How to leave your country
Almost 20 years ago, I bought a book for Americans about how to move abroad. At the time, a good friend who had studied in Ireland for a semester and shared my longing to move to Europe regularly indulged me in conversation about leaving the U.S. The day I came across the book in a shop near my office, buying it seemed like an actual step in that direction, even if it was just an aspirational one.
It detailed the pros and cons of living in different countries. It discussed visas and taxes and employment laws. All of it useful, practical information that put a damper on my romantic notion of jetting off to Italy. The practicalities pushed the idea of leaving to the back of my mind, although I occasionally allowed the idea to creep to the forefront for a few weeks following infrequent visits to my aunt’s house in Tuscany.
I read that book from cover to cover, but then it sat on a shelf in my apartment for years and moved to another apartment, then another. Suddenly, it seemed as I came across it while spring cleaning a couple of years ago, a lot of time and jobs and life events had gone by. I was married, had two young sons, and was the only person with a steady income in our household.
These were major shifts in my circumstances, but other things had changed as well. It was a year into the COVID pandemic, I had been telecommuting and my kids had been attending school remotely with no in-person return date for any of us on the horizon. When I pulled the dust-covered book on how to move abroad from the shelf and thumbed through it, I quickly realized how out of date it was. The information about currency and visas and wifi providers was no longer reliable.
Out of curiosity, I started to Google:
“How to move abroad”
“Cost of living in Europe”
“Visa requirements for living in Spain”
The more I read, the more I could see the possibilities and advantages of leaving. Waiting until my kids were older seemed like a missed opportunity for them. And waiting until I retired seemed like betting that luck would favor me. What if it didn’t? In the years since I bought that book, I watched two older colleagues’ dreams of life after retirement dashed. One co-worker was eager to spend time with her already-retired husband, who got sick and succumbed to cancer within a year of her departure; another died in his sleep mere weeks into retirement, never to travel the world with his husband as they had long planned.
Their stories felt like a warning: The sooner you take action to realize your dreams, the more adventures you’ll have. I decided to make a move.
How do you move abroad?
First, by deciding what’s most important in your life.
Second, by seeking out information about where you can have the things that are most important.
Third, by figuring out the steps you need to take to get there.
Fourth, by starting to take those steps, one at a time.
My husband and I started by coming up with a list of the things we most wanted for ourselves and our kids. Among them are a safe environment, good education, proximity to interesting places and things to do, access to healthcare, a culture that focused on friends and family (not just work), and affordable cost of living.
Having these things defined in writing was the key first step to our move. Even though in our case we were pretty decided about where to go, it helped motivate us to do all the things we needed to, by confirming the reasons for our move and affirming that we were taking steps to improve our lives.