68: Where Should You Move Abroad? Here’s How to Decide.

Dreaming of moving abroad but feeling overwhelmed by all the options? You’re not alone! With so many incredible countries and cities to choose from, deciding where to go can feel like a daunting task. 

In this episode, I’m breaking down a step-by-step process to help you figure out exactly where you should move based on your lifestyle, career, budget, and visa options.

We’ll cover:

• How to identify your priorities and lifestyle goals
• The best tools for researching visa options and cost of living
• How to compare countries and narrow down your top choices
• Why visiting or doing a trial move can help you make the right decision

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clear plan for choosing your perfect new home abroad! Plus, if you’re still unsure, I’ve got a free quiz to help you find your ideal European city—head to the link below to get started.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend who’s also dreaming of moving abroad!

👉Take the free quiz: Which European city should you move to? 🤔

Grab my free guide: 5 Exact Steps to Move Abroad

Website: jordangiberson.com
Instagram: @jordan.giberson

Transcript

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So like the cost of living, the ease of getting a visa, the job market, the lifestyle and climate. the English friendliness. So you'll want to kind of rank and figure out the weight and what's important to you. You could use something like a weighted checklist to kind of figure out what your priorities are Hey, my name is Jordan Giberson. I'm a Texas girl living and thriving in London. The best thing I've ever done? Moving abroad, hands down. And I'm passionate about helping others do the same. Are you curious about finding a job abroad? You're in the right place, friend. I'll teach you the tried and true secrets of how to make moving abroad a reality for you and how to live a fulfilling life once you get there. We'll cover topics like choosing the best visa for you, how to get a job offer in another country, how to get over your fear of moving abroad, and how to live a life you love once you get there, this is The Move Abroad Podcast. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the move abroad podcast today We're going to be talking about the topic of how to choose where to move abroad So we're talking about where should you move abroad and here is how you can decide that So have you been dreaming about moving abroad, but feel kind of stuck and trying to decide which country or even which city in the country that you want to move to is really right for you. There are so many amazing options out there and it's really easy to feel overwhelmed. So in today's episode, I'm breaking down a step by step process to help you figure out exactly where you should move abroad to based on your lifestyle, career, your budget, and visa options. And then By the end of this episode, I'm hoping that you'll have a clear plan for choosing your perfect new home abroad. So let's go ahead and dive in. So I'd say Step one in choosing the best country and city for you abroad is to identify your priorities and your lifestyle goals Before you pick a country you'll want to define what you really want from your new home One of the first questions you should really be asking yourself is why do you want to move abroad? Is it for career growth? Is it for a lower cost of living? For better work life balance? Maybe for adventure and travel? That one was me. Maybe it's for retirement? Maybe personal development? Maybe you're unhappy with how things are in the country that you're living at? There could be so many different reasons, but I think figuring out your why, why you're wanting to move abroad can help you in defining what the most important characteristics are of the place that you want to move abroad to, if that makes sense. So why do you want to move abroad? I'd ask yourself that as a first question. And then also figuring out what kind of lifestyle do you want? Are you looking for city life or more country life? So Do you thrive in a more bustling and busy city or do you really prefer the quiet rural life? So that will be a really important question for you in trying to figure out where you want to move to. So, city versus countryside. Another question is the climate. So, do you love warm, sunny places, or do you prefer somewhere with a four season type of climate? I will say, whenever I was looking to move abroad, I wouldn't have said, Oh yeah, I want to live somewhere that's dark and cold and rainy in the winter. But it's been a really good fit for me. So climate wasn't my number one priority, but I think that's whenever you have to figure out what your priorities are and what's the most important to you in terms of lifestyle, because you might not find a perfect place. There's always going to be pros and cons to every place that you might potentially move to. So it's just figuring out what's the most important to you. So thinking about the climate and kind of weighing how important that is to you. Another question on the lifestyle is kind of the pace of life. So do you want a fast paced life like London or a more relaxed, slower paced lifestyle like Portugal? Another question would be the cultural scene. Are you really interested in the nightlife and museums and the history? Are you interested in outdoor activities, or in food, in culture, kind of thinking about what's important to you in terms of the cultural scene and what the feel of the life will be like there. So those are just some things you kind of will want to think about in terms of the lifestyle, the city versus countryside, climate. Pace of life, cultural scene, like what are the things that you're really looking for? And we talked about a second ago, why are you looking to move abroad? Is your career really important to you? So do you need to be somewhere that has a really strong job market? Are you looking for a place that has? Good retirement options, somewhere that has a really low cost of living. I mean, you just have to think about what are the most important attributes for you and where you're looking to move abroad to. So what is your ideal work situation? Do you need a local job or are you working remotely? That might help you determine where to move to. Does the country have job opportunities in your field? So really thinking about. What type of job you have, if you are looking to be employed and what does the job market look like there, you might have a certain career where there is a great job market in one city, but it really wouldn't be in another city. So you really need to look at, you know, the job opportunities and I'd encourage you just go right now or after the episode, just go on to LinkedIn and on other job boards and just give a quick search and see how many job openings there are. And the place that you're hoping to move to, or if you're considering different places, kind of look and see how many openings there are and what the job market looks like to give you a feel for how many opportunities there might be for you. Also in terms of your work situation, you might want to look into whether there is a strong remote work or freelancer community. So if this is you, if you do remote work or you're a freelancer. What does that look like? Are there a lot of remote working buildings where you could join a membership and do remote working there? Or are you a person that's just likes to work from home and that's it? Or maybe you're really into going into coffee shops and you like working from there and you want to make sure that the environment supports that because in London, for example, there's a lot of coffee shops that don't allow people to work on laptops. They don't want that, but in other places, they really encourage that. And there are laptops everywhere and it's a very normal thing. So it kind of depends on the culture of the city and what the work situation looks like there. And then another thing to consider is the social and community preferences that you have. So do you want to be in an expat friendly city? or fully immerse yourself in the local culture. I feel like whenever I was looking to move abroad, I was thinking about the latter. I was like, I'm just coming from the land of Americans. I don't really want to move somewhere where there are a bunch of other Americans. I want to fully immerse myself in the local culture, duh. But as I've lived abroad longer, I have found that it's actually. Really great to have a mix of both expat friends and local friends I've talked about this on the podcast before and I just feel like there's a lot of value in Being friends with people who are also expats, which expat is just a person who has moved abroad to another country that's not their own. So they typically have a really similar mindset to you and you have similar struggles and similar things that you go through. And I think that it's just really helpful to have people that have a really similar mindset to you that you can really connect with. And then to also have your friends that are local people that you can be friends with as well. And I think that it's great to have the best of both worlds. I think it's actually really important, especially if you want to live somewhere longer term. If you're wanting a more short term thing, you know, you're wanting to move abroad for only a few months or a year, for example, then you can fully immerse yourself in the local culture and maybe having more expat friends in a more expat friendly city or town will not be as important to you. But I do think that it's something to consider, especially if you're thinking more long term in living abroad. Also, in terms of the social and community preferences, do you prefer a country with a large English speaking population? Now, it doesn't have to be a country where they are speaking English as a primary language, like the UK, for example, or Ireland. They obviously speak English there, but sometimes you can move to places like Amsterdam or in Portugal where there are a lot of English speaking people there and you could easily move there and speak English only and be very comfortable. Now, I do think that if you're moving to Portugal or you're moving to The Netherlands, it is important to learn the local language. So I do think that it's important, but I do think, especially if you're not thinking long term, if you're wanting to just move somewhere for a few months or a year, I do think that you can probably get by with only speaking English if there is a high English speaking population there, which there are definitely places in Europe where you don't really need to know the language. But again, if you're thinking more long term, then I do think you need to learn the language and you might as well invest in doing that. Whenever you first move there, rather than later on down the line. But a lot of things will come naturally to you as you're living there longer. You'll kind of get to know the language better. But I will also say I lived in Italy for three months, and in my three months of living in Italy, which to be fair, that's not a super long time, it's only three months, but I anticipated that I would know at least a little bit of Italian, and I left Italy knowing no Italian. I knew zero Italian by the time that I left, because every single person that I spoke with was like, oh you speak English, like I want to get better at my English. And so they wanted to speak English with me, and so I really didn't learn the Italian language at all. So I would have had to be really intentional about trying to learn the language, but I do think that longer term I would have needed to learn the language in order to fully feel like I'm a part of the city there and to feel like it's truly home. I feel like you do need to have the language to fully assimilate into the culture. So anyways, and then another question that you want to ask yourself on the social and community preferences are, you know, Are you looking for a specific type of community? Are you looking for a community of digital nomads? If you're also a digital nomad, are you looking for a specific community of retirees? If you're looking to retire, are you looking for a specific community of young professionals? If that's what you're looking for. If you have a certain religion, are you looking for a community of people who also believe the same things as you. So it might be worth doing some research and making sure that the specific community that you want to be a part of, that it does exist in the place that you're looking to move to. Because if you're looking to move somewhere smaller, or perhaps in different cities around Europe, they might not have exactly what you're looking for in terms of a specific community of people. So it would be worth doing a quick research to figure out and make sure that they have what you're looking for in terms of a specific type of community. So that's a bit on the step one of identifying your priorities and your lifestyle goals I feel like what we've talked about is a great place to get started But there are so many little nitty gritty things that you could consider Like if you have children, for example, you might be like, well, what are the schools like? That's another thing to consider when it comes to priorities and lifestyle So I think that there's a lot of different things to consider But I think what we talked about is a really great place to get started So I think just the number one step would be to figure out What are your main priorities? Maybe you list out five of your main priorities. Maybe you even write it like priority number one, priority number two, priority number three. Because like I said, I wouldn't have said that climate was the most important thing to me, but I wouldn't have chosen London because of the climate at all. Like I would have chosen somewhere else because London can be quite cold and rainy, but not to say that it's always like that. The weather can be really great in London, especially in the summers. But I do think that, this is a great starting place, but I think that there's. A lot to this in terms of your lifestyle goals, and I think this is very personal and you might have something that's a very niche You know, lifestyle goal or priority, and you'll want to make sure that whatever country and city they're looking to move abroad to, that it aligns with the most important lifestyle preferences or priorities for you. So that's our step number one. Our step number two of trying to decide where to move to is to research potential countries. Now I've said this before on the podcast, but I'll say it again. I feel like it's really important not to Get in the research rabbit hole I feel like it is quite easy to just really dive into different blogs and different resources online and different forums And sometimes I feel like the more information you consume the more overwhelmed you feel and then it puts you in this overwhelm cycle where you're in this loop of feeling overwhelmed and, but you need to do research to make a decision, but then you don't make a decision because there's so much information out there on the internet. And then you get overwhelmed and then you just don't make a decision. So I think in order to make a decision, find some way to. Put a guardrail on yourself. And if you realize that you're getting in a rabbit hole about something really specific about a specific city or something like that, or you feel like you're just very overwhelmed sets on sort of like deadline for yourself in terms of just making a decision or narrowing it down, or, you know, I feel like sometimes the online forums, like a Facebook group, sometimes the people are quite negative and discouraging. And I don't subscribe to that. I think that sometimes. People in general in life just tend to be a bit negative and pessimistic. And I think that there's sometimes truth in what they say, but sometimes I think that they're just quite negative and, you know, and discouraging, and I don't subscribe to that, like I said. So I think I would just be careful with who you're listening to and what people are saying online, because there's also a lot of false information out there and I just say don't let yourself get overwhelmed or discouraged by some things that you're finding online and to give yourself kind of a guardrail or a timeline to make a decision by on where you're looking to move abroad to if you don't know already because I think that it can be an overwhelming cycle of There's never going to be enough information. You're never going to feel 100 percent confident because you just, at one point, you're just going to have to go for it because you won't know a hundred percent until you experience it and test it out. So I think also, having a trip where you experience it and spend time there, which we will get into in a little bit in the episode, I think is also really helpful so that you can be a bit more confident in your decision to make sure that it is a good fit for you. So anyways, I say research, but up until a certain amount. is what I'm trying to say. So in our set two of researching potential countries, that, one of the things that you'll want to look into is the visa and residency options. Some countries will make it easier for Americans to move to than others. So some things that you'll want to consider is work visas. Are there jobs for foreigners so that you can get a work visa and get sponsorship? And is that country likely to sponsor work visas? So how many Americans or. Wherever you're from how many people from your country are currently working in that country for the job that you're looking for and is that typical? So that's a question that you might want to ask yourself on the work visas. If you are a freelancer or you want a remote work visa, can you legally work remotely and what does that visa and the requirements for that look like? Student visas, can you enroll in a local school? I feel like most countries it's quite easy to get a student visa and to get enrolled in the school. Golden visa, can you gain residency through investment if you are The lucky person that has enough money to invest and spend money and get a golden visa, which basically you spend a bunch of money and they give you a visa because You have invested money into the country, then that is amazing as well. So making sure that the country that you're wanting to move to has a golden visa and then maybe you're a digital nomad. So you'll want to check into the digital nomad visa in the country that you're looking to move to and just make sure that you can live there without a local job. So is there a visa that allows for that? So just looking into the visas for your circumstance and what you're looking for. Maybe it's one of these categories, so just kind of looking into the visa requirements and the options for you and whether it's possible to get residency if you're looking to live there longer term. So just kind of doing a bit of research into what that might look like. So an action for you would be to just spend some time researching the visa requirements on the government website. I think that it's also really helpful to read lawyers blogs because they're trying to get business and so they, and they have very accurate information. But I think it's always best to double check everything on the government website because they're always a hundred percent correct. Whereas a lawyer's blog, if it's. It's two years old. Sometimes visa rules change or the amount of money that you need to apply for the visa or that you need at your bank account or whatever. Sometimes those amounts change and sometimes the rules change slightly. And it's the truth tellers, not the best word to use, but yeah, I think that the government websites definitely,, you'll want to check on there. So just take note of the visa durations, whenever you're doing your, research on the cost of them on the renewal options. You know, if you get a visa for a couple of years, is it possible to extend it? So just looking into that and kind of understanding what that all looks like. So visa and residency options, really important in terms of kind of. Researching your potential country. Also kind of in this step two of researching potential countries, you'll want to look into the cost of living. So what is the average rent in major cities and in smaller towns, depending on what you're looking for, how much do groceries cost? How much is transportation? What is the healthcare cost? Do you need to get a car while you're there? So will that be an expense? Do you not need that? Because public transportation is really great there, which in a lot of European. Countries and cities, public transportation is really great. will you be able to maintain or improve your quality of life there and kind of your lifestyle and what you're used to in terms of spending and what you can get for the money you get? So maybe you're a freelancer and you have a good income and then you're moving to Portugal, which is lower cost of living. So you can live like a King or maybe you're used to having a really high salary in the U S for example, but you're moving somewhere else in Europe and it has a lower salary. So can you maintain your quality of life and what you're used to? So just kind of looking into the cost of living and considering what that looks like. So a couple of tools that you can use is one is Numbeo. N-U-M-B-E-O. This is where you can look at the cost of living and compare. So NUMBERO is a really good one, or expatastan, that's E X P A T I S T A N. That's a detailed budget breakdown, you can look into that on that website as well. So those are just a couple tools to use on the cost of living. Also, whenever you're researching on the potential countries, we're still in our step 2, is just looking into the quality of life factors. Also on researching potential countries to move to, you'll want to look into the quality of life factors. You could look at rankings from sources like the Economist's Global Livability Index or Internation's Expat Insider Survey for things like the safety of the country, what the healthcare quality is like, what the public transportation is like. The pollution levels that are there, work life balance, and things like that. So you can look into the details of quality life and all those different contributing factors. So those two resources again would be the Internation's Expat Insider Survey or the Economist's Global Livability Index. Those would be a couple resources for you there. And then also you will want to look into the language considerations too. So do you need to learn a new language? We touched on this a little bit already. Are there job opportunities for English speakers and what does that look like? And then is there a strong expat community there? Which again, I do think is really important, especially as you were learning a new language. But I think that it's always good just to have a good mix of expat friends and local friends. So that was our step two on researching potential countries. Our step three is narrowing down to a country and choose a city. You'll want to compare the countries based on your priorities. You'll use maybe a ranking system, which we talked about a little bit, is kind of figuring out how you will weigh the importance of what you're looking for. So like the cost of living, the ease of getting a visa, the job market, the lifestyle and climate. the English friendliness. So you'll want to kind of rank and figure out the weight and what's important to you. You could use something like a weighted checklist to kind of figure out what your priorities are and figuring out kind of what's that country and city ranks as, if that makes sense. So you might say that the cost of living in. Spain would be, high, it might be like a four, whereas Germany, the cost of living might be a little bit lower, whatever it is, but you'll want to kind of figure out ranking the country and the city and kind of figuring out how it works out with how you're weighing the importance for the different factors like cost of living and ease of getting a visa job market and things like that. So I would choose three to five of your top countries. And if you've already narrowed it down to specific cities, that's even better. And then kind of use This weighted checklist type of system to figure out what ranks the highest for you. That might be a more organized way of doing things instead of kind of just writing notes and kind of going off how you feel. Which I think there's kind of a balance in kind of looking at the facts, but also kind of weighing how you feel about a certain place. And if you kind of are drawn to a certain place or feel like it might be best for you, I think there's a lot to say in that as well. So once you've kind of compared the countries based on your priorities in terms of the lifestyle, the climate, cost of living, job market, and things like that, then you'll want to identify the best city within that country if you're not doing so already. So you'll want to look into the nitty gritty like the local job market for that city specifically, the cost of living, and Whether it's a major city versus a smaller town, the public transport and infrastructure, expat communities, things that we've already been talking about, but you'll want to dig in even deeper for this specific cities, because you might be knowing that you want to move to Germany, for example, but you're still trying to decide between Berlin and Munich, for example. So you want to look into the nitty gritty based on the certain cities. So just to kind of a couple of tips for different cities based on your priorities, if you're looking for a. City or a place that has the best career opportunities. You might want to look into places like Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin, and London. If you're looking for a place that has the best low cost of living option, then Valencia and Spain might be a good option. Porto and Portugal, Sofia, Krakow, those are good options as well. For digital nomads, the best places for you might be Lisbon, Barcelona, Budapest. Those would all be really good options. So those are just kind of a few options to kind of get you started. So that is kind of on narrowing down. To a country and choosing a city that would be your step. Number three is narrowing down to this specific city as well. And then step number four, you might want to test your decision. So this is, you know, if it's possible for you, which I would highly encourage you to do this, especially if you have never visited the city. So if you have been there before on a trip and that's good enough for you, that's totally fine. I did that. I went to London. I visited just on a quick trip and I knew that it was a good fit for me. But I also think that there's sometimes value in visiting a place with the lens of, could I live here? Because sometimes somewhere might be a really good fit for you to visit and it's really fun, but what it looks like to visit versus what it looks like to live there might be completely different. So if you're able to visit before moving there, I think that it would be really great and valuable to spend one to three weeks in your chosen city. Sometimes it might be a bit shorter. I think that's totally fine. And if it's a bit longer than three weeks, that's even better. So if you're able to do that and test out different neighborhoods, where you want to move to and kind of just get a good feel for the city and just make sure that it's a good fit for you. I think that that would be valuable. So you could do things like book an Airbnb and a local neighborhood to kind of get a feel for what the neighborhood is like in the evenings, for example. And if it's, you know, loud in the middle of the night and kind of just testing it out to see what it's really like, you can also visit the supermarkets and coworking spaces and, you know, experience the public transportation and kind of have the lens of. Could I live here? And what would that feel like for me? So I think that, you know, experiencing all these things like the supermarket, you might not think about doing that while you're just visiting a place. But if you are more than just a tourist and you have this lens of, could I live here, then you might have, some, epiphanies about the supermarket or, what the late night life is like and things like that. And I think there's also value in just talking to locals and other expats and kind of getting their feedback on what it's like. So you could do things like join online expat groups like Facebook or Reddit or meet up to ask people questions on what it's actually like to live there and how they've enjoyed living there. And, if you are working remotely to ask them on the coworking spaces and what that environment's like, and to ask people about your priorities and. Whether kind of figuring out whether that place does align with your priorities and what you're really looking for. You might also want to take it a step further and consider a trial move. Some people might consider moving for six months or something first before making a long term commitment. You could get a short term rental to do this and test all the job market or test out your remote work setup and kind of like get a really good feel for it. I don't think that this is super necessary, but depending on your priorities and where you're at in your life, you might have the ability to do this and do more of a trial run where you actually live there. So you might want to consider doing that, but I do think that one to three weeks would also be a really good test to see how comfortable you feel. And I think that in one to three weeks, you can get a good feel for what it will actually be like. But again, I didn't actually even do this. I just visited for a few days, like. It's like four days and I knew that that's where I wanted to be So I don't think that this needs to be a really intense thing But if you have the ability to go from one to three weeks or even up to six months if that's possible for you And if that's something that is important to you to really test out your decision make sure it's a good fit You might even Say, Oh, I'm considering two places and I can't really decide. And so you might want to visit both places for a week each or something like that to get a really good feel for what it's like. But something just to kind of think about too as you're visiting somewhere is thinking about the weather. You might kind of hit it on an off week where the weather is really bad or. There might be some sort of festival or something that's going on where it's really crowded, but it's not normally like that. So I would just make sure that whenever you're visiting, just kind of get a good feel, but make sure you're thinking about those different considerations. Like, whenever I visited Porto, I mean, this is just visiting, not living, but I did not like Porto. But the reason why I didn't like it was because it was rainy and it was terrible weather the whole time. But then I visited Lisbon and the weather was amazing. Kind of on the same week. So sometimes you just have to think about that too as you're visiting somewhere and make sure, is this the normal, is this the regular, or did I just kind of hit it on and off week? So just something to kind of think about as you're trying to decide. So I would say those are kind of the steps that I would take in terms of choosing your perfect destination of where you're moving to. So the step number one is just to identify your priorities and your lifestyle goals. Step number two is to research the potential countries, but not getting into a research loophole where not loophole, but research loop where you're constantly thinking about where you want to move to, but not kind of. Making a decision and just getting stuck in this research loop. And then step number three would be to narrow down to a country and choose a city. And then step number four is testing your decision. If that's possible to do more of a trial run to make sure that it's the best fit for you. So that is kind of the. four steps that I would do in terms of kind of deciding how to choose where to move abroad to in Europe. And if you want some more help trying to decide where to move to, you can take that free quiz that I have on my website. So if you go to jordangibberson.com/quiz, there is a link in the podcast description so you can grab it really easily there as well. Then I think that can also help you really decide where to move to. So if you're still trying to decide, then maybe take that free quiz. It only takes a couple of minutes. And, yeah, I think that would be a really helpful resource. So I hope that now you have a bit of a roadmap for choosing the best country and city for your move abroad. If you are still unsure of where to start, then I do have that free quiz for you. So I hope that that will be helpful to help you figure out which European city might be your perfect match. So just head to jordangibberson.com/quiz to get started. And if you found this episode helpful, don't forget to, leave a review. You can also kind of follow the podcast and subscribe to it or whatever you want to call it and just share it with a friend who is also dreaming about moving abroad. I feel like we all know one or two people who have talked about moving abroad. So if you would be willing to share that with a friend, I would really, really appreciate it. But again, I hope you found this episode really helpful and trying to help you figure out where to move to and trying to help you find. Your best fit abroad. So thank you so much for listening to another episode of the move abroad podcast. I'll catch you here again next week. Same time, same place. I'll catch you then.