If you're an expat (outside the UK), where do you live?

[Dinoswearunderpants]

I am dreaming of moving to somewhere safer. It seems to be getting worse and worse locally (outskirts of London) so I'd love to hear from people who live abroad.

What do you like, dislike, miss about UK. I'd love to hear it all!

Our emigrant/expat days were in the 1980s. I married and emigrated to the USA; number two DH was posted to Oman for five years by a UK company. Both of us had fantastic times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of life outside the UK. But DH was an expat when that meant salaries and benefits significantly superior to the home offer, because Oman then was a hardship post.

We moved to Dubai last year.

Pros: tax free, very safe, everything is very child friendly, good schools (although not on the level of the London preps), life is very, very easy (nannies, drivers, someone will come to your house and refill the petrol tank of your car on your drive, I always forget birthday presents but I can get one delivered and wrapped in 30 mins…) I thought there would be lots of “Dubai people” here - flashy, bragging etc and there are, but there are also so many nice normal families.

Cons: summer is long and boring - it’s not just August, I’d say it’s three months where going outside is not pleasant. But we are remedying that next year by being out of Dubai for two months next summer. As PP said no one walks anywhere - most of the roads are highways and don’t have pavements so it’s not possible to walk even if you wanted to. Saying that there are places to walk around but it’s a case of going somewhere to have a walk rather than walking as transport. I also miss my particular lovely bit of London but reading the news makes me grateful that I live here and I can just visit for the best bits of London - for me that’s Christmas and summer.

I used to be an expat and went where the work was. Now I am an immigrant and live permanently abroad.
Daydreaming is nice, but realistically you need to think where you can both work, or where one of you can work and provide for both. That is getting harder these days.

Londoner here
and the idea of having to specifically drive somewhere to walk would be a deal breaker “con” for me, especially so now with teens who walk everywhere!

Walking is just the most wonderful joy and the beauty of it is that practical too!

I lived in HK for ages- left beginning of 2023. It's still a great place to live but it's harder for British nationals to get a job there now because the economy is much more interlinked with that of China and therefore the main sectors that expats have traditionally worked in (finance and corporate law) have a greater demand for Chinese language skills and knowledge of Mainland Chinese markets/ corporate law, and the importance of the HK exchange vs the Shanghai exchange has also reduced.

Housing is expensive, ugly and dated but everyone is in the same boat so it doesnt really matter. Weather pretty good- has seasons and when it's dry and warm it really is fantastic. V easy to get around and you have all this amazing dramatic countryside and beaches very close to and accessible from the city- it's not a sprawl like many capitals. Food expensive. Taxes are low and simple- basically income tax at a flat rate. Easy to travel around the rest of Asia, albeit not as cheap as it was.

International schools are generally good but expensive and not as good as equivalently priced schools in the UK IMO. You are allowed to use government schools which are free and some are English medium but it would be a difficult cultural shift for DC who have not always been in that system (hours of homework, v big classes, a lot of rote learning). Can use government health service for free which is modelled on the NHS and blighted by all the same problems so most expats will have some sort of insurance or you can just turn up and pay out of pocket for private GPs and hospital outpatients.

If your OH is a doctor he probably couldn't work in the public sector or most private hospitals unless he speaks Cantonese but he could work as (eg) a private GP and I have seen the odd western doctor at the v expatty private hospital.

“shared sense of humour” hit me hard. I miss it so much. I’m in the US with an American DP and no one gets me here 😂/😭

Latin America. I am definitely an immigrant I am never going back to London where I lived most of my adult life (apart from 5 years in Paris) It's a lot easier with visa as I am a pensioner. Residency in 2 years (I defaulted in renewing my visa due to an oversight so lost 4 years) Bureaucracy is extremely challenging btw. Visas are harder to get as interest has peaked a lot in the last 2 years or so. Used to give them out like lollipops ! Learning Spanish has not been / is not easy (for me) but I have several friends who have lived here for longer (French / Dutch / Australian / various nationalities who gather here) who are absolutely as fluent as locals. It makes a huge difference.
I miss a lot about London - my son, family and old friends of course - and enjoyed a month there last year - in the heatwave, which suited me just fine ! Tropical climate here. It is not for the faint hearted I might add (Latin America ! Tho you could say that about London) Brexit was a big factor in my decision since I couldn't go back to France and that was in hindsight a blessing) And I had a relatively 'soft' landing due to my best friend already here and au fait with all the visa stuff etc. I highly recommend jumping before you are pushed. Just make sure you research thoroughly any choice you make and do NOT believe everything you read on the internet goes without saying (regarding me living in apparently one of the most dangerous cities in the country ha ha)

Totally agree on being able to visit the best bits of London as being a huge ‘pro’. Although I always lived in nice pockets of London, I never experienced living very centrally. When I visit now, I stay in Marylebone or Mayfair or Kensington and it’s fab! No signs of the ‘deterioration’ of London that I read about on MN / hear about from friends still living there.

I’ve spent most of my adult life in Central Europe, mostly Poland and Romania, but also the odd year elsewhere, like Hungary and Austria. Heading back for a new job after Christmas. You need to learn the language to integrate and work. I struggled so much with Hungarian, and eventually gave up and left when my work contract came to an end.

Is your DH a doctor? If so it is relatively easy to get a visa for Canada although for Quebec and Montreal you’ll need to be a French speaker.

Southern Germany.

Pros - great healthcare, good free schools, outdoorsy lifestyle

Cons - high tax but tbh I don’t mind as I can see what I am getting for it.

I miss the simplicity of just being able to understand a letter/form. And being able to chat to people in shops etc. My German is pretty good but I’m not fluent like my kids.

I'm a British immigrant in Italy. One way trip for me, pound land is now a pound fifty! Italy has it's problems, but I'd rather bang my head against an olive tree, than a rain swept dry stone wall.

We moved to Portugal over 20 years ago. There’s very little we miss about the uk, I haven’t been back since 2008

My parents moved us to Boston Massachusetts. For work. I’m back in London now but thinking of moving to Spain for a year, just to do something different. My adult kids are going to come too (one will have just graduated from uni).

I have lived in Iraq, DRC, Kenya, UAE, Qatar, India, Jordan and KL. Qatar by far the happiest place, lovely people and most like home on terms of not ever needing anything when I went home for visits, mainly UKshops etc. Amazing museums and events every weekend. Worst probably India, just because of the litter and cultural barriers.

Southern European country but not an expat.

I am a migrant to this country and managed to set up my life here pre Brexit.

I came for a jolly and ended up staying. I still view the UK as an amazing country to live in, but I settled here as my life unfolded.

Love the weather and almost-all-year-outside living. Great healthcare and a generally robust attitude to living in the present day. During summertime, we literally live 24hrs a day. Island life in the holidays is epic.

My children are multilingual and will be able to choose from universities across Europe as opposed to if we were still in the UK.

Moved to Switzerland 6 years ago from London. Absolutely love it - never coming back.

Pros - pay less tax, everything works, big expat community, can drive to France, Italy - across Europe, excellent quality of life, very low crime, excellent healthcare & education, beautiful scenery- mountains & lakes, 45 mins from ski resort, cantons invest in making everything better for inhabitants - outdoor public pools, activities, community events, clean, amazing public transport, no traffic......i could go on. I used to love my life in London but now when I come back I hate it and can't wait to leave.
Cons - miss family and friends, shared sense of humour, newspaper, pubs and things being open on a Sunday. Property is expensive so we rent but at some point we will be in a position to buy.
If you can find a way to come you won't regret it. We had multiple friends who left to return to the UK and now they're desperately trying to find a way back - harder with Brexit.

If youre in finance @Dinoswearunderpants you could easily find a role in Geneva. Salaries are much higher too. I had a friend that went from earning 40k in the UK to taking the same role on 90k only to get promoted within a year to 140k, plus paid overtime. Work/life balance very good here. Not sure about healthcare opportunities but I had a friend who was a GP from the UK and she ended up teaching healthcare related training courses and sometimes popping g back to the UK for stints to work. If you can both work it's worth it.

Totally agree and it didn’t occur to me a) how important walking was to me and how much I took it for granted and b) that for so much of Dubai it’s literally impossible. And hello an extra 10 kilos!!

Agree entirely about the joy of walking and how you miss it when you don't have it!

It would be a complete deal breaker to me
moving somewhere like Dubai where walking is a “thing”