Emigrate after all this...

[Fruitbatdancer]

I’ve always wanted to live abroad, sunshine really effects my mood (in a good way) France, Spain, maybe further South America etc
The one and only thing holding me back (husband is super keen) is worry of missing family.
Don’t get me wrong I’m missing them like mad now, but it doable, in coping, so it’s made me think what’s stopping us? We’d probably spend more quality time as they’d visit often?
AIBU? Crazy? Has lockdown just messed with my head?

I’ve name changed for this.

My partner and I emigrated to Portugal last year. I have a lifelong connection with the place so it wasn’t a huge leap for us, but still, it is bloody fantastic.

Getting residency was easy - Portugal is keen to have immigrants. All residents have automatic rights to use the national health service, which we’ve found to be fine so far. Lots of people also have private health insurance, which is cheap, but we haven’t felt the need.

We get lots of visitors from the UK, flights are cheap and quick, though we like to keep ourselves to ourselves so I suppose “lots of visitors” is relative to what you’re used to. It’s plenty for us.

Australian supermarkets are like the 80s, anyone remember kwiksave?! 😂 I've never wanted to move abroad but a bit of me thinks new Zealand looks good right now. I couldn't do it to my family, my dad just died and with covid it was hard enough moving 150 miles to get there, I'd have had no chance from abroad. Family and friends have done it, my aunty and uncle moved 40 years ago and are settled but the nagging feeling never goes away I think. My friend moved recently and he's so close to his family he must be really feeling it at the moment and I hope his relationship survives. Personally I love Australia for holidays but couldn't live there, didn't find it that friendly a place or that outdoorsy, a better quality of life here I think but we do live in a nice city.

South America may seem odd but been a dream since a childhood project on Peru!

Have you been though? Emigrating to a country you've never even visited would be very... brave!

Not to mention the distance is much greater and flights much longer/more expensive, meaning you would definitely not see your family as much.

I'm from South America and it's a lifestyle/culturer change much more than going from England to Spain or France would be!

Agree about South America. I spent some time there about 20 years ago and while it is an amazing place it’s a totally different culture.

In Europe everything’s essentially the same, just with different languages and better food and weather, depending where you are.

Go for it. Life's short and the UK isn't going anywhere. You can always come back.

I've lived in a few countries and experiencing things is what life is all about.

You may think they’d visit often because they’d like the sun/surroundings, and they’ll probably say they would, but more than likely they won’t be travelling there more than every few years, if that.

It’s very hard to get families to travel abroad to see those who’ve emigrated.

And people who’ve emigrated should be prepared to fly back once in a while, it shouldn’t be all one way.

We live ‘Abroad’ and this whole situation has had the opposite affect, the U.K. and my family seems so very far away at the moment and I feel vulnerable.
The lifestyle where we are is hands down much better (for us, obviously, it depends what you like)
We live two doors down from a woods walk to the beach, don’t have a pool but have a garden etc and before lockdown skeet every night after work at the beach having picnics, drinking wine, watching the sunset and swimming. It’s amazing..but it’s wothout family, that’s the very hard part.
We’re only 2.5 hours away and would see my family three times a year, on average every four months or so.
But with recent events, I worry when I’ll see them again or if it will be that easy/affordable to get flights in the future now? If things drastically change in that way, I’ll be looking to return to the uk permanency, dp would much rather stay though.

*Spent
*Without

I’d do it but stick to Spain or Portugal. Many flights every day, sunny days and long nights and cost of living reasonable. If you get fed up you can come back. Assume you don’t need to work?

Definitely look into it.

We lived in the Middle East for 5 years; have been I the UK for 5 years and we are headed back to the Middle East (borders permitting).

Th weather and lifestyle makes a huge difference and we can access better schools than we have here.

We had more visitors to the Middle East than we had to our home in the UK! The heat and a pool is a big pull!

Why not look at it less as emigrating and more like an adventure for a few years, see how it goes? A flexible mindset is a good thing