Anyone Moved to Greece?

[Thereisnomagicwand]

Greece is my favourite place to holiday and I’ve been lucky enough to have stayed on a few of the beautiful islands. (Shirley Valentine is one of my favourite films.) I dream of living there! I know the reality would
be different and I’m not in a position to follow my dream (I have a child still completing education and I’m not sure what I or DH would do for work). But I would love to hear of anyone who has done just that. It might just inspire me!

only person i know who did this

had very strong family connections there and had holidayed there in same place every year with family for three decades

oh and she had fairly decent greek

Can you speak Greek OP?

Be aware that lots of the usual DS don't have direct flights back to the uk during the winter if you need to get home quickly ever.

I could happily live on one of the smaller islands.

Holidaying is not the same as living there. Navigating registering for tax, health, car registration if you import your car, getting an MOT equivalent, car matters if you buy there, calling out an electrician, plumber etc if you don’t speak the language well enough is hard work. You find in the first year you have to find a lot of translators and trust them with personal information.
If you want to do it, from experience I’d say don’t sell your UK house if you own one. Rent it out and rent there for at least 18 months. The winter can be dead, lots of places close. Summers scorching hot with high bills for air conditioning.
Did it, lasted 21 months and cried for the last 6 at least.

Friend's daughter did this when she married a Greek chap. She (& her parents) spoke Greek and she went to one of the islands where there was a family unit to fit into and a family business to work for.

It all worked for her, but without that support group (& the language) I'm not sure how easy she would have found it.

what country did you do? were you alone? are you back in uk now?

Anyone who has moved to Greece has done it by taking practical steps. So you don't need inspiration, OP, you need a practical plan.

Do your research.

What do you need to live in Greece? Do you have citizenship of an EU country and therefore freedom of movement? Or do you need a residence permit/visa?

What jobs are available? Could you do any of them? Is there a viable business you could run? What is the process of starting up and running a business in Greece?

Do you speak Greek? If not, how long would it take you to get to a level where you could deal with life admn (banking, buying/renting and maintaining a home, transport, taxes, healthcare etc) and work/business admin in Greek, spoken and written?

Would you maintain links with people in the UK and if so, how? As a PP has mentioned, what is year-round travel like?

How will climate change continue to affect Greece - wildfires, drought, life-endangering temperatures, effects on infrastructure and economy such as tourism?

First we did a 6 month placement in Africa for DH’s work. I did some volunteering in a local town. This made us decide to take very early retirement and move to Greece where we’d holidayed. Have to say I really hated it after about 8-9 months. Stray animals, left to breed then often dying really upset me.
We moved to mainland EU country where I spoke the language quite well and lived there for 9 years but DH died so I returned to the UK after a year.