u/oregonian19

I want to start by saying thank you in advance for reading and taking the time to reply/share your own experiences and thoughts. Also apologies for any formatting issues — I typed this out on mobile.

My husband (29M) and I (30M) have recently returned from a three week trip to several European countries and we are asking ourselves, seriously, “should we move out of the US?”

Below is a little bit of information about our thought process. I wanted to ask if other people have been in a similar position and ultimately made the decision to leave the US. If so, what was your experience and how did you arrive to that conclusion?

Background:
Prior to our trip, we always had the idea of moving outside of the US, but we never really went beyond the fun “fantasy” stage of moving. When we discussed it, the motivations for this idea were escaping the political situation in the US and moving somewhere that more aligns with our progressive/liberal values on a national level.

We returned from our trip to Europe and we are asking ourselves, seriously, “should we move out of the US?” We were primarily enchanted with the (seemingly) more enjoyable pace of life, the human-scale design of the cities, and the social consciousness people and governments had (ex: many places wore “welfare state” as a badge of honor vs. the how the US thinks of that as fault).

During our trip, we didn’t do very many touristy things — instead, we tried to live life in the cities we visited: we walked around many different neighborhoods, took public transit, shopped at grocery stores, and ate/drank in smaller restaurants/cafes/bars, etc. and we absolutely loved it. Life seemed simpler and more enjoyable than in the US.

After talking, we are considering options like the Netherlands (smaller cities like Utrecht or Leiden) and Sweden (Stockholm). My husband is self-employed, does remote work, and would be able to retain his US clients. Given that, we feel like (with the time and effort) we could qualify him for the DAFT visa in the Netherlands or the self-employed visa in Sweden. Both would allow me join him with a reunification visa. I work in healthcare management in the US, so I am aware I would need to learn Dutch/Swedish to find comparable roles, find an English-speaking healthcare role (rare, it seems), or take a non-Healthcare English-speaking role.

Hold-ups:
We are going to take some time (few weeks to months) to see if we still have this itch and make a decision on what to do. But, in the meantime, we have a few thoughts about why we maybe shouldn’t move. As a disclaimer, I am not asking anyone to necessarily answer any of the below questions, they are just a collection of our thoughts on why we maybe shouldn’t move.
• We already live a very “European” lifestyle for being in the US. Specifically, we live in a walkable neighborhood and bike/walk/take public transit more than we drive (we are a one-car household). We have easy access to grocery stores, restaurants/cafes/bars, and essential services without needing to drive. So would putting forth the effort to move to Europe actually yield an improvement on the quality of life?
• We are very fortunate to be homeowners and absolutely love our house. Is selling our dream home and moving worth it?
• We, again, are very fortunate and appreciative to live in a liberal city, in a liberal state, and are not currently experiencing any personal hardships that may motivate us to move for financial or social reasons. If we are doing alright, why should we move?

Again, thank you for reading/answering! Happy to answer any clarifying questions, if needed.

EDIT TO ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS/PROVIDE COMMENTARY:

Thank you to everyone who has answered thus far! I see a lot of comments/commentary I do not necessarily disagree with, so I appreciate the honesty. Some people are specifically calling out that we do have a desirable lifestyle in the US, so reasons for moving are not strong enough or may not satisfy what we want.

To answer a question I saw a few times:
• We currently live in Oregon.
• We have considered renting our house out and at least temporarily moving. The only issue is I don’t think we could get a tenant to pay rent that would meet our mortgage payment. I tried to find comparable rentals and they seem to be lower than our mortgage payment. So it would require taking a loss to rent the house out. But I suppose that is not necessarily a dealbreaker, it’s just a reality we would have to accept.

I do want to clarify that this is very early in the thought process, so I understand the “you’re putting the cart before the horse” type of commentary. We would want to consult with some professionals before fully pulling a trigger.

I do see a lot of people commenting about how we had a “nice vacation” and didn’t experience real life in these locations. I certainly understand that that is true — we didn’t work, go to medical appointments, interact with the government, etc. But I would assume that’s true for most people who immigrate out of the US, no? Very few people have the privilege to visit a country for extended periods of time (maybe even multiple times) to get a real flavor for “real life.” So while I don’t disagree with the sentiment of these statements, I really wonder if many people are able to do this before deciding to move?

SECOND UPDATE:
Again, thank you for many of you taking the time to read and reply. Especially to the folks who offered clear and constructive feedback.

I want to apologize for causing any kind of offense by suggesting that there is no daily hardship for the people that live in these countries. We have definitely approached this with a limited perspective and this post was a means to get some more information — and we have.

I will continue to to follow along with any comments made, but we will definitely be taking time to see how we feel in the coming months and do more research (than what we already have done) about people’s experiences living in NL/SE and people who immigrate there.

Thank you again!