If you are willing or able to live within reach of public transport or bike/walking, a no-car life is awesome. I did many years of tense heavy US traffic befor

If you are willing or able to live within reach of public transport or bike/walking, a no-car life is awesome. I did many years of tense heavy US traffic before I moved to NL, and I must say it's so awesome to not own or care about a car. The US is mostly not designed for car-free situations. That's a long story, but it ends in "limited decent public transport options". To go into that topic would be too political here. Suffice to say, unless you live in a progressive part of the US (or you move to within walking range of your job), you need a car. Europe has the advantage? of being much older, when cities were more dense. There's no place to affordably park a car, so you must walk or bike, or use a bus/tram (or metro/train if you're lucky). There are certainly times in summer in the Netherlands during peak time when a full train (standing room only) really truly sucks. But that's less than 1/4 of the year. The rest of the time I can work, sleep, look at the attractive fit people, or even talk to people. My days of driving in big Texas city traffic were certainly not that. (Guns actually do get plucked out of glove boxes and waved as a threat from time to time.)