Never leave your home country again - or never be able to go to your home country again. Which would you choose?

[anotherusernameforthis]

I agonise over this; really struggle to decide which I’d do.

Rules: visas etc no object, you could live anywhere else in the world. starting with same standard of living/set up that you currently have.
Those you live with come with you.
Others can visit you, but you can’t ever return to your home country.

I agree; it is that deep sense of ‘home’ that is hard to define and hard to value.

It seems to be human nature to be attached to a physical place in an emotional way for many people. Almost like another family member somehow.

Perhaps because of memories tied up there, and leaving that place means you lose your roots?

Very glad it is hypothetical for most

I'd stay in my home country. Any time I've moved away I've always missed it and gone back. I couldn't live the rest if my life never seeing it again.

Home for me is where I make it, not one physical place where I take root. I don’t live in my country of origin, and emigrated a second time from the UK where I spent my teenage years (did return for a work contract for a few years, but recently left again).

Leave. England is ok. But there's a whole world out there!

Well I don't live in my birth country and I haven't for 34 years. Home is here in the UK. So I would choose to never return to my birth country.

I deliberately do not use home country as it suggests your birth country is home. For me its not. Home is where I build my life. The UK.

Emigrate. Happily. No agonising about it for me, I know DH would say the same.

Unless the UK improves dramatically in the next 3 to 5 years then definitely the second choice. There's not much keeping me here any more except my age.

Never leave again. There are lots of places I've never been in the UK, lots of things I've never done. And I love living in London, I miss it when I'm away for too long.

Your hypothetical is a bit silly and very 1st world. Sort of - should I live in this or that nice comfortable country…

But the choice - leave and not be able to come back to home/birth county is sadly quite real and much more traumatic for many people. Mostly because it is forced on them by wars and despotic regimes. And has very real life implications, that are not about pubs and Xmas lights.

Easy, I'd stay in my home country.

I would miss going abroad though, and the chance of guaranteed sun shine!
I've spent the last 15 years visiting various places in the UK (mostly just England) for our annual holiday and it's a fantastic place with a varied landscape and lots of interesting places to visit. I'd keep myself amused just fine.

It's also the real life situation that many people of our great-grandparents etc. generation faced when they emigrated to other parts of the world a long time ago. In those days only the rich could afford to ever go back. I guess they must have thought it worth the risk.

People can indeed talk and ruminate about first world things.

The first time I emigrated was because of war. The second time was because I considered somewhere else to be nicer and more comfortable 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd stay in England... or rather UK so I can still visit Wales which I love!

I think our government is a shit show and there's a lot wrong here but it's home and where I live is beautiful.

I'd stay here in Ireland, I love travelling but nothing could ever compete with my home ❤️

It's a great thought experiment. I'd definitely stay given the choice, I like visiting other places but I would find it hard not to feel 'at home'.

It must be incredibly hard being a refugee who doesn't have a choice.

Stay in the UK. I may moan about it, but it feels like winning life's lottery being able to call England my home.

Winning life's lottery to be able to call England home? Gosh.

Oh I have an interest in going abroad, it's just that for a very long time I never had the money to do it. 😂

I love flying, and have been all over the place in years gone by, just not in recent times. There's all sorts of places I would like to visit, including family who moved overseas a few years ago, and who I haven't seen since.

Just feels a bit smug. Of course it is nice to be rich&healthy vs poor&ill. And have choices as to which country - of many comfortable ones to live in…

The real situation of actually not being able to come back is actually traumatic because it’s not a choice.

Presumably you’re free to not engage in a thread that bothers you? That you don’t like the topic doesn’t mean others shouldn’t post about it.

I was in ‘the real situation’, but so what? That doesn’t give me the right to dictate that every conversation has to revolve around me and my life experiences, even in the event of me being bothered.

Not every opportunity to pointlessly virtue signal has to be taken.

I’d leave England for anywhere sunny and never look back!

I’d leave England for anywhere sunny and never look back!

After being unable to sleep properly at the weekend because it was too damn hot, I could never leave England to live somewhere constantly hot!!

Of course we are all different and I know people who love hot, arid conditions where it never changes, but it's not for me. I love the changing seasons and would choose home.

Home country seems the obvious choice. It's where my family roots are, wider network of friends, a society I know and belong to. A language I speak.
If one was so desperate to move have they actually tried to?

Oh tough one! I’m bicultural and dual National and I love both my countries. And it is something I think about. Like when I’m really old and can’t travel, which one will I choose to die in.

Also, I lived in Singapore as an expat and on paper it sounds great. Sunny everyday etc. but in reality I missed the seasons so badly.