If you could pack up and move your whole life, where would you go?

I’ve wanted to move to New Orleans since my first visit in 1988, but I realize moving to a place I’ve only
visited for a week at a time (albeit many, many times) is probably a pipe dream. I’d like at least spend a few months/half a year there to start. But yeah, the decay mixed with the gentrification both give me pause. Plus, my wife’s dream move is the north shore of Minnesota, so we’re definitely at odds there!

that does sound intriguing, lily! and i have often dreamed of living in a really cold place, for a while. but honestly i think i would like to move somewhere that is not cold, for once. i'm in STL now, the warmest place i've lived in a while, and it was nice when the snow came and everyone was freaking out about it, and i thought it was a mild and disappointing snow.

moving to warmer climes gives you a temporary boost of wellbeing compared to where you recently lived. you get to take your coat off a month before anyone else, it's amazing. it's similar in some respects to moving from a place with a high cost of living to one with a relatively low one. your monopoly money from the previous city is worth more, at this other one.

in other words, the trick might be to start at the coldest, most expensive place in the world, and as you live, gradually slide down to drinking water on the equator

I hope I’m wrong but I keep waiting for like Disney to swoop in and just buy the entire Quarter and turn it into an Epcot version, mouse ear silhouettes everywhere. The real estate prices are way out of wack with average salaries. And the state/ local politics there are beyond fucked. But even so, if I thought my gf could stand a summer there it would be at the top of my list in the US.

xp idk moving from somewhere where it was on average 90 degrees every day all summer (no air conditioning) to somewhere where it was on average 70 degrees ... the ability to wear a sweater or ... any clothing for that matter and not be uncomfortably hot and sweaty and gross ... that was a great boost of well-being

lmfao at so many of you choosing somewhere inside the confirmed dystopia that is the USA

it might be shocking to you but there aren't many places left to live outside the US that aren't headed towards dystopia either. and leaving the country is also massively expensive.

idk maybe could we keep 'destination shaming' out of the thread

i think some of us Americans are just being practical in terms of relocation costs and "would we legally be allowed to be residents and work there" ... I could totally fantasize about chilling on a gorgeous beach eating & drinking dope-ass food in the South of France, but ... the French government would probably deport my American ass after a short while idk

Bulgaria has nice beaches and also cats ... I know a few words and phrases of Bulgarian

idk maybe could we keep 'destination shaming' out of the thread

eh idk i've been trapped in my current apartment for a while now bc i can't afford to move down the street let alone to another country

yeah of course it is still an expense, we are talking about "if..." here. on a couple of occasions I have found a job in another country in which there was free accommodation and they paid for the plane ticket, not sure if that's still a thing though.

I think the thread should go in whatever direction it takes, but in my op I was trying to include the idea of imagining where we would pick up and move if practical concerns weren’t a limitation. But I get how that’s not a very fruitful topic, since it’s just basically an invitation to share your dream, and that can go badly

is it also that weird to imagine that people tend to gravitate towards the familiar rather than dealing w/ potential culture shock?

I said New Zealand but I could have just as easily said East Atlanta, which is bohemian.

it isn't as if every square inch of America is a hellhole. even if we are all living in Hell here right now, collectively speaking.

not to mention this is imago's second Kool-Aid Man intrusion of "lol yanks" in recent weeks and i'm not amused

the question was obviously 'if money/family/etc is no object'

if you want to stay in the US for cultural or sentimental reasons, fine

I don't have a college degree, from what I've gathered over the years most of the 'developed world' wouldn't even let me in unless I win the lottery and get an investor visa or something. (Winning the lottery, of course, removes like 95% of the reasons every square inch of America IS arguably a hellhole.)

moving to warmer climes gives you a temporary boost of wellbeing

Wherever we live, warmer climes are likely coming to us in our lifetimes... might not be conducive to our well-being in the end, though.

That is as it should be. The whole clime-switching economy depends on other people seeking colder climes

the question was obviously 'if money/family/etc is no object'

i think it comes down to your definition of "etc" ... like, does it include magically getting a visa and/or magically learning to speak the native language very rapidly and/or conquering resentment towards natives of Imperial colonial powers by magic of a charming Mary Poppins-like personality?

It’s also funny that imago is saying this, don’t you live in fucking England? Fuck off.

A simple "Ban LJ" is the traditional response.

KM, I recently spent some time in the Chapel Hill- Raleigh- Durham area and while you might need a car, I know people who don’t, and the art scene is chill, small, but exceptionally weird and friendly. Great music area, too. I loved it.

We have decided that if our house value gets to two times what we paid for it, we will start thinking about selling and moving.

Realistically, we’d probably move somewhere in Maine or Western Mass, tho if we could go anywhere in the US and didn’t have to worry about money, I’d say Westport, California.

If we could move anywhere, I think my sights would be on Prince George, BC— it has lots of trains, abundant natural beauty, a university, and we both have some affection for small cities.

I also would move to Porto in a heartbeat for sort of the opposite reasons I’d move to Prince George.

If money/family/etc were no option I might go with Barcelona. Great weather, culture, pace of life. A hop skip and a jump from a lot of amazing destinations. Easiest language to pick up coming from English. Healthy presence of leftist orgs. Obviously the failing struggle for independence is rough but their cops can't be as bad as here.

My American friend did exactly this and went to Copenhagen. Loves it.

yeah, i have never stepped in europe (beyond iceland) but barcelona would be one of my first stops if i did

xp

The real estate prices are way out of wack with average salaries.

All the AirBnBs in New Orleans, a city with a housing shortage.

Huh, wonder where all the housing went? pic.twitter.com/AEib4nFkip

— Angela ⚡️⚡️⚡️ (@byzplease) April 20, 2022

Easiest language to pick up coming from English

Catalan?

tbh I used to live in Barcelona and could easily see that as the answer to the original question

Xp there ought to be a law

However there will absolutely under no circumstances be a law

Pretty amazing that the hospitality industry didn't have enough lobbying money to strangle Airbnb in the crib.

uhhhh ... I'm going to assume that this was meant in the context of Karl (a cis-white dude) wanting to move somewhere and not really a universal "your," where other people would experience significant changes related to racism, homophobia, transphobia, the right to get an abortion, general acceptance and tolerance of "otherness" ... and have moved for those reasons?

― sarahell, Monday, May 30, 2022 11:39 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

for sure, doesn't apply to somebody seeking asylum in the us, doesn't apply to lots of people, I was more just responding to the vibe of the thread which is mostly "new orleans is cool / vermont has nice mountains" etc. (both of which are of course totally true!)

We have Canadian passports so were thinking of somewhere boring but pretty in BC, like Nelson

NZ is an obvious and attractive option. I know someone who moved there from Canada with zero regrets. (She works in HC)

My other front-of-the-mind option is Uruguay. Climate-wise it sounds ideal (4 seasons, no extremes) and politically/socially it doesn’t seem to suffer a lot of the ills that plague many other Latin American countries.

(I like Canada but I’m growing out of love with it, as many of the things that felt given — a plucky but polite underdog mentality, social democratic government, institutions like the CBC and CanCon regulations [as much as there is to complain about with those, we didn’t know how good we had it] — are clearly being eroded as we subsume ourselves to USAnian culture.

Plus I fuckin hate these endless winters and mayfly-brief summers.)

I moved to NZ from the UK four years ago, also zero regrets.

Barcelona can be lovely, but the beaches were filthy when I was there, and Las Ramblas was like any other big tourist street (think you can say the same about most famous cities.) my friend went there with decent Spanish and tried to use it to communicate with the locals, and that did not go down well at all, he found he was better off just using English.

anyone who has actually left the us - how did you do it? i'm pretty sure i'd have to make more than the 45k a year i make and also not be burned out and unable to handle complex administrative tasks on a day-to-day basis.

New Zealand is really lovely, but it's so damn far from anywhere else...

Melbourne, Australia

or a city in Europe?

i have lived in the U.S. all of my 46 years and if i could leave, i think i would leave - if nothing else, for my kids' sake

this thread is kind of timely. i'm in los angeles for work currently. this place is wild. but it also seems to have, like, everything. i can see why so many people want to move to california, especially if you find a pocket of it that you vibe with

i'm borderline getting tired of canada, as well. i'm scared to make the move to the US, but everyone i know has or is moving to the US, mostly for practical reasons due to canada effing things up and there not being any jobs and the over-educated being severely underpaid. i guess it's business as usual: the feeling that the US is flourishing or at least doing way better job-wise and salary-wise while canada is turning in on itself. i do think at least where i live in canada, i find it suits me better for now, especially socially. the vibe/air is definitely different down here. very interesting

i will be spending more time in seattle and see how that goes

if i'm allowed to dream a little, i've never been to iceland or finland, but i would like to visit to see what it would be like to live there. switzerland is compared to canada a lot, so i would also like to travel there to see what it's really like

Finland:

it's either dark all the time or light all the time
everything just seems to work perfectly
death metal is normcore
even the tiniest apartment has a sauna and you will see everyone you know fully naked
the most popular flavour for any foodstuff is salted licorice
everyone is surprisingly open and friendly, in a quiet reserved sort of way, but all of them carry big knives

lol

New Zealand is really lovely, but it's so damn far from anywhere else...

That's the selling point! On The Beach didn't take a NZ detour IIRC but presumably many of them also got an extra six months to live before the nuclear apocalypse.

I haven't been a lot of places but Portugal seemed like a paradise, Porto especially. I want to spend a month there, which is actually like potentially possible.

Man it’s fucked up that if we were talking a few months ago I would have said Lviv— love it there, absolutely beautiful city with lots of weird stuff hidden around.

the south of france or belgium or hamburg or the italian alps if i could have a one bedroom apartment with a view and working not unpleasant plumbing and heating and not too harsh winters or summers and no environmental disasters lurking and no difficulty washing clothes or finding food or books or music or internet access, occasional travelers, curiosity but not overconcern or meddling or endless politics about the rest of the world, public transportation, art museums, libraries

Avignon seems quite nice, and when I was there in June a few years ago it was pleasantly low on tourists, maybe because it's hidden inside a practically unsolvable circle maze of roads.

Have friends visiting Porto right now — partly scouting it for a possible move. We’re waiting on their report back. We’re not in a hurry to leave the States just yet, but it’s good to think about options.

For the other USA folks who are mostly thinking within the confines of our own special version of 21st century dystopia - be it for economic or cultural/identity reasons - the two primary criteria to me are

- as close to a reliably progressive state govt as possible (obviously recognizing that is a low bar in 2022, i mean this only relative to other states)
- well positioned for the unfolding climate catastrophe

It is probably easier for me to say as someone who has lived most of my life in the northeast US, but I just cannot imagine answering this Q with a place in a red state, even a great one like NOLA. It just feels like things are gonna get a whole lot worse before they get better with state laws clamping down on civil rights and human tolerance and compassion. We are in the upper Pioneer Valley of Western Mass, and while it isn't like some island paradise or something we do feel like we hit the jackpot. Lots of small scale farming, no prominent natural disasters, 4 beautiful seasons. I am fortunate to have the means to live walking distance to a decently fun "downtown" (Northampton) and almost as close to lots of conserved land and natural beauty. But even if we were a bit further away from things and in a less pricy area, we'd have it pretty good. Would welcome your presence KM :)

portugal/porto actually was doable in the past couple of years, portugal had a 'golden visa' program where if you bought property there you could have an EU path to citizenship in something like 5 years. they've now changed it. but i think there's still another type of golden visa where if you live/work in portugal for over half the year each year there's a path to citizenship. it's called the retiree visa or something because it targets retirees who have pensions/social security income.

for me, the answer would be portugal or taiwan (also has a golden visa program) in terms of attainability.

*they've now changed it so that buying property in lisbon/porto/most of the coastal cities doesn't qualify. but you can still buy somewhere like, say, tomar, or guimaraes, beautiful old places inland, and that still might work, i think.

I just cannot imagine answering this Q with a place in a red state, even a great one like NOLA.

Yep, I get this, and it's something my wife and I have talked about a lot. Of course we live in a blue city/red state right now, so on one hand it's a dynamic we're used to but on the other I'm not gonna lie, it's gotten harder in recent years as the GOP supermajority has gotten more and more aggressive. It's just depressing to live governed by so much hate and stupidity.

BUT. I also believe that there's a lot of value in being in red states, to the degree one can stand it, because there are lots of people here who need help and also a lot more progressive people and organizations than it probably appears from the outside. Even in Tennessee and Louisiana, where Trump won about 60 percent of the vote, that's 4 out of 10 people who voted against him. These states are not monoliths by any means.

Also however there's the small matter that my wife was born in Florida and grew up in Tennessee and has no desire to live anywhere substantially colder. Global warming isn't going to happen fast enough to make the Northeast or Chicago an appealing prospect to her.

Still and all, the anti-abortion regimes in all of these states could become a factor in our plans in the next few years. We'll see.