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and it has inspired me to ask you all: what do we do?!
We are an American couple:
HE: mid 50's, from Buffalo, NE schools, Univ. at Berkeley, worked in the SE of the USA ("Boy, where do you come from?"), moved to Europe (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal, France, Switz.). And now: W. Africa.
SHE: past 30, from NYC, college in CT, worked in NYC, moved to Paris.
Together we have lived in Spain/Portugal/France and W. Africa.
At this moment I am writing to you from France, where the wine is fine, but the housing market is expensive (and stable, no subprimes !). It is a beautiful country, but we will always be "outsiders".
Europe in general is beautiful, and yes the health systems are great. But to register and work here is a real pain. And expensive (thus the "free" medical services). Europe, as someone aptly put it, is a museum.
So, we are considering a move to the Western part of the US (MT, OR, WY, ID) - we are considering these places as New England is way too crowded and tax intensive, the SE is the same and too hot/humid for us in the summer.
In planning a trip out West, we are almost looking at it as our trip to South Africa, in that everyone speaks English, but it is foreign territory to us.
So after all my mumbo-jumbo : do you think that we will find a good quality of life in the US? friendly people? Decent food? Nature? space?
Or is the state of America on the decline, and we should just remain gypsies?!
I dunno, sounds like you have a pretty good life the way things are right now.
But I know, I know, you might not want to remain gypsies forever, and there's nothing like the good old U S of A.
Of course it is possible to find good quality of life here, but as you undoubtedly realize, everything is a trade-off, and there is no free lunch.
You want wide-open spaces? Fine, but remember, gas is expensive and you might have to drive a bit to find that decent food you want.
Southeast too hot and humid for you? Fine, but remember those Montana winters are brutal, especially during a miserable drive on an icy interstate.
Looking for friendly people? IMHO, small towns can be a mixed blessing.
I don't mean this as some anti-American diatribe! BTW, have you already considered and dismissed Colorado? It is very much discovered, but certainly still a nice place, with low humidity.
City-data is a good place to do research and get a taste of what's out there.
and it has inspired me to ask you all: what do we do?!
We are an American couple:
HE: mid 50's, from Buffalo, NE schools, Univ. at Berkeley, worked in the SE of the USA ("Boy, where do you come from?"), moved to Europe (Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal, France, Switz.). And now: W. Africa.
SHE: past 30, from NYC, college in CT, worked in NYC, moved to Paris.
Together we have lived in Spain/Portugal/France and W. Africa.
At this moment I am writing to you from France, where the wine is fine, but the housing market is expensive (and stable, no subprimes !). It is a beautiful country, but we will always be "outsiders".
Europe in general is beautiful, and yes the health systems are great. But to register and work here is a real pain. And expensive (thus the "free" medical services). Europe, as someone aptly put it, is a museum.
So, we are considering a move to the Western part of the US (MT, OR, WY, ID) - we are considering these places as New England is way too crowded and tax intensive, the SE is the same and too hot/humid for us in the summer.
In planning a trip out West, we are almost looking at it as our trip to South Africa, in that everyone speaks English, but it is foreign territory to us.
So after all my mumbo-jumbo : do you think that we will find a good quality of life in the US? friendly people? Decent food? Nature? space?
Or is the state of America on the decline, and we should just remain gypsies?!
All the best to you,
Amo
I don't have the time or the guts to engage in a long answer... but the short answer is NO! And no, city-data is not the place to find your answers. Dig deeper.
Certainly there are other resources with detailed, objective opinion.
However, I think City-Data, for better or for worse, has actually been quite an eye-opener, especially in the Politics forum.
To truly dig deeper, an extended road trip would be in order.
I noticed on your post it mentioned Montana as a possible future home.
Better read the posts on the Montana board. You will get a major wake up call. You may feel welcomed back to where you grew up or in some big anayomous city somewhere but Montana has a hard time accepting newcomers even from neighboring states ! I know what you mean about always feeling like an outsider, I'm from San Diego but I moved to western Montana ten years ago. We cant afford to live anywhere else that is as nice as this but we will ALWAYS be outsiders. It is way worse if your from California because California is the official whipping child for the so called native Montanans who are spoiled brats who refuse to grow up and realize that overcrowding and gentrification are facts of life in a rapidly overpopulating planet.
Certainly there are other resources with detailed, objective opinion.
However, I think City-Data, for better or for worse, has actually been quite an eye-opener, especially in the Politics forum.
To truly dig deeper, an extended road trip would be in order.
Ha, you're right. Hadn't noticed this forum. It does give good ideas for research.
In planning a trip out West, we are almost looking at it as our trip to South Africa, in that everyone speaks English, but it is foreign territory to us.
So after all my mumbo-jumbo : do you think that we will find a good quality of life in the US? friendly people? Decent food? Nature? space?
Or is the state of America on the decline, and we should just remain gypsies?!
Your answer is in your plan. Yes, you will find a good quality of line in the US, etc. Just view it as your trip to South Africa....
America is not on the decline, despite what someone with a dull and boring hate America life chooses to write.
You don't need to give up your personalities to live in the US. Should you choose to return to the US, you should remain gypsies.
You didn't state how long you all have lived abroad, but I'm going to guess just due to age and the sheer number of places that it's been around 10-20 years. Within that time period, few of the things you explicitly expressed interest in have changed all that much. The people are pretty much just as friendly as they ever were. The food is the same as it's always been although there's the possibilty that you've taken on a "foreign palate" and American food may taste a bit different from what you remember; and our portion sizes have increased along with our waistbands over the years. Nature and space? There's still plenty of it. Of course suburban developments sprawl out a mile a minute and gobble up wilderness and parkland, but this is a massive country and there are still huge swaths that are completely undeveloped.
The areas in which the U.S. has declined in recent years have been well-covered, and many are not unique to the United States. Growing income inequality, rising cost of housing, more Americans living off of their credit cards, the gradual disappearance of a middle class, sprawly subdivisions, big box stores and strip malls replacing pedestrian-friendly, small-business-filled downtowns; a striking ideological/political polarization, celebrity culture taking the place of legitimate news (i.e. the "dumbing down of America"), rising gas prices, and the rise since 9/11 of hyper blind patriotism where the slightest criticism of the country brings catcalls of "terrorist", "traitor", and "America hater". And of course, there's also the political element as the Bush administration is incredibly unpopular and many feel as though he has been digging the country into various holes and are counting down the days until his departure, and I think mentally, many people won't be able to shake their thoughts of the country being on the decline until there is someone new in the office.
With all of that said, you can indeed have a great standard of life in the U.S. We're still a country that's pretty good to live in. As plenty of polls have shown, the overwhelming majority of Americans feel the U.S. is on the wrong track, but at the same time, there's not exactly massive emigration. People may not like certain aspects of life in the U.S. but as a whole, on a day-to-day basis, people live pretty well and many of the issues that people cite as those bringing down America aren't those that have an affect on the average person day in and day out, but rather much larger social issues. I guess as a whole, many people feel that America is on the decline, but nowhere near so much so so as to jump ship or give up hope that it's irreversible.
Should you move back to the U.S.? Well, that depends on how your trip back goes. My gut reaction however is to say "do it". After all, it seems that you both possess the connections and skills to be able to find employment in other countries fairly easily, so if you were to return and find that you don't like it for whatever reason, that you're not re-adjusting as well as you'd hoped, you can always load up your gypsy caravan and head onwards to the next destination.
I think Canada is worth looking into as well. Particularly (due to your climate/state preferences) Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Much like the U.S., Canada doesn't seem to have that impenetrable nationalistic air of many European nations where it's hard for outsiders to ever truly be accepted.
Hi I registered just so I could reply to this post. I'm American and my wife French, we live in Paris. And we're thinking of moving back to the US. So we're debating about some of the very same issues. I go back to the US for vacation each year and I think the US has changed a lot in the 7 years that I've been in France.
We now have 2 kids and the quality of life is getting to be more difficult. A medium sized house (1100 square foot) is over a million dollars where we live (we currently rent) and even worse the only houses for sale are the ones on the train tracks. Cars are expensive as well. There are very few parking spaces and public restrooms haven't yet been invented here in France. Things are so expensive. Just as an idea, i went to the hardware store to get some PVC pipe and it's $3 in the US and here it's $23. One of the main problems here is that everything is so expensive so people spend less and that slows down the economy. Then less things are invented less because there is less of a market. As a result things just don't move.
Ok enough ranting about France, but I feel the US is so much better in these aspects. But what would I miss about France? The international culture. I've met people here from all over the world. Current friends are brazilian, moroccan, tunisien, algerian, chinese, portugese, japonese, and those are just a few. I would also miss the food. The American food is so fat, salty, and excessive (too much). I'd miss public transportation which is great, 7 weeks paid vacation, etc.
I won't miss the dog poop everywhere (and I do mean everywhere), people honking their horns because you turn left or right and slow them down, people who push and shove to get on the subway, people who smoke next to your table in a restaurant, people who are totally stressed out because of everything previously mentioned, etc.
It's a very tough decision. I'd like to go back to the US for a year as a "period d'essai".
We are also considering a move back to America after spending 12 years living all over Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy). There are many things that make staying here attractive but we are starting to miss much about living in our own country.
At the same time, no matter how well you learn the language or how comfortable you start to feel, you are always going to the an outsider. Also, you reach a point when you'd like to spend more time with old friends and family. Once you move back to the States, you may find that your old friends won't want to talk about your experiences since it is not something they shared. Milan Kundera even wrote a book about the returning expat (called Ignorance) in which he describes this phenomena.
We moved home once (after our first four years) and found that the only people we could relate to were other former expats (and food lovers).
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