Are you seriously contemplating moving to another country?
If yes, what are you looking for when choosing a new country to call home?
How are you basing your decision?
Jobs? Cost of living? Freedom? Retirement? Totally awesome cuisine?
I write to you now from what has been called in the past “a nation of immigrants” (the U.S.)…
I realize many nations have given refuge to people looking for a better, safer place to call home. Some may still be welcoming new residents.
I’d like to hear from those of you–us–chewing on the “where to next?” question.
Have been community organizing off-and-on for a few decades now.
I hear you.
Just wanted you to know I have been putting in the time. A lot of time. A lot of unpaid time. Our health and our financial situations reflect a lot about these facts.
A fellow community organizer in my area is now living out of her car–she is one of the best I know. World class. She has been working the issues for nearly 40 years.
Another world is possible. A better world is possible.
Yes. And thank you for saying this.
Some of us are paying every day for our work though, significantly, and we may not last much longer. The grind is real.
Self-care… it’s a thing. I have a friend who had to retire to Mexico. Fantastic environmental lawyer with many years of experience and deep commitment to Austin and to Texas. Started Wheatsville Co-op with friends. He needed better cheaper healthcare and lower cost of living. Had no other way to square the circle.
I intend to be part of the solution. I won’t be able to vote for many years, but that doesn’t mean I can’t participate in other ways now that I’m physically in the US.
Lived in Germany for the longest part of my life. Would like to have a country to emigrate to. Can’t think of one I could go to. Tried to live in several others, but while climate, food or politics might be better elsewhere, the healthcare and parts of the social contract in Germany are hard to match.
Also, bread. Not even the Swiss and Austrians do it right. Friend of mine dreamt about opening a bakery on a beach somewhere warmer. If she ever does, that might be my place to go to.
The US, however, hasn’t been on the list of options since Reagan. I tried hard to consider California, cause I’ve got a friend there. But.
Nope.
My gringo-friends (and by that I mean non-Latinx who grew up in American-English-speaking cultures) have gravitated to San Miguel de Allende.
I have nearly lost count how many friends, admittedly folks who were already living in and around Austin and/or Texas, who have chosen that city to set up house.
I had one friend/business associate (um yes another gringo) who ended up in Oaxaca for 10+ years, but had to come back to take care of aging parent(s). So that case is a reverse-migration. I sense he would go back to his previous life in Mexico in a minute, once he has fulfilled his family obligations in the States.
We have another friend (gringo, right? non-Latinx; I aim for a parallel comparison) who set up his business and house in Cabo San Lucas after many decades living in the States. He is something of an adrenaline junkie, and for reasons best known to himself has a high tolerance or perhaps craving for risk. He seems happy there.
Thank you for coming, Ken. I mean that.
I am deeply grateful for what you bring to our area of the planet, including being our admin and moderator. (In my husband’s worklife, there’s a fair bit of that so I have a sense of what that entails–it ain’t easy even on a good day.)
I am the child of immigrants.
I try hard to remind myself to see the current situation in the U.S. through others’ eyes.
Thanks for this.
I looked into Italian citizenship through descent but the process is complicated, and it’s unclear if I’m eligible. (If your great great grandparent renounced Italian citizenship before having their kid, you’re out of luck.)
Italy changed their laws fairly recently so women can pass it too, so that’s an option…
But I’m not sure going to Europe would work out. Politics and lonliness aside - I wouldn’t be “bought in” to things like the pension system, but I’d be taxed like I’d been given all those benefits (instead of charged hundreds of thousands for my education).
It looks like it’d be simpler to use the Dutch-American friendship treaty to live in NL:
Eventually you’re eligible for permanent residency. Looks like just blogging + living off retirement income qualifies (just a 5k euro bank account req)
Anyways, I think it’s more likely I’ll be extremely frugal and retire abroad eventually than uproot myself midlife. For all the talk about the social safety nets etc, at the end of the day even if I became a Dutch or German citizen overnight I wouldn’t have a pension and future income would be taxed assuming I’d been a beneficiary of the social programs, and this is probably not economically feasible.
Not that these overlap, but that these are things I am tracking.
Also, since I am in “file for future ref” mode but trying to stay relevant to addressing where to next and why, and perhaps also “why aren’t these more abundant in the U.S.” (I write that as a decades-long resident of an intentional community, which is not the same as cohousing or co-operative housing):
Not a perfect fit for everyone. Certainly not for quiet-seeking introverts.
But standing in stark contrast to common U.S. residential housing models.
And perhaps some common residential housing issues in other countries:
I am fascinated on several levels with Verdi’s lengthy experiment…
