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Ask HN: What is your story of immigrating to another country?

• user_named 5y ago
  European. Moved to China. Studied here for two years, went back to Europe and then returned to China once again. When I returned I did one semester at university, studying Mandarin while looking for a job. I've now been working in Chinese tech for six years. Liking it and probably staying. Job market is hot but as a foreigner your options are fewer and speaking Mandarin is growing in importance year by year.
  • archibaldJ 5y ago
    Just curious: shanghai or shenzhen? and did you make the conscious decision for the city or just follow the flow? (I'm still deciding between a year in China or Estonia)
    • user_named 5y ago
      First Shenzhen, then Shanghai.
• alangibson 5y ago
  I married an Austrian while living with her in Texas. I made exactly zero plans before moving. She had the better degree by far so it only made sense to move to Austria. Getting a job was easy by local standards due to a tight local market for programmers. Getting through German classes to earn the permanent residency was the toughest part. I would never consider moving back to the USA. I was always a sceptic of the 'Greatest country on Earth' rhetoric. But now that I've lived in a functioning society for 10 years, it's clear to me that the USA is basically a "3rd world" country. EDIT: I'm using "3rd world" here for lack of a better term indicating general decline and emmiseration.
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    What are the main differences you see? How would you describe the local population? While statistic indicators are very high compared to most other countries, horror stories can still be heard ("this office showing lack of common sense" etc.). Have you identified sources of high cultural production - or does it seem a land to you, say, "focussed on business but dismissing other factors"? Very interest for practical reasons (as it may transpire).
    • alangibson 5y ago
      I don't even know where to begin on differences. A big one is how much more orderly basically everything is, from government processes to condition of the streets. Overt politeness is more common. People are generally more relaxed to the point that it annoyed me for years. I attribute this to the lack of any concept of 'hustle' and not being worried about dying in poverty. I think a huge amount of the American personality comes from a subconscious anxiety over how precarious we live. You're never more than 20 paces from a beer; I just had one at 11am at a fleamarket for kids clothes. It's the least business focused place I've ever been. Many large businesses lock their doors for 2 weeks in the summer. I've had other Americans tell me directly that I'm making that up it's so shocking to them. When I worked for a Dutch company, one of their visiting engineers couldn't believe that the office was nearly empty at 1pm on Friday. If you're the wild type, it's not the place for you. People are very mild mannered. It took a long time for me chill out, having come from a Texas party-loving town. I tell people it's a great place to be 35.
      • drstewart 5y ago
        Yeah, I don't think the idea of not being within 20 steps of a beer makes a country 3rd world. Sorry, but that's pretty insulting to actual people living in poverty. Then again, all in all it's pretty privileged to be able to have such a sheltered view of the world, so good on ya.
        • alangibson 5y ago
          Ha! What are you talking about? That comment was in response to a question about differences between the countries. The USA is a 3rd world country because we allow people to literally and figuratively rot on the street. There are many others of course... Can I assume from your aggrieved attitude and uncharitable reading that you're a fellow American?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• rbanffy 5y ago
  My wife and I made the decision of moving from Brazil a couple years before we moved. Even before the destination was chosen, I started working remotely for companies outside Brazil. We looked for countries that would take us that had a good political alignment, a decent social security system, and a thriving tech ecosystem. We ended up with Canada, Ireland, and Germany. We selected Toronto even though I am a Hungarian citizen and that would have made Europe a lot easier. My wife and I applied using Canada’s points system, something mine and mostly hers post-grad work impacted positively. My wife would continue her studies and I’d go along and work remotely. She had everything set up and we’d move the next semester. Then, out of the blue, I was pinged by an Irish recruiter and now we live in Dublin. Ireland is much nicer than either of us suspected and while the government is slightly to the right, labor law and public healthcare are sensible, and the voting system weeds out extremes such as the Trumps, Bolsonaros and Orbans that made some countries so undesirable.
  • 1cvmask 5y ago
    Bolsonaro was eased into power by Obama. They eliminated the most popular politician Lula with fake charges in Operation Carwash and a sham trial of it. It is now overturned. Bolsonaro even gave a thank you speech for the help the Obama administration gave at the CIA headquarters after he came to power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash https://apnews.com/article/9e097b1cb92c4400b76c096da8f26910 https://apnews.com/article/9e097b1cb92c4400b76c096da8f26910
• jacob_rezi 5y ago
  I moved to Korea when I was 23 in 2016 from the USA to see if I could globalize my idea for a start up in Seoul to take advantage of the focus on innovation. Here's a post I wrote many years later now that we are the most awarded global startup in Seoul - https://www.jacobjacquet.com/blog/building-a-global-startup-in-south-korea https://www.jacobjacquet.com/blog/building-a-global-startup-...
• dhruvagga 5y ago
  Great question! Many people have been asking this. I found this incredible series of software engineers sharing their journey of moving abroad - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxd8PfGfq4gUXfxeDu55TdZQRnLZK16Gh https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxd8PfGfq4gUXfxeDu55TdZQR...
• willvarfar 5y ago
  Partner would have been happy to stay with me in the UK but I was blown away by the beauty of Scandinavia when I visited, and am so glad she relented. Average quality of life in the nordics is massively better than the uk. It’s not even close! Wages are lower in absolute terms but not qualitatively and we probably couldn’t afford to move back to the uk and have any semblance of same standard of living. We are now trapped in a utopia and happy about it. More than half of programmers here are immigrants. Shop staff happily talk good English. There really isn’t any barriers finding good work.
  • searchableguy 5y ago
    > Wages are lower in absolute terms but not qualitatively and we probably couldn’t afford to move back to the uk and have any semblance of same standard of living. We are now trapped in a utopia and happy about it. Can you give some example of improvements that you would need to pay for in the UK? I'm interested.
    • jseban 5y ago
      Most of the time, it's the paid maternal leave and free/cheap child care, and this equation usually never works out in favour for anyone who doesn't have children.
    • radicalbyte 5y ago
      House prices in the part of the UK that have decent jobs are crazy. Public services have been slashed, heavily, in the last decade. The health service has been cut so much that to get a comparable service as in Scandinavia you'd need to buy expensive private coverage. Childcare is really expensive too (because pensioners don't need it). Education: in the UK is really pays to send your kids to a private school.
    • Nux 5y ago
      Childcare is a joke in UK (London). Super expensive. To send your kid to nursery 5 days a week you are looking at £1500-2000/m.
• FlyingSnake 5y ago
  I’m an Indian who had no intention to leave my home state. I got recruited by an Outsourcing giant during the outsourcing boom of 2005-2008 and eventually landed in the US. I came in contact with Silicon Prairie startups which was an eye opening experience, and gave me a new career boost. But due to the racist quotas on H1b visa, I decided to quit US and move to Berlin. Best decision of my life ever. Finding a job was not easy and many companies didn’t support relocation, though Berlin was still cheap then. Coming from the USA also helped me as I found people in EU tend to have favourable opinion about US Americans. It was not easy to integrate in the society and I had to work hard to learn the language and culture. Living in expat bubble is the worst way to live in a foreign land. I’m now well integrated in the society and I feel that Berlin is home for me now.
• Aeolun 5y ago
  For reference, I’m from the Netherlands. I didn’t have any plans to emigrate until my friend introduced me to a small company in Japan that was looking for an engineer. I applied, but was rejected, so I thought that was that. Then a few months later I got another email. Their initial hire didn’t work out and now they wanted me to join. I worked remote for about a month while we got the visa process sorted (apparently they needed my actual bachelor diploma in Japan to issue one, so sending that and getting it back was a fun exercise). Then I moved to Japan. I hadn’t been further than like 1 country over from my home ever before. To be honest, it wasn’t quite as different as I expected it to be. I didn’t speak the language at all, but western civilization is oddly similar even if the details are different. After 9 months I was tired of life without my friends, so I said I’ll work remote, and moved back to the Netherlands. That didn’t quite work out either. While being back was nice, apartments in the Netherlands are expensive (and I wasn’t making so much), so I ended up living with my parents. I’d also grown used to a lot of little conveniences Japan has, and it all added up. It took me only 4 or 5 months to move back to Japan. I quickly made new friends, and I’ve spent a very happy 8 years here now. At this point it’s hard to justify moving back because there are no similarly well compensated IC positions in the Netherlands.
  • montblanc 5y ago
    What is the salary difference? Japan isn't so cheap either right?
    • Aeolun 5y ago
      Mostly it’s income tax, which is 43% until around 180k in Japan but 51% from 80k in the Netherlands. Japan isn’t necessarily cheap (though childcare is), but there’s a wide range of options. The Netherlands has sort of settled on one default, but is now slowly making that default (family home) impossible to achieve for the average (and if things keep going like this, even above average) person.
  • radicalbyte 5y ago
    Have you been here recently? House prices are going absolutely crazy. To the point where there needs to be come intervention or policy to limit the size of the bubble. You're a chip designer? There may very well be movement in your area in the coming years in the EU - the EU want to build their silicon capabilities in the coming decade.
• ardit33 5y ago
  I am from Albania, I came in the US as an exchange student for my last year of high school where I lived with an american family in Virginia (they were awesome). I got a full scholarship for college at Radford, VA, and stayed here. Then I had to deal with the whole visa saga, form J1 to F1, to F1 OPT, to H1B to finally a Greencard (after 17 years in the US). The whole journey to get the Green Card was not easy at all, at it had a lot of papers, embassy visits, dealing with visa requirements, etc. I feel this country makes it a bit too hard for legal residents to come with work visa, meanwhile I know people that got it much faster via 'fictive' marriages. Also, the talk to let illegal immigrants become legal, while still not doing squat about all the legal immigrants and their long waits, irks me off. It is just not fair, and it rewards delinquency and lawless behaviour. So, Albania -> Virginia -> Boston/Massachusetts -> SF/California -> NYC (some short stint in Sweden) Now I am back in Tirana, Albania for a couple of months, and returning to NYC. Probably will be doing this for a long time (few months back home, every year).
  • legolas2412 5y ago
    > I feel this country makes it a bit too hard for legal residents to come with work visa, meanwhile I know people that got it much faster via 'fictive' marriages So true. I have been on a student visa for 8 years, and hence I am a non immigrant. I have the luxury of getting a working visa by a random lottery, with no regards to my skills as a PhD. And when I have that, I have the luxury of entering the 100 year long line for green card for Indian immigrants. They have such racist policies in immigration, but consider Asian Americans privileged. I find it hilarious to hear politicians talk about immigrants creating jobs, while actually having the worst policies possible for the high skilled immigrants that actually create the said jobs.
    • FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
      Immigration should be on a reciprocal basis. Americans should give Indians the right to live, work, and own property in the United States, in exchange for India giving Americans the right to live, work, and own property in India, both on an unrestricted basis.
• shimonabi 5y ago
  Moving to an another country isn't for everyone. If you move to a richer country, foreigners are usually automatically treated differently. You go from being around equals to being the lowest tier in their social "caste" system. I moved to a neighboring country for about 3 years. I enjoy a far better living standard in my home country with half the pay. Money isn't everything.
  • moises_silva 5y ago
    > Moving to an another country isn't for everyone. If you move to a richer country, foreigners are usually automatically treated differently. I'm sorry this was your experience. It sounds however like a very broad generalization. It is not my experience at all for me and other friends that have moved to richer and/or more developed countries.
• Karsteski 5y ago
  I'm from Trinidad and Tobago. I moved to Ontario, Canada in 2014 to do a B.Sc. in Chemistry. Given that I was only 19 at the time, the process was relatively straightforward in my memory. My parents took out loans to send me to university which I will always greatly appreciate. I also had a partial scholarship from my Uni which helped a lot, since international student fees in Canada are ~3x more than domestic tuition. University was overall fantastic. A lot of ups and downs e.g. having to learn how to be studious, as I didn't study much in secondary school, and having to deal with depression, which was fun. Canadians are very friendly and welcoming, so that side of it was great as well. I graduated in 2018 with a B.Sc. in Chemistry and got my Post Graduate Work Permit (open work permit, lasts 3 years) in 2019. I had a lot of trouble getting it, which was partially my fault, but this process is mostly straightforward in Canada as long as you are a full-time student throughout your studies and don't screw up applying for your work permit after graduating lol... Anyways, now that I've gotten at least a year of skilled work experience, I've applied for my Permanent Residency and I'm waiting on that to stop stressing about immigration problems. I had a lot of lab experience from university so it only took me about 4 months once I came back to Canada to get a job. WORK EXPERIENCE IS SO IMPORTANT. Anyone doing university at this point should be in coop to be honest, it is the most pain-free path forward. I wasn't actually in coop but I did have the mind to know that work experience is key, even though I started off wanting to go to grad school afterwards. I was also introduced to programming in late 2018, and now I've been self-studying since then and I'm now applying for junior developer jobs, and at least getting interviews, so that makes me happy. Although the process of job searching is incredibly draining, I'm determined to make it work! So overall, I'm extremely grateful that I had the opportunity to move to Canada. The majority of my fellow Trinidadians don't get such an opportunity. The quality of life here, especially where I live out in a more rural area, is so much higher than my life in Trinidad, which was still decent by Trinidadian standards. I wrote a lot more than I thought I would, but I hope this little post helps someone out someday. My experience being an immigrant in Canada has been quite great. There will be a lot of headache, mostly with regards to immigration. But from hearing stories about immigration in the US, Canada is a lot more accessible, assuming you come as a student or are skilled in a field with at least 3 years of foreign work experience.
• radicalbyte 5y ago
  Met my now wife playing online games back in 1999. Moved to The Netherlands from the UK in 2006. Learnt the language, integrated and settled here. We're absolutely killing it here - it was the best decision of my life. We live in a safe stable country which isn't dominated by the wishes of the selfish elderly. We have a fairly well functioning state with a strong social safety net. We're both business owners, have a nice home and three happy and healthy kids. The UK in comparison feels like a third world country - everything seems to be falling down, and working-age people - particularly those under 40-45 have been absolutely screwed by the last 10-15 years of policy. Basically, if you were 25 in 2000 and bought property then, you have a huge amount of equity. It was very common for people a little older at the time (30-35) who had the means to buy a second property, for rental. Policy in the last years has been about protecting (mainly final-income based!!) pensions, protecting property prices and indulging in the racist fantasies of the retired at the cost of the working age. In The Netherlands housing is also an issue for anyone under 50 - thanks to the "free market" being allowed to buy up all of the housing stock. Particularly the foreign investors who operate with schemes that ensure that they basically don't pay any tax are the biggest problem. It's impossible to compete with an American corporation who pays $0 on every $100 they earn, whereas you have to pay $40 of every $100 you earn in tax.
  • CodeGlitch 5y ago
    > The UK in comparison feels like a third world country - everything seems to be falling down, and working-age people - particularly those under 40-45 have been absolutely screwed by the last 10-15 years of policy. Which part of the UK did you come from? I have to say I'm 41 and neither me or my friends/family have experienced what you describe.
    • radicalbyte 5y ago
      We're the same age. I'm from the South West, but called Warwick my home. Before Corona I visited family in the South West regularly - driving along the M20 > M4 > M5 or M20 > M4 > A-roads. Dover, Maidstone, Swindon, Bath, Bristol and Exeter all look and feel worse with every visit. The shops are where you see it the most. In the past towns were full of boutique places. They have been replaced by "pound shops" and plastic fantastic chains (like Gregs). Or horrible fake pubs like Wetherspoons or whatever it's called. The South West has just gotten so bloody old. I'm 41, and when I'm there I feel young. People there are so angry - I'm constantly being sworn and shouted at by fat old (60+) guys because I have a European car. The country has just turned into a shitshow, only like frogs being slowly cooked the people living there are blind to it. It's not just me - it comes up all of the time in conversation with European friends.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• ir123 5y ago
  Background: normal indian software dude mid 20's. Always wanted to go abroad from childhood but poverty. Recently got the urge to do something with my life (probably because the whole pandemic situation was really monotonous). Tried hard and got an opportunity to move to Amsterdam and I took it. I went with almost zero preparation because, I mean its a first world country, I can buy everything there and what could go wrong? Its been more than a month and here are my thoughts. Abroad is good, its definitely not India, things actually work. Public transport works! If you want to reach anywhere within Netherlands (or even in EU), google maps will show you the correct route for public transport and the timings will be correct to the minute. It's really convenient. All the laws here make sense and you feel like some one has put some thought into it and the people making the laws are competent. There's no pollution whatsoever and the air feels clean. It feels almost exactly like the time I travelled across Himachal and Uttarakhand, but this I feel everywhere in the city. I can see that there's a lot of trust put into people, for example, in grocery shops, you can buy your stuff and scan them on your own and pay them on your own and take the stuff outside. Literally no one checks (or if they do discreetly, I'm not sure). And on a related note, compared to India, very few people work to "serve" you. In the sense that in a huge decathlon or a grocery shop there will be like 2-3 employees only and even they don't do much. Everything works by card and almost no one takes cash (save for one haircut I got). Now to the "bad" parts. The place seems a bit dead, I'm not gonna lie. I'm not great at socialising but I don't absolutely suck at it. That said, it is very hard to mingle and socialise with people. Having come alone to this city, man... its so hard to get stuff done when you have no friends. There's no soul in any conversation, people will help you but that's it. Don't expect friendship with the locals at all. In fact I'm finding it hard to make friends with anyone. Where am I supposed to find them? And the worst part is, office is closed due to covid so that's one door closed. I have gone 3-4 days where I literally talked to no one. It does get creepily lonely sometimes but I have learned to deal with it. Everything is soo costly here, think 5 to 6 times that of India on average. I literally spend 2 euros on a 20 minute bus ride. 2 euros will get me a private Uber in India. I cry every time I buy vegetables and don't get me started on the fruits. I know I earn in euros but still, I'm not used to caring about grocery costs. Ironically, I'm saving less money in Europe than in India even with the Dutch 30% ruling for skilled immigrants. Overall, I honestly think abroad very overrated. Once you actually start experiencing day to day, you will eventually realise this. I had a comfortable life in India. I was earning enough, I had no struggles and I had my family and a few friends. I don't know what the fuck got into me but here I am. I hope things get better but I won't bank on it. I have made a plan to come back to India every 3 months or so and to come back permanently by 2 years in the worst case.
• erdo 5y ago
  Moved from the UK to France after the Brexit vote (the last chance to easily move my family to another country and have my kids grow up as Europeans with the ability to work and live in the EU country of their choice, access low cost or free university education etc.) I'm a contractor and felt reasonably sure I could find work as an android developer in most large cities - Paris is also close enough that if things really went sideways I could commute to London for work. That turned out to be true, although the rate for developers is a little lower in Paris (and now I work remotely from Paris for a UK company anyway). Finding an apartment was one of the hardest things, in the end I had to pay someone to find us one. Dealing with all the admin was pretty tough, but visa wise it was straight forward (because it was still within the EU). I hired an accountant to set me up a small business and do the tax work (exactly the same as I had done in London). I also pay another accountant to handle the personal tax (it got complicated for a while because some of my income was UK based and the UK and French financial year is different) I think I underestimated how much french language skills would help, but also underestimated how much my french would come back to me (I studied french at school as a kid) so it worked out. It was tough at times but I don't regret it one bit, life is better here in so many ways. Sitting by the Seine on a summer's evening with friends and a bottle of wine is amazing. Try to do the same in London, you'll be moved on a by a security guard because the Thames river side is all privately owned despite its appearances. That sums up the difference for me, France truly is a republic, and it feels like it.
  • hackpert 5y ago
    About the bit regarding you possibly commuting from Paris to London for work, I'm curious - how would that even work? Would you go through customs every morning/evening? Has anyone here done this?
    • erdo 5y ago
      Ahh I see what you mean, it would typically involve staying in a London hotel a few nights a week. Maybe traveling in on Monday mornings, and leaving on Friday afternoon. I do have a British passport still, and I have a french residence permit, so in both directions it's fairly simple anyway (and the Eurostar is almost like taking a regular national train but it's a good 2-3 hours). Taking a flight is a bit more hassle and terrible for the environment (but cheaper). About 20 years ago in London I worked with a guy who commuted from Greece(!) to London once a week. London salary, worked from home on Mondays, came in on Tuesday morning, budget London hotel on Wednesday and Thursday night, and back to a big house in Greece for the weekend.
• smoe 5y ago
  Swiss living in Colombia for a bit over 5 years. There is not that much of a path or sophisticated plan to it. I was tired of Switzerland/Europe and wanted to try different things for at least a while. I have travelled Latin America extensively before and had a short list of potential countries/cities. After that it was basically a couple of months for finding a job I'm exited about and winding down obligations and contracts in Switzerland. So far, and now that I have a residency visa, I don't have any plans leaving, I really like it here. But also not sure whether I will stay forever, some things are quite exhausting. Maybe eventually I will get back to Europe, maybe go somewhere else. The way I have always seen it is as Terry Pratchett wrote: “Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”
  • jll29 5y ago
    Bill Bryson: "You can't come home _again_."
    • smoe 5y ago
      Bill Bryson reflecting on this quote https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bryson-stranger.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/br... "So, on balance, I was wrong. You can go home again. Just bring extra money for road maps and remember to ask for spackle."
  • PKop 5y ago
    >some things are quite exhausting. Mind giving some examples?
    • smoe 5y ago
      So compared to Switzerland many day to day things you want get done are just less convenient, less straight forward, less predictable. Getting from A to B, buying exactly what you want vs. what is available, making contracts, lack of consumer/renter protection, etc. But those are mostly balanced out by other day to day things that are nicer here, like the friendliness of the people. The big things that are mentally taxing for me are the gross income gap, inequality, classism and their effects on society. A somewhat benign example. Couple of years ago I went to a small alternative rock club in Switzerland while staying there for vacation. Through the night I met a plumber, an investment banker, an electrician and a physics phd student. They were all there, just because they shared the same interest in music. You never see this here. Classes don’t mix. And this goes trough everything. From pre-school to careers to leisure. Social mobility is very tough. On the other hand, this is big part of the reason I moved, to have more meaningful work and at least try to have a positive impact on the aforementioned problems.
• valray 5y ago
  Co-founded a 2-person tech company in Korea while residing in the US. My co-founder is Korean living in Seoul. We started during the pandemic, with no capital, working remotely out of our homes. Now 18 months later we have modern offices in a tech district of Seoul, with 14 people working on multiple tech products and projects. I very much agree with the commenter who described the US as a third-world country, when compared with advanced nations such as Korea (as well as other nations mentioned in this thread). There are many reasons to back up this observation: health care system, education, culture, social values, transportation, digital infrastructure. Korea is not a perfect country, but it is years ahead of the US in the areas that matter. EDIT: Added clarification: After 12 months working remotely from the US, I immigrated to Korea and have not left.
  • mariushn 5y ago
    Since there's no other way to message you: I'd like to live in Korea for at least a few months, more if I like it. Ideally, working in a small tech company. Is there a way to see what your company does so I can assess if I could bring in some value? My email is in profile. Thanks!
• tesin 5y ago
  Left Australia in 2012, moved to Indiana for a job at IU. I had been stuck in yearly contracts at my Australian employer, and they were allergic to full time offers. I really didn't think things through very much. Turns out starting life again with nothing but a bag of clothes is pretty hard. Met my now wife, who helped me buy things for my apartment (cutlery, dishes, furniture lol). Not having a car, drivers license, or social security number were pretty rough impediments to start with. I got a great job in Boston, lived there for a few years, then moved back to Indiana when we were ready to buy a house and start a family (much more affordable). Been working remotely since before the pandemic. I love living here. I do miss my friends back in Aus, but I could never afford this quality of life. My kids will be dual citizens, so if they manage to hit it out of the park salary wise they could always head back if they wanted.
• woile 5y ago
  I moved from Argentina to the Netherlands in 2017. I wanted to experience living in a safe, stable and low-burocracy country. Turns out The Netherlands is much more and I've been here for more than 4 years already. As a big fan of bikes, learning about bike centric cities... I don't know where else I could go now. Living surrounded by cars is terrible.
• netfortius 5y ago
  Moved twice - once to the USA, 30 years ago, from Eastern Europe. US is a perfect place to make [more than enough] money (and enjoy some, when not at/with/connected to work), while strong / well fit educationally, psychologically and physically, in a country where jungle capitalism shrunk social safety to nothingness. So make sure you don't need it. After 30 yrs moved out of the USA, to France, to enjoy the financial fruits of my labor in probably one of the best-to-enjoy-life-at-its-fullest places on earth. Planning to stay here until the end.
  • drstewart 5y ago
    I'm curious why you didn't just skip the step of moving to the US since in France et. al. you don't need money, so why bother making it in the jungle hell that is the US?
    • loloquwowndueo 5y ago
      I’m curious how is it that you don’t need money in France. Did they implement UBI while I wasn’t looking?
• JimWestergren 5y ago
  Sweden -> Denmark Denmark -> Sweden Sweden -> Malta (2 kids, stayed only 4 months in Malta) Malta -> Bolivia (stayed 2 years) Bolivia -> Sweden (bought a house and finally we will settle) Sweden -> Spain (with 3 kids, got an offer I could not refuse) Spain -> Sweden (in year 2023, hope this will be the final) Some pain points: changing schools for the kids, learning new languages, residency and citizenship, paperwork, selling and buying house, transporting 98 boxes of stuff, having friends and relatives spread around the globe etc My wife is from Bolivia and there I learned spanish. I like to live in all 3 countries (spain, sweden, bolivia) - they all have their pros and cons. We have kept our house in Bolivia and we will also keep our house in Spain when we move back to Sweden. Important question: has this been a net positive for our 3 kids? I think yes. They speak 3 languages and have seen the world and lived in different cultures more than most other kids.
  • pimlottc 5y ago
    If I might ask, what prompted all those moves? Sounds like at least one was for a job, perhaps others too?
• montblanc 5y ago
  I immigrated to the Netherlands for 3.5 years and came back. I really recommend immigration as an experience as it's real character building and gives you so much perspective on life and on your home country. I realized my close family and culture were more important than I thought and I moved back. Also there are some genuine annoying things about being an immigrant - like the fact you will be seen as an immigrant :) I just didn't like it too much. My homecountry still has water running down the pipes and the supermarkets have food - I found out it's not such a terrible place and every place has problems, even the Netherlands.
• olalonde 5y ago
  I'm from Canada and have been a full time expat since I'm 19 (32 now). I've lived in Hong Kong, China, USA, Dominican Republic and now Turkey. I never really planned anything, I just visited places and eventually decided to stay longer than expected. I'm lucky that I can work from home and made some lucky investments. For me, the most difficult is dealing with bureaucracy like getting visas and bank accounts. Another difficult part is not having many close friends nor many people I can relate to. I also sometimes envy people who identify to a culture and have their important life choices made for them. I have a lot of analysis paralysis / paradox of choice regarding that. But overall, I'm very happy with my trajectory.
  • lapaz17 5y ago
    Hi olalonde, how did you land in Turkey?
    • olalonde 5y ago
      I initially went to a friend's wedding and now I am staying longer to help start a business. I love Turkey so far :)
• maccard 5y ago
  I grew up in a large town (technically a small city) of ~75k people, and moved to a city of 1.5m people (Dublin). I hated how claustrophobic daily living felt but I enjoyed the large city benefits, so I started looking around for 500k cities with programming jobs and settled on Edinburgh. I moved here with my partner 8 years ago. We were both just finished university when we moved so we were starting fresh no matter where we moved and both had jobs lined up when we moved. It took us probably 4-6 months to line everything up, and moving was literally buying a £19 ojr way flight and a trip to the local job center (as we're Irish were unaffected by the brexit rules). We love it here, and it would take some life changing events for us to move.
• kaeruct 5y ago
  Costa Rica -> Germany Would have moved to the US as it's culturally more similar to my country, but Trump had just been elected. I'm very satisfied with my decision.
• pasabagi 5y ago
  Moved to Germany from the UK. In practical terms, Germany is so far ahead it's not comparable. The quality of life here is better making minimum wage here than it is if you're on a decent wage in the UK. A lot of the difference is housing - in the UK, you're usually paying a lot of money to live in a shithole. Also, as other commentators have noted, everything is falling apart in the UK, so even if you have money, you can look forward to taking trains that break all the time, driving on roads that have holes in them, etc. In mainstream cultural terms, a lot of germans don't like foreigners, and are pretty rude if they pick up that you're not german, although a lot of that is modulated by where you're from. That extends to germans who work for the state - the auslanderbehoerde is pretty famous for being generally miserable to deal with. The state's basic policy is 'assimilation', so you're basically expected to leave your culture at the door and become 'German', and the state has a pretty narrow definition of what that means (Oktoberfest, christian religious holidays, slightly dubious history etc), and depending on where you're from, you'll have to do courses on this stuff, which can be pretty depressing. If you're black, there's a certain level of racially-motivated violence in some places, although I think the basic level of violent street crime compares favourably to the UK - it compares extremely favourably if you're white. Still, because of the aforementioned rudeness thing, friends I've had who migrated from Africa generally have a pretty bad time living here. Culturally, in the broader sense, Germany is great. The music scene is great here, the art scene, classical music, the food and youth culture etc are all really good, and very welcoming to foreigners. You meet people with a very broad range of views and lifestyles, there are parks and galleries and playgrounds and all sorts of stuff that makes you feel like you're actually living in a 'culture' worth engaging in, not just a bunch of people decompressing after a work-week. The thing I like most about living in Germany is it's a pretty reasonable country. If you deal with institutions, they'll generally talk to you as a rational human. If you live in a city, the city will generally maintain parks and public spaces because they'll see that as important to the community. Money is set aside for cultural life, youth recreation, sports, etc.
  • mdp2021 5y ago
    The idea of "assimilation" (which also reminds of some directions taken by France) clashes with some important interpretations of «Culturally, in the broader sense, Germany is great». The idea of having to do courses on "becoming German" is downright creepy. Is it a crisis of identity, or maybe some unclear practical reason?
• vmlinuz 5y ago
  I'm a Brit - got a grad job at SCO in 1998, then moved to Sun in 2000 when SCO imploded, then decided to emigrate when Sun started imploding in 2005. I was initially planning to move to Israel - I'm Jewish, so don't need a visa, I speak decent Hebrew, got friends and family there, and there's plenty of tech work, but I got... diverted. 16 years later, I'm still in Hong Kong, having initially come to work for a bra company owned by a distant branch of my family, in more ways than one. Since then I've worked for an IT services company, amongst other things debugging SuSE servers in the back room of 7-11 stores, freelanced for a decade or so, built a few sites and Android apps during that period, worked for an Asia-wide 'Uber for cargo' start-up, and have now been contracting at a large bank doing devops for the past year. Hong Kong is/was a very easy place to live as a Westerner. Everything official is bilingual, it is/was a transport hub so it was very easy to get home or anywhere else - before the Covid lockdown ended that - plenty of international food, brands, and other expats, and there is/was a fairly active local tech scene. It is/was fairly easy to get a work visa for a 'professional'-level job, but I actually got a special visa which allowed me to work, freelance, have my own business, etc. without needing to be sponsored by an employer, and after 7 years you become a permanent resident which means no more visa needed. That said, moving to Hong Kong was much more of a whim than a plan - it happened to work out pretty well, overall, but it would have been easy to back out and move back to the UK/EU if things hadn't gone well. I have vague, but slowly firming-up, plans to leave Hong Kong next year, for all the obvious reasons (feel free to ask if they're not obvious!). Unfortunately(?), my local partner is very uninterested in leaving, so it's likely I'll be travelling solo, and my unformed plan at the moment would be to spend a bit of time in UK, maybe bum around Europe for a bit to decompress, then look into Israel - again.
• jll29 5y ago
  I have lived and worked in England, Scotland, in the US, Switzerland and in Germany. USA: best opportunities for smart people to engage in big-impact work. People are too crazy about work. Depending on the city, can also be unsafe. Switzerland: extremely high financial compensation but also high cost of living despite low taxation. People love nature but many are too materialistic. UK: Was the most interesting country to live in up to 2016, no sadly going isolationist. Germany: good quality of life but a bit boring apart from a few hip cities like Berlin or Cologne. Although the weather there sucks, living in Edinburgh, Scotland, has been fantastic experience, and it tops all other places. The only disadvantage is that due to Brexit (most Scots were and are against it) it is (now) outside of the EU. The fact that all EU citizens have complete freedom of movement is priceless (to me).
  • AJ1998 5y ago
    so where do you reside now?
  • CodeGlitch 5y ago
    > UK: Was the most interesting country to live in up to 2016, no sadly going isolationist. In what way? Can you point at a thing that would mean we are more "isolationist"? If you are referring to Brexit: it means we will have to interact on a more global scale whether we like it or not (e.g. negotiating trade deals, etc). That sounds less isolationist does it not?
• meheleventyone 5y ago
  I moved from Scotland to Iceland just over ten years ago. The company I worked for exploded spectacularly and a company here came to pick up the pieces. I wanted to visit but didn’t really have any intention to live here. Initially I thought I might be here a couple of years and then move on again. It was super easy to move here due to the UK being in the EU at the time. Brexit didn’t change anything for me personally but has made me more keen to get citizenship here to get back in to Europe. During the next decade I met my now wife, had two kids, bought and then rebuilt a house in downtown Reykjavik and then got married. Work hasn’t been a problem, I stayed at the original company for four years and then worked for a bunch of others. I’ve now been working remotely for a US based startup for the last three years.j I stayed because the quality of life here is fantastic. Living in Reykjavik, with the small, still very residential downtown is like living in a village with the amenities of a city. There is a vibrant cultural scene. It’s probably one of the best places in the world to raise kids. I love the outdoors and access to instant remoteness is often less than an hours drive. The most immediate downside is that everyone will speak English to you so it becomes a challenge to properly integrate. All my work has been English speaking for example. All my kids friends speak great English and so on. I can understand quite a lot of Icelandic but really need to brush up on speaking to pass the pretty low language bar for citizenship. Edit: The frivolous things I love are the pools and basically the entire country taking a month off in the summer time.
  • CodeGlitch 5y ago
    > It was super easy to move here due to the UK being in the EU at the time. Brexit didn’t change anything for me personally but has made me more keen to get citizenship here to get back in to Europe. I'm don't quite follow what you are saying here - Iceland wasn't (isn't) in the EU? So I imagine Brexit or not would have made zero difference to your situation.
    • EduardoBautista 5y ago
      Iceland is part of the EEA which still allows freedom of movement with EU members.
    • 5y ago
• atmosx 5y ago
  This is by far the most interesting thread to me in years. Thanks for kickstarting the discussion!
  • tiddles 5y ago
    Very timely for me too, as I'm planning an unbounded move from the UK to Europe in the next few months.
• netjiro 5y ago
  Just my opinions. Grew up in Sweden (Gothenburg). Started moving around on my own in my late teens for work, studies, research, love, etc. Have lived in quite a few places over the years. Moving to a new place is not difficult. Just don't bring a lot of baggage, neither physical nor emotional. Don't pack lots of expectations and opinions. Adapt fast. Expend serious effort to make a lot of new friends immediately, there will be some uncomfortable moments, most people are genuinely nice. These are the countries (regions) I generally recommend and would move back to: Switzerland (Zürich-Zug-Liechtenstein), Norway (Oslo), Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Gothenburg), Netherlands (Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Utrecht), Japan (Tokyo). These are the countries (regions) I would need a strong reason to move back to: USA (South East states), Germany (München, Frankfurt, Konstanz). These are the countries I avoid, recommend against, and would need very strong reason to move back to: France (Grenoble), Spain (Bilbao), Cyprus. These are the areas I'm keeping an eye on for future possibilities. Just for fun, from my limited knowledge: Auckland, Vancouver, Singapore. Just my opinions, based on my values and what I want in life. I love nature and want easy access more or less daily. I want a clean environment wherever I go. I want functional society that does not drain my time with bullshit nonsense. I am ultraliberal and want to have an easy time to find many other well educated and active open minded people.
  • sygma 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, Konstanz and München sound like they should fit your constraints yet you said you need strong reasons to move back to. Why is that?
    • netjiro 5y ago
      I generally enjoyed my time in both Konstanz and München, but not quite enough. It was quick and easy to find fun people. Great active social life. München has horrendous housing shortage and traffic and is a bit too large for my taste. The alps are reasonably close but it is still quite a drive. The Konstanz region has the lake but is otherwise quite densely developed. It takes a bit to get away. Also, for Konstanz, Zürich is close enough to make Konstanz kind of pointless. Germany has significantly heavier and more heavy handed bureaucracy than I want. Everyday life, all the small stuff, also costs more of my time there than in some other countries. This is an issue for me. I want the little necessities of my days to be as few, quick, small and frictionless as possible. I visit these regions regularly, just don't have a good enough reason to move back there.
• stacool 5y ago
  Mexico ——> US Commuted across the Tijuana-San Diego border for a few years then relocated definitely for GC Path was TN, H1B, GC then citizenship There was no plan, just getting to the next stage and figuring things out - very lucky it all worked out Grew up on the border with US culture so close, getting a job, moving, daily life has not been difficult at all, feels like home. We have a house in each country. Although I love visiting Mexico I can’t see myself ever moving back due to violence My work is in the US, but all our family is in Mexico, so it feels like I still have one foot on each side. My current dream though is to be able to live in Europe for a couple of years and experience life over there
• tommiegannert 5y ago
  Sweden-> Ireland (5 years) Ireland -> Switzerland (3 years so far) I wanted to switch jobs after 7 years, and got an offer from Google. They handled relocation to Ireland. After five years, I wanted to leave, but didn't feel like going home. So I transferred within Google to Switzerland. Again, they handled relocation. Now I've left Google, after 7 years, of course. No plans on going anywhere but back to Sweden. There's no rush, though. Generally, it's been fine. I'm sure the locals make fun of me (at least two Gardai in Dublin Airport did...), but it's not been a problem. I stay humble, since I'm a guest. Learning new paperwork is probably the least fun part of getting to know a culture. Hasn't been too bad, in retrospect. Authorities have been generally helpful, if a bit square-shaped.
  • pimlottc 5y ago
    > Now I've left Google, after 7 years, of course. Why “of course”?
    • shock 5y ago
      Probably some vesting schedule.
• sershe 5y ago
  Is the implied question "/from/ the US"? :) I moved from Russia to Canada and then US, my story is probably very typical, with some variation because (a) I didn't plan or expect it (b) to me, it actually didn't feel like much of anything. I was a web/fullstack developer in Moscow and never considered myself anywhere near "FAANG" (or whatever it was in 2007) material. The lucky trigger was the fact that I was really passionate about tech and consumed a ton of media on programming. Actually someone from Chicago sent me an interview request based on my activity on some webdev forum, but they ghosted me when they realized I'm not US-based. Anyway I was subscribed to 1000 tech blogs and randomly saw a BigCo recruiting event in Moscow. I decided to go just for lulz, and didn't get hired... I definitely remember bombing the "does the linked list have a P-shaped cycle" question. Apparently they were on the fence enough that they invited me to another event for a different team, where I again bombed at least one leetcode-style question, but really aced a design question that was supposed to be "open ended" and "impossible to finish in 45 minutes" but we finished it to some approximation and had time for idle chat :) So, out of the blue I was moving to Canada. The relocation itself was easy if tedious, as it is typically in such cases, so I won't go into that. I am not sure why, but adapting to life in Canada and later in the US was pretty easy, I really don't remember having any major cultural issues, or adaptation issues... I did hang out a lot with Russian speakers esp. for the first few years, because it was the path of least resistance I guess (and they worked in the same building); but e.g. I used to hang out in Vancouver equally well with Russians, Canadians, or even occasionally Turks (I used to speak a tiny bit); I even got drunk with some anglo right-wingers once who were ranting /to me/ about francophones, who were (unlike me apparently) "not true Canadians". Or e.g. I ended up married to a "regular" (i.e. not an immigrant for 100+ years) American who I met thru a hobby. I am really not clear why other people have cultural problems (I understand it's a real issue for many, I just don't intuitively grok why it should be so). Moved from Canada to the USA due to job market concerns, changed jobs, moved states, gotten married, bought houses, etc. in a way that is not in any way special to an immigrant as far as I can tell. It sounds like the first half of a bad joke about two immigrants arguing who could assimilate better ;) But, living in a different country didn't really "feel" special. The "system" (using the term very broadly) of life in the US/Canada is different (and better in most aspects IMHO) than in Russia, and the US is slightly different (and better in the plurality of aspects IMHO) than Canada, but it just doesn't feel noteworthy that you do things differently in different places. (If my wife agreed) I could totally see myself going back to Russia, or to another country, if I thought the life there would be a lot better.
• eqdw 5y ago
  Ten years ago I moved from Canada to the US. I was 2 years out of college, and the tiny local software consultancy I worked for went out of business after our clients refused to pay their invoices. (My hometown is notoriously stingy). My two friends/coworkers both took that opportunity to move away, one to Ottawa and one to NYC. At the same time, I had a friend on IRC who worked for Mozilla and she sold me on moving to the Bay Area. I have since come to believe that she sold me a bill of goods, but at the time she made it sound like an amazing place to live. I didn't have very many social ties back home, and I was too naieve to have any understanding of the costs and difficulty of going to a different country (even one so similar to my home). So moving seemed like not a big deal. Worst case, I can just move back. If I knew how stressful it would be, I probably wouldn't have done it. But I'm glad I did. As for how I did it? Well, I came on a TN visa, which is a NAFTA thing that is very easy to get and entitles you to work at a specific employer for a period of up to 3 years. So before I could move, I needed to find a job. I started cold-applying to Rails jobs posted here on HN as well as on a bunch of other job boards. I interviewed at three or four other places (each time getting flown out to SF for the process) before finding a job that wanted me, and that I wanted. As for timelines, I started applying to job postings in mid February, and I moved at the start of May Finding a new job was very easy, all things considered. Based on what I hear from junior programmer friends, it's much harder now. I'm not sure why it is. I'm not sure if things have changed, or if I had some kind of special situation that made people notice me. Overall, I absolutely hated living in the Bay Area, for reasons I'm sure have been discussed by a billion people on HN already. I moved to Texas in 2018 and it's much more my speed here. But as for the US vs Canada as a whole? If I never set foot in Canada ever again (and that's looking more and more like a reality every day), I'm fine with that. As far as countries go, Canada is pretty good. There are certainly worse places you could go. But here's a scattershot list of some things that stick out to me when I think about my different experiences * I make way, way more money in the US, and pay way, way less in taxes. The money goes farther (everything in Canada is expensive compared to here). Economically, I am so much better off. For every conceivable consumer good, there are 3x as many choices here vs there. And the one that surprises people: my healthcare is actually cheaper in the US (if you compare the premiums that I _and my employer_ pay, vs the extra taxes I would pay back home). * I appreciate American culture more. I like that people aren't afraid to take risks here. I like shooting guns. I like that so much of the cutting edge of science and technology is here. One thing I noticed in Canada (maybe it has since changed) is that, since they don't have nearly the talent pool that the US does, everything in tech just felt like a constant game of catch-up. * There's so much more to see and do here. Canada is like a string of cities, each surrounded by five hundred miles of nothing. It's incredibly beautiful nothing, and I'd like to see it again some day, but it is what it is. In the US, I can hop on a plane and go to any kind of geography within 3 or 4 hours (at ~1/3 the cost of a Canadian flight). I can see artists who would never come to where I grew up. I can see cities that are meaningfully different from each other and explore all kinds of historical places. * The obvious contentious current cultural and political things. Leaving this one vague because I am not trying to start an argument and don't want this to devolve into a flame thread
• codefreq 5y ago
  I moved from India to Thailand to Sweden. And I feel I will stay here for few more years now. Started at a well known global consultancy (ThoughtWorks) which gave me opportunity to travel world for different assignments. Then in Thailand chose to stay for extended period because Thailand . Eventually got kids so was looking for more stable country. Got offer with Spotify and now here since 2017. Didn't took lot of effort moving different countries since I am working on DevOps/SRE/Agile/Cloud which has been in extremely high demand last few years. I think moving to Sweden was very good decision since it gave more stability as I got my first house here and kid loves the country and snow.
• rudyrigot 5y ago
  Moved from France to the US in 2013, mostly because opportunities in tech don’t compare, and also because for all the great things French culture has, the gloomy/whiny tone of the culture was always difficult for me. It was hard for a while on precarious immigration visas, but then we got our self-sponsored Green Card in 2015, and it’s been smooth-sailing since. The Green Card path I chose took many years to prepare, starting far before we immigrated; and tons of continuous hard work to prepare. It’s hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s worked out pretty fantastically for me and my family, so I regret nothing. We became naturalized citizens last year. Every culture is different and there is none that is for everyone. That’s why it doesn’t make much sense to me that people would want to spend their whole life where they happened to be born, without trying anything else. I think everyone should live abroad a little while, no matter where.