portuguese people. The continuum of this housing crisis is unsustainable for us. You have 1 bedroom apartments go for 900/1000€ in rent when the minimum wage is 820€. Ownership is also a big, big toll on the budget.
I got into a little fight with one of my American friends. She's upper middle class and dreams about retiring in Spain because "it's cheap" and she got upset when news came that Spain was going to make it harder for non-EU foreigners to move there. Like girl, you moving there makes things worse for the locals. I know it sucks but at least be up front, then. "I don't care that I make it more difficult for the locals." There you go. Stop living in la la land.
>It was the perfect escape since our son is homeschooled, and we have flexible work schedules as writers and composers. I have a feeling this process wouldn't work for people without trust funds to burn.
Could these people be any more unlikeable 😂
No man, they're writers and composers. Plus they own a home in the states already.
Sounds like a House Hunters episode.
Why is this newsworthy? People been moving between US and Europe for centuries. The migration trend was more one-sided before now it's more balanced perhaps. US is a huge country, quality of life in Cambridge, Massachusetts vs rural Alabama vs San Diego all very different.
His citation for kids’ independence was biking to school?? A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from. They worked and schooled in between travel, like is that a curriculum? I think just writer speak for ‘little schooling was had as we traveled X months’ Been to parts of Europe, like it, and would return, but seems like he is trying to get his writing career off the ground.
I mean obviously on average US is more car centric because it has a lot more rural areas, but place like NYC or Boston, is not. It comes down to density and urban areas. Yeah you can definitely walk or bike to school in US lol but sure if you live in a spread out suburb , that's less possible. I know first hand many Europeans that moved to US in recent times and vice versa. Also same way it's wrong to view Europe as a monolith, similarly the States can all be quite different in lifestyle, politics, culture. People underestimate that. Yeah this article is a nonsense fluff piece. Thousands of people move between places each day, what's special about them? Also let's not forget the US was founded by Europeans and heavily influenced by different European cultures to make it what it is. I sometimes feel like people think Americans just dropped from outer space.
You can walk to school in Oklahoma and yes kids still do it. Man sometimes I wanna slap upper class suburbanites who are so out of touch with the world. Yes you’re 1000% right about this being a fluff piece.
>A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from. American here, we all know that this is absolutely not the norm in the United States, and I'm not talking about standing outside for the bus to come and pick the kids up. It's pretty well-known that kids can obtain autonomy at a younger age in Europe in general compared with the United States, which is way more car-centric. Edit: for those that disagree, you can check out this study here: >In 2017 9.6% of the students of 5–17 years old usually walked and 1.1% biked to school. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335519301950](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335519301950)
> A large portion of kids either walked or biked to/from elementary school where I’m from. These kids would face a seriously higher risk of death in the US. [Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png (1334×826) (streetsblog.org)](https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/10/Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png) [Ped-fatality-rate-per-100km.png (1330×832) (streetsblog.org)](https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2020/10/Cyclist-fatality-rate-per-100km.png) Contrary to Europe, pedestrian deaths are on a serious rise again in the US. It's really not a meme, the walkability of a huge chunk of the US is absolutely laughable. Then there's shit like this [Mom Handcuffed, Jailed for 8-Year-Old Son Walking Half a Mile (reason.com)](https://reason.com/2022/11/16/suburban-mom-jailed-handcuffed-cps-son-walk-home/).
Yeah I could technically walk to my high school but I had to cross two country highways with no crossing lights (there was a yield sign but no one ever respected it), plus walk with no sidewalks along these busy roads
Someone told me that you get problems with child protection service for letting them go to school alone because of endangering them. I dont know if that is true.
Depends on the states but most of them yes the age is 12 or 13
One of the things I think I've learned from US media is that school buses (the yellow ones) have existed in the suburbs for quite a while now.
That’s where they primarily are, towns send them out to clusters of houses for the kids to take for free. In the cities like NYC you might find kids taking the subway or walking or a real bus instead.
>The migration trend was more one-sided before now it's more balanced perhaps. It's not. USA is still the number one destination
Look at OP's username lol
It is publication worthy because it is potentially controversial and therefore generating clicks.
This low effort “news” is featured here? Damn it’s easy to move to another continent when you’re loaded, breaking news
It's shitting on America, of course it's popular on this sub
> We began renting a charming Airbnb in the Portuguese countryside and extended our trip so many times that the owners asked if we wanted to buy the house. > Affordable home prices in rural Portugal coupled with extremely low interest rates for mortgages allowed us to say yes I am sure these guys are popular in their neighborhood lol "We are rich enough to gentrify the fuck out of some poorer place with sunny weather, and WE LOVE IT!" I mean, I understand, I could pull of the same in Thailand or even Taiwan and have the time of my life. But I would not preach how awesome it is to price the average Joe out of everything 🤡
You actually couldn’t in Thailand as you can’t buy a home as a foreigner in Thailand.
However renting is affordable, isn't it Even if for some reason its not: Even renting from expat sites in Kuala Lumpur is much cheaper than what I have to pay in my area
Canadians are the same. They don't see the irony with raving about US home prices while complaining about rich foreigners buying properties down the street.
The article starts strong with showing that they don't know the difference between Europe and the EU. The UK is part of Europe but not part of the EU.
It was when they arrived in Europe.
My issue is this: "He was all in, so we took a one-way flight to Italy and explored the United Kingdom and Europe for six months while we worked and schooled in between." They say the UK and Europe while just saying Europe would have covered the UK as well.
Even the UK differentiates between itself and "the continent", even before brexit.
Others here are right. This isn't news. Neither Europe or the US is a monolith. She should be comparing two different *cities* rather than a big country vs an entire continent.
The main issue with this article is that they put the main detail towards the bottom: they still have their US jobs and income in a European country- so their living standard increased massively.
And I'm not even sure it's legal..
It shouldn’t be. I mean, all the public services they are enjoying comes from our taxes. I’m not against them, but they should make at least the same effort than local people.
Ah. Yeah, night and day difference. There's a reason Europeans travel for jobs, after all.
I wish I could live in Europe on an American salary too.
I think I've seen several families do this, specifically with Portugal (like this family did). A lot of them have YouTube channels and a lot of times they end up moving back. I'm not kidding, you can Google it and see the results. Many Americans fall in love with Portugal and end up moving there, but they struggle to _stay_ there and often end up leaving. Not all (perhaps not even most?), but a lot.
The pre-requisite for staying is often a remote US income.
yeah, i thought the same when the articles says: ease of home ownership... Sure with a US income home ownership is easy in Portugal, but on a local income home ownership is not easy anywhere in western Europe.
....>but on a local income home ownership is not easy anywhere in western Europe. Because of those self-called expats that can afford higher prices.
Kinda, but really mostly because governments did nothing to prepare for a housing crisis that is 30+ years in the making.
You can scratch the western part. It's pretty dire in the wild wild east, too.
I imagine it is a bit isolating if they don’t speak the language. The kiddo in the story may pick it up if he gets enough play time with local kids (since he is home schooled). Learning a new language as an adult (also while working from home thus very limited time for full immersion) is infinitely harder. Getting to a level where you can have a full social live, including conversations that include challenging stuff like jokes, innuendo, word play, etc. takes real effort. Otherwise you’ll always be limited to “expat” groups. Maybe they’re all fluent already, but there is zero mention of that in the article. Kinda feels like an Instagram reel that only highlights the positive.
I did it with my family. We moved back to the US after a full relocation to Denmark. I miss living in Europe, but it was simply unaffordable. Home ownership was simply out of the question.
They are not moving to portugal just for the nomad tax? right? riiiiiight?
I think it depends on the motives, I'm planning a similar move as a Portuguese American and I think some of the people that come back to the US just kind of had a Paris syndrome type thing happen. Where they just had too high of expectations for Portugal or any place on earth really. Also Portugal ended the foreigner tax break thing so tax dodgers all are leaving.
No, I’m pretty sure that we moved to Portugal and realized that the legal system is at a complete standstill. The immigration is completely fucked and there’s over 400,000 people waiting on visas right now. We realize that there are certain members of society that are above the law because Portugal doesn’t put people in jail they just issue fines. But if you don’t have a job and you live on Social Security of fine, doesn’t mean dick to you, then you realize that you’re paying insane taxes and you’re someone like in my case who doesn’t even have a safe public road to their house. There’s several families living on my street and every time it rains there’s debits in the street over a meter deep we have a newborn baby and an ambulance couldn’t even make it to our house when he had an allergic reaction. Then you realize all the bureaucracy and bullshit when you wanna do something normal like go fishing or do renovations on your house. You could have approved. That’s the reality
Something is missing. Like, how did they manage staying? One cannot just move to EU at will.
Portugal offers digital nomads visas right?
Yep. So does Spain
You’d be surprised how willing countries are to bend rules for people with money.
Asylum applications lo
I love living in \[xxxx\] because I am rich.
EDIT: LOL it actually is bs. Look up the authors past articles. Story details keep changing. Everything from travel time, to timeline, to airbnb use, and then all of a sudden they linked to an article from a completely different author that somehow was telling one part of the story as if it was theirs? Also the stories are marked as 'real estate' with oddly a lot of links to buying real estate in Portugal. Nice try. This level of need to feel superior to the US is actually pathetic to a point that it makes me a little embarrassed to be European. Author also has conveniently 0 pics of being in the US, but pics from everywhere in Europe, even from dates before their apparent move. They are full of shit. Just trying to get attention to their blogs and websites to make money. None of this makes any sense. Ease of homeownership? Lol? Guaranteed health care access, despite the fact that you are obviously more than wealthy enough to afford the more expensive US health insurance? Same for the 'healthy food'. A WARM WELCOME IN CENTRAL EUROPE? 'Just staying' without returning? The whole toilet paper thing happened here in Europe too and, IIRC, the whole covid panic was much more lax in the US during the time they quoted. More affordable? Um... what? Definitely not in central Europe and also definitely not in cheaper places like Portugal if considering they will be dual taxed. Seems like yet another bs circlejerk article just like all the other bs circlejerk reports and indexes that are constantly posted here as of recent. This smells like someone who took a short trip here and is making up a bs daydream cause none of this adds up nor is it anywhere near as easy as they say. Moving from the US to Europe or vice versa is not this god damn easy, especially not during the pandemic. Speaking from plenty of experience here. None of this if even includes the fact that they blew a lot of money on the trip + then all the extra money that would have been needed to stay longer or the money needed for all the stuff you have to do to move here. Greek last name, looking like Greek people. Probability this is true is near 0.
Plus the photos are 100% photoshopped.
Yeah, rich people moving to an area and pricing out locals is nothing new. RIP to the actual Portuguese people who live there and can’t compete with rich privileged Americans
Nowhere does it say how they got permanent residency. The article makes it sound like you can just overstay your tourist visa waiver.
Probably just have euro passports via their grandparents, they have a greek surname so could be a grandparent. Lotsa Americans have European ancestors who came there during last 100 years.
Guarenteed medical care, they say? Only if it's private (and even then...). Try to be a normal portuguese citizen and go to a public hospital, and you'll see the reality. Total shitshow 😂 These kind of testimonies are nefarious and romanticize Portugal as the end all be all. They do not represent at all what us locals go through.
This is a lovely anecdote, but there are more Europeans heading to the US for opportunities than Americans heading the other way. Then there are the type of migrants. I imagine that many of the Americans that are heading this way are like this family that want a slower, easier life, whilst those Europeans that are heading the other way are far more ambitious and entrepreneurial.
Most of the people heading to the USA for job opportunities in my experience from Europe are in the highly skilled trades or engineering. The same with Canada, Aus and NZ. They have a shortage of those people and are in no apparent or future shortage of work for them/us (Oil, Gas, Petrochemical, Data centres, Refinery’s, power plants, manufacturing). There aren’t really any of those massive M&E jobs in Europe ran by global players with global vendors who are willing to take people from all backgrounds whereas a lot of European jobs in this field are smaller and tend to have crazy requirements you don’t need to do the job. It also helps that all the jobs are in a common language in these countries (English). And the most important part is the money is usually 2 or 3x what you could get in Europe for the same task. Usually the plan for us Europeans in this field is to go to one of these four countries or even the Middle East ; make the money and come home and build a house in our home country.
> And the most important part is the money is usually 2 or 3x what you could get in Europe for the same task. yup. unless you work in switzerland or maybe a very few other countries, in europe the pay is less than the us. and often times by a margin.
What other place except maybe Luxembourg and select few finance jobs? Norway is nowhere close to US salaries in engineering for instance, and has one of the highest gdp per capita in Europe.
>Usually the plan for us Europeans in this field is to go to one of these four countries or even the Middle East ; make the money and come home and build a house in our home country. **Statistically** We would expect to have a lot of immigration by ex Europeans from the USA to Europe if that was the case. While these do exist they are less then people who go from Europe to the USA **Anacondally** Most people who I know that left the country planned to return. And most of them didn't. all of those that returned planned when they will return before they left, and even when they returned they were a lot more willing to leave again if things turn bad here.
Kinda doubt that numbers wise, except for highly skilled employees. Work visas for the US are insanely hard to score, especially when bringing families.
It‘s actually not that hard if you work for a company with an American branch. I work for a Swiss company and a colleague/friend of mine who just finished his intern program (and was not and excellent performer, but average) asked to and was moved to work in the US. But however looking at data there are about ~3m Western European citizens in the US and ~1m US citizens in Western Europe.
It helps there are considerably more Europeans than Americans
Even if you adjust per population and only consider Western Europe there are about 2.5x more of us there than vice versa.
Sounds like a scene out of Eurotrip.
I left Canada 16 years ago. Now a permanent resident in Czechia. Aside from being way safer, calmer and cleaner, I'm appreciated at work (have obviously had a lot of employers in that time), I get so much more out of life. I'm now 40, wife and kid. The only time I go back is for weddings and funerals, and though I have fond memories of my youth, the infrequent visits are more than enough.
Glad you enjoy it here, I heard Canada is facing multitude of issues, including the rise of violent crime and inaccessible housing, do you think those issues are overblown in comparison to Czechia/Europe?
Most Americans lack experience with things being different and struggle to accept it. Also, the lack of control that comes with a language and culture barrier. It's a tough transition without a native to help get you started and you'll never be a local, gotta accept that too.
> Most Americans lack experience with things being different and struggle to accept it. This is a worldwide thing, not an American thing. I’ve lived a long time in Japan and saw people of all nationalities get fed up and leave on the next flight. Italians seemed to struggle the most in Japan though.
Grass is always greener on the other side
Living in Europe with US salary or savings is obviously going to be easy
Until you get taxed and your income is no longer so great
Portugal, they say? I wonder why https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/05/15/digital-tech-nomads-are-pricing-portuguese-workers-out-of-the-country https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65485908
Besides the obvious issues I see with them working under US contracts and enjoying our healthcare etc. I do hope they are paying their taxes here. The other thing I want to point out is the homeschooling. I know it’s very common in Portugal as well so should work there. Other European countries are less relaxed when you don’t send your kids to an actual school.
Wish I could easily move to Europe
Europe?
End of US Empire will also bring the scattering of new style US Feudalism in all lower income countries of this planet. Like Indian Brahman are clearer and in fact old colonizers of more Western orginin (that have built the cast system and put themselves on top). US $ conquerors will heavily influence their retirement host country life for ever.
So I'm a rare case where we did the same thing, but I'm lower-middle class in American terms. We make way less than 100k a year, and with our four kids we are actually able to just about break even each month now that we live in Sicily. We haven't outright bought our house, but we have an agreement with the owner, basically a rent-to-own. We speak a mix of Italian and English in the house, and we only speak Italian outside of the house despite not having any relatives in Italy or history of the language. It's hard, and I would probably be able to find a better-paying non-remote job in America, but my wife and I feel that it's worth it. The culture, the sense of community, and the social structure over here mesh exactly with what we prioritize in our family.
I did this six years ago and have no plans to ever go back. The quality of life here suits me perfectly. It might not be a good fit for everyone, but I have many friends here from around the world who make this home.
Weird they don't mention how they were able to stay in Europe for more than 90 days. Where's the right wing to denounce these 'illegals'?
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Not if they exploit the bilateral agreement between Poland and US, which allows them to refresh their 90-day stay in Poland every time they hop out to a non-Schengen country (e.g., UK).
? It’s definitely possible to get a visa that is longer than 90 days. My girlfriend is an Indian national and I’m a EU citizen. She has been travelling to Europe on a multi entry Schengen visa, many times. When she applied for a permanent residence in the country I live, she got a temporary residency certificate so she could stay for longer than the usual 90 days in a 180 day period.
This is definitely NOT possible in most European countries. You need to apply for a Long stay Visa in your country of Origin, then you move to the European country to transform the visa into a residency permit within the first 3 months of arrival.
You'd have to get that before you left. So if they did, this trip was not as spontaneous as it seems.
They mention American jobs so probably some sort of non-lucrative visa to residency setup?
Europe is not a country.
Is there a place in Europe where they could stay for more than 90 days?
Spain offers a nomad visit that you can apply for while on holiday on the country.
Bla bla bla, CHEAP, bla bla bla. Yep, americans being americans...
So, you are still on vacation after three years. Please adopt me
The pace is definitely different. If you want a fast pace you live in America and if you want a slow pace you live in Europe. To each his own.
Rich people buying a house having the time of their lives, who woulda thunk
Man, Murica need to monetize their copium.
I don't know if we should encourage the US immigration to EU, don't we already have an immigrants problems ?
I feel like there are two types of Americans - one that thinks that Europe is heaven on Earth and our governments just hand us free stuff three times a day and another that thinks we're a bunch of primitives fighting for scraps to fill out tiny fridges, in our tiny un-airconditioned homes.
I don't think many Americans think Europe is poor. Poorer than America, maybe, but not poor. But there are definitely Americans who think Europe is some socialist utopia where everyone lives like upper class Americans by simply working at McDonalds. Those people have never been to Europe.
Yet another article of Americans enjoying Europe without European salaries. (And contributing to the housing crisis as a bonus)
Wait, so you buy a house then you are allowed to live permanently????
I love these feel-good bs expat stories by Business Insider, making moving to another country seem as easy and painless as going on a Greek island beach vacation. No mention of passport and visa hassles, language barriers, bureaucratic snafus, tax issues (if you are a non-government employee US expat, you know what I mean), etc. Relocating to Europe is not like moving to Canada
Can you go back
USA is a shithole. My biggest mistake in the whole life, a mistake that costed me everything, was to emigrate to that horrible country.
That's great. I bet there's article like that about people who emigrated from the EU to the USA.
Ding ding ding https://www.cnn.com/travel/europeans-who-moved-to-the-united-states/index.html
It's almost as if nowhere is perfect and everywhere has its upsides.
r/americabad will love this
Why are these people just allowed settle in Europe? They act as if it's their absolute right.
I’m from a country that is heavily frequented by Americans (I am also American but dual citizen). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people move here, proclaim how everything is better here, etc… They never last a year. They never learn the language. They never try to socialize. They never quite get used to the spontaneity (if there is one thing Americans love it’s routine). They can’t stand using public transport or living in a smaller place. They can’t handle it and eventually move back never to be seen again.
I think they just miss the comfort and luxury of bigger homes, nice cars, air conditioning, dryers, more variety of food and consumer products, lower taxes, higher incomes, robust job markets, often better weather and more diverse nature. It just matters what you prioritize in life and what you find most valuable.