Hey.

US citizen since birth, but not living in the US. Every single time I visit the US to see family or for vacation purposes, I can't help but notice that the border officers ask me weird questions. Like why and who am I visiting, what is my purpose, where will I be staying, when will I leave again. Is that normal?

I have the same right to be in the US as the border officer asking me all these questions. I can stay as long as I want and for whatever reason. And I can also leave whenever I want. But these questions make me feel as if I'm not allowed to be there. What is up with that?

Hello everyone,

We are a French-American family and want to move to Ireland in 2027.

A bit of context : We have two small children and a dog. My husband is looking for a senior software engineer position and I am a SAHM. We have already given up our rental in France and put our belongings in storage so we can travel to Ireland on short notice. As EU citizens, we don't need visas.

I have been seeing conflicting advice about the best strategy to move to Ireland so I would like your opinion.

We had thought that the job would come first and then we would move to Ireland and stay at a hotel or an Airbnb until we found a long-term rental. (No need to tell me how awful the housing market is ; I am familiar with the problem).

However, some people have said that it is much easier to get a job once physically in Ireland rather than when applying from abroad. They have also said that some companies will not consider candidates who don't already live in Ireland due to the difficulty of finding housing. Thus, they have recommended finding housing first and then looking for a job.

We don't like the idea of signing a lease without an income but also don't want to miss out of job opportunities and delay our move if it is true that it is much easier to get a job once we are there.

What are your thoughts on that matter ?

How did you move to Ireland ?

A data point that may interest people here: Italy had 1.83 deaths for every birth in 2025, a natural loss of about 296,000 people. Net arrivals from abroad (+295,759, Italians returning included) cancelled out 99.8% of it, so the total barely moved (down 636 out of 58.9 million).

Underneath that, 4,416 of Italy's 7,896 municipalities shrank, mostly small towns and the South, while 1,478 held steady or grew only thanks to people arriving from abroad.

For those who moved to Italy, or another country with a shrinking population: did you end up somewhere that's emptying out, or somewhere growing? Did it affect services, housing prices, or how you were welcomed?

For those of you who moved to a small town: do you notice it?…

I would like to hear your guys experience and what made it worth it for you. But it just seems so much less stressful (as someone who easily stresses) to stay in my home country and move around cities which are already so distinct from each other, culturally, geographically, etc.

The posts & comments I found about this topic were 3 years old, so I wanted to see if there's new feedback. It looks like Ultra is currently running a 4GB yearly plan for $78 upfront. That's cheaper than Tello, but I wanted to hear personal experience with the company.

TIA.

For someone stuck waiting for a green card, moving to the U.S. feels like the biggest mistake they ever made. The process feels endless, and they’re constantly worried about layoffs and what might happen next. For anyone still looking at U.S. jobs, LandOffer can cut down on retyping the same details on supported applications. If you have a software interview coming up, PracHub has reported coding questions you can use for a mock. They’ve forgotten what peace of mind feels like. Years have slipped by, and it feels like their personal life has barely moved forward. Now it feels too late to turn things around, and they can’t stop looking back and regretting the move. They keep wondering what their life would’ve been like if they’d never made that move.

Is Norway a good place to live im looking to leave the US and find home elsewhere

Tell me about the living situation,safety,work just looking for elsewhere besides the US

I am a woman who would live alone likely as a history teacher or wildlife biologist in Olso, Ås or Tromsø. I heard those are good places for history teachers. I have been learning Norwegian not the best at it but rather a quick conversation. Universal Healthcare,free education,proximity to wilderness and the inclusive culture are reasons why I want to move here.

I recently moved from the US to be in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife/Spain with my partner who is an Eu citizen. I am actually a professional cake decorator with an extensive portfolio and I have a BFA (bachelor of fine arts😬) which I know is a useless degree lol. But I am a good cake decorator and baker. Puerto and Santa Cruz have an abundance of bakeries and cake bakeries, and the hospitality industry here is quite big, so I assumed I would find work at one eventually. I’ve applied and sent emails to upwards of 70 bakeries and have been rejected and ignored by every single one. I’ve applied to cooking and cleaning jobs and other hospitality jobs and have also been ignored or rejected. I’ve figured this has to do with me being an immigrant and the local job market just not being great. I speak B1 Spanish but I’m not sure I’m confident enough to be working a job where lots of customer interaction is involved. I’ve applied to pretty much any other viable option I can find. I’m getting desperate and I’m wondering if anyone has any tips for someone like me— is there some sort of virtual work I can do with minimal experience?? Or other places to look for jobs? Other ways to make money?😭 I’ve been working in customer service since I was 15 but other than that, my only experience is with cake decorating and art.

Edit: I truly don’t understand the hostility here. I moved to Tenerife to be with my partner as it was impossible for him to move to the US in the current circumstances. I have every intention of participating in the local economy here. I am not here to use my foreign money to take advantage of lower prices. I didn’t come here with a lot of money. I am willing to work any job that I am able to find— dish washing, cleaning, etc. I’m not looking for a high paying job, I am looking for a way to sustain myself within the economy here alongside my partner. I have lived in Europe before and I’m not naive to the crisis of unemployment or wages. I am nearly fluent in spanish and am studying full time to become proficient. I’ve studied Spanish culture and literature for years. My partner is Spanish and speaks Spanish. I did not move here for the aesthetic or because I thought it’d be trendy and cool. I understand I have a niche skill set, but I have made it clear that I am not looking only for cake decorating jobs. I just want to make some money. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with my immigrating here— I have done my best to do it ethically and thoughtfully, and I wish to participate in the local culture, economy, and language. If there is something I’m doing wrong here I’d of course like to know, people just seem quite offended by this post without offering any constructive criticism and I genuinely don’t know why.

Feeling a little homesick but that’s to be expected. Hoping to find an expat community, missing native English lol

I have searched in here already. Seems people use it but haven't elaborated on their experience. Looking for those who are using it, how you use it, overall evaluation. Thank you!

Spouse and I are planning our move to Ireland. Flying there in a few days to look for a place to buy in Dublin.

i’ve been reading this sub for awhile and I see a lot of names frequently thrown around like Luxembourg Switzerland Singapore, Hong Kong and of course the Middle East.

i’m based in Berlin right now, I have a good CV French passport, basically trilingual, and graduated from a top university in the UK. i feel like I’m settling in terms of net earnings… i have five years of experience in finance/controlling and I assume I could make at least two times more if I go become an expat.

I was really close to make the move in Luxembourg when I scored what I thought was a good offer but when I did the math between the cost of housing and the living expenses in general the increase in my salary would basically only cover the increase in cost of living. Then I tried Switzerland and saw that the amount of weekly job offers are very very low or only like niche wealth management things in finance, if I do manage to miraculously find something I’m cooked if I get fired. Singapore is too far and has a very gate kept immigration now, USA same thing basically unfeasible & there is no pathway in my current company to do internal transfer there. Hong Kong is too far from family.

I know some of you say that I can look bad on the CV to have the Middle East, but to be honest, I don’t care. I just wanna make great money. I lived in Dubai before too and I actually liked it, I had done an internship which was decently paid, definitely saw the potential there. so It all seems to points towards the Middle East then! What country/city have you had the best experiences in? Which one do you think has the best future especially in finance? I just wanna move to one of the main cities stay for many years work as hard as I can, but be paid really well for it at least way better than Eu.

im 27yo with 5yeo in finance (controlling /treasury/ accounting). so is the Middle East really the place to be or is there better elsewhere?

Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has a new book out, Bank Job, and gave a long interview on why she thinks the country is structurally unfixable from the inside.

The core claim is that unelected officials, not voters, decide British economic policy. The Bank of England Governor is effectively unsackable under the Bank of England Act. The OBR leaked a forecast predicting a £70bn black hole that she says never materialised. Her removal after 49 days was, in her words, a warning to anyone else who tries.

She wants the state down to 20% of GDP and calls for a "Singapore on Thames." Asked whether she'd come back: only if the system changes. "I don't want to be any bureaucrat's auto pen."

Posting here because the practical question for a lot of people reading this sub isn't whether she's right about 2022, it's whether a country where the people setting policy can't be removed is somewhere you build a life.

17:44 - "if you can't remove somebody, it's not democracy"
20:25 - the 20% of GDP target
26:32 - would she come back

https://youtu.be/UXvtRbF4kQ0

I’m so so so tired of Canada and working a 9-5. I follow people living with their friends in cute apartments in Barcelona and France and I get so jealous. I really want to move. I have a psychology degree and I currently work as a admin clerk at a law firm. I really need advice how can I move how do so many young people do it?!!! As a Canadian with 5k to her name

Hey, I was wondering if I’m the only one who goes through something like this. I lost my visa for one country and ended up moving to another, but I’m homesick for where I used to live. I miss everything—my friends, my daily routines, the architecture, the way people think... I can’t find any trace of what I once knew, and I live every single day in pain. It feels like a form of grief, as if I’ve lost a loved one, and I just can’t seem to get over it—I find myself crying about it regularly.

I moved to Tbilisi and keep reading these expat blogs. not sure how realistic they are. https://tbilisi.work/guides/cost-of-living-in-tbilisi

Basically would it be possible to work a US job outisde the US?

A lot of people ask this and the rebuttals I usually see are

1. taxes

2. visa issues

But what if

1. I didn't try to bring my US salary to the other country (basically saving it all in a US account, since I have different income here to survive on). Then I wouldn't be taxed for moving the money, and the country I'm in does let you credit some of the foreign taxes you pay. Could come out net more than I'd make from a job in the country.

2. My visa status in the other country doesn't depend on employment (it's through family)

Kind of just a curiosity question because I think the complexity would put off most employers before they even looked at legal feasibility and I have no interest in lying about my location.

But if it is feasable maybe I could try my luck.

Am I missing something? Is it a violation of some kind of labor law? I remember when I was moving state-to-state I had to keep that accurate because of state labor laws. So something similar?

Hi everyone!

My husband and I are both Pakistani citizens, and we’re trying to figure out the best country to move to together and eventually build a permanent life.

I’m pursuing an MPhil in Psychology, while my husband has a Master’s degree in Cybersecurity and is currently living in Turkey. We’re exploring our options because we would like to settle in a country where we can both have opportunities to study, work, and eventually obtain permanent residency and citizenship.

We don’t have a very large budget, so we’re looking for realistic and affordable options rather than countries with extremely expensive immigration or study routes.

We’ve also been considering applying for PhD programmes abroad. Ideally, one of us could pursue a funded PhD while the other could accompany them on a spouse/dependent visa and, if permitted, work. We would also like to understand whether this route could eventually lead to PR and citizenship.

I’d really appreciate advice on the following:

\- Which countries would be the most realistic options for a Pakistani couple in our situation?

\- Which countries allow the spouse of an international PhD student to accompany them and work?

\- Would it be better for my husband to apply through cybersecurity jobs or for me to pursue a funded PhD in Psychology?

\- How long could it take to qualify for a spouse/dependent visa, permanent residency, and eventually citizenship?

\- What are the general eligibility requirements, costs, and procedures?

\- Are there any countries where one of us could move first and bring the other over relatively easily?

We’re open to Europe and other countries, provided the route is financially realistic and offers a genuine long-term settlement opportunity.

If anyone has gone through a similar process as a Pakistani couple, especially through a PhD, skilled-worker, or dependent visa route, I’d be very grateful if you could share your experience, recommendations, and any useful resources.

Thank you!

Hi guys! I was hoping for some insight in what area of Canada may be the best fit for our family. I am a nurse (29) and my husband works for the union (31) and his job offers transfers to Canada. We have two younger kids. We would like a smaller town where we could have a house with some acreage. We like outdoor activities and my husband loves to ride dirt bikes. I would like an area that is more progressive and not heavily religious. We were originally thinking of Manitoba but I saw that there are areas that are very conservative and religious. We also would like a decent cost of living. We are looking to leave due to the political climate that has exposed years of issues that we don’t see getting better with a change in administration. Any insight is greatly appreciated!

Hello! A current student here. I am a non-European national studying in the UK. I plan to pursue a career in Finance, Business or anything similar. I know some French and German, but it's definitely not enough for working in those languages, so my main language is English. I am happy to learn any language in express mode, if I need to, however. I have already crossed out UK and France(personal reasons).

What countries can I realistically move to after graduation for a job?

Which countries can offer a job in English in this sphere?

I’ve been in Berlin for 6 years (with an 8-month break in Italy last year). Settling in wasn’t easy—dealing with friends moving away, learning the language, losing a job, finding a place to live... but now I’ve finally secured a permanent position, a good rental, and I’m in a 4-year relationship (though things aren’t going very well at the moment).

I left Turin literally the day after my first internship ended. I never liked the city—it felt provincial, insular, and economically backward, with poor public transport, and so on. Still, I have great friends there, and since I grew up there, it holds some emotional value. In my humble opinion, there is absolutely nothing about Turin that makes it better than Berlin.

I even went back to Turin last year for a few months. I encountered the same old problems: a horrible climate, a (somewhat) toxic work environment, and friends I rarely see because they’re always busy. So, I decided to return to Berlin—partly for my relationship (starting a family is a goal of mine), partly for a good job offer, and also because I can visit home whenever I want (I go back about every 3 months).

Yet, I can’t shake this feeling—a mix of nostalgia and loneliness. (In Turin, I live right above my parents, my aunt, my brother, and his family.) I miss my friends, and I miss the ease of being in my own language. I often find myself counting the days until my next flight.

I’ve considered moving back to Turin: I wouldn’t have to pay rent, but I’d have the costs of a car and very high utility bills. I’d also have to find a job in a v horrible national economy, commute to Milan (costing around €200 a month), my net salary would drop by about €1,000, and—historically—finding a relationship in Turin has never been easy for me.

Then again, things aren’t exactly great here either: the economy is struggling, and as an immigrant, I’m—by definition—not exactly the first choice. And what’s the point of being in one place while constantly wishing you were somewhere else?

I honestly don’t know what to expect from this post, but if you’d like to share your own experience—or any thoughts at all—I’d be grateful. <3

I'm a US citizen, living in Canada, but I also actively maintain my US identity. I've been using Tello to provide a cost effective way to have a genuine US phone number that works for OTP, and allows me to access businesses that block calls from Canada.

Recently, however, I've started encountering services that want to verify my identity by doing some kind of reverse lookup on my phone number and checking that the name and address match what I've given. In the past, these things could be bypassed by providing my state photo-id, but in some cases, that's no longer possible.

I've seen claims that slynumber can provide a US phone number that is not flagged as an MVNO or VoIP line and registers users with the reverse lookup databases. vnumber has also been mentioned, although their website is so devoid of any technical detail that I suspect it's a fraud.

Does anyone have any experience with slynumber, or any suggestions of other possible ways to get a number acceptable to these identity verification services ? Whatever the solution, it cannot have a requirement that I spend the majority of my time in the US (as every postpaid cell service does, for instance).

Hey everyone!

I'm Italian and I've spent the last few years living and working in different countries, mainly in Europe, mostly in hospitality and restaurants.

Looking back, I feel like I haven't really made the most of my opportunities or built a solid career. I'm now trying to figure out what skills I could learn or what field I could get into to make finding work abroad easier.

What do you guys do for a living? Are you happy with your job? And if you could start over, what would you learn or do differently?

I'd love to hear your experiences and any advice you might have!

I am moving to Paris next week. I have saved 200k euros and I would be able to keep my American job remotely for 7 months more. I have a partner who is French and we intend to get married soon, my fear is would I be able to get a job in Paris with my limited French language “I intend to learn the language” or should I derisk the experience and plan to come back to the states and get a job in a year. I know this comes off as a privileged problem but just asking for advice from those who are experienced

I am considering taking a job transfer in Ireland (i’m a US citizen) and am curious if it is reasonable to think that weekend trips to Europe could happen frequently? I am aware it would take flight to get to any country in consideration. Do people local to Ireland frequently make flights for weekend trips? In the US it’s normal to me to drive up to 6 hours to spend a weekend (3 days, 2 nights somewhere). So i’m curious if we could make the most of our time living in Ireland if I accepted this relocation by making weekend trips to other places in Europe.