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I've lived my entire life in Wisconsin, USA. I'm planning to move to Europe with my boyfriend and a friend of his this fall. We've been doing a lot of research, but I think I will get the exact answer I want via this thread.
I'm from a small town, and am currently living in a small city. I don't agree with my current style of living. I would like to live somewhere fairly liberal, small, and beautiful. Somewhere that values simplistic ways of life.
Have you looked into the immigration requirements of countries of interest ? This usually turns out to be much more difficult than expected. What languages do you speak ? You can get away with not knowing the language if you are a tourist but not if you plan on living there. Maybe you could say which countries you are thinking of in order to narrow it down a bit.
I would like to live somewhere fairly liberal, small, and beautiful. Somewhere that values simplistic ways of life.
Does this exist?
Well, that narrows it down to about 300,000 towns and villages.
You can go to Ghiroc. Maybe this Winter you'll see me cruising by with my horse and sleigh. Or in the Fall I might have my horse pulling a wagon full of potatoes.
The reason I suggested Ghiroc is because in my village, only a few houses have running water and indoor plumbing (mine being one of them). Going to the town well and using an out-house might be just a wee bit too simplistic for you.
There are no telephones, but you can have a cell, and my neighbor says they have data services, so can hook into the internet using broadband.
And it is beautiful. The River Mures runs nearby. Near the monastery in Lipova, there's an old castle on a hill (over-looking a bend in the Mures). We go sled riding down the hills in Winter there. It's fun.
I think "simple living" is more an act of the person doing the living than a place, although I suppose the static is much louder in a city.
I mean, if you want to be away from, say, consumeristic competition, then opt out. Don't care what you own/wear/drive compared to others, and who cares what the others think? If you feel too wired up, unplug. You don't have to move somewhere without access to live without access, just work on yourself and ditch the Facebook and smartphones and doodads that seem to keep people so focused on themselves and their electronics and not on living life.
What does OP think "simpler way of life" means? Is it necessarily more likely to be found in Europe than in non-suburban America?
We, ourselves, live pretty simply in a small town in the U.S. Since we moved here, we gave up our cell phones, got rid of one of our two cars, (but bought two used bikes), wash dishes by hand, go to a lot of potlucks, but rarely eat out anymore, I cook most meals from scratch and bake bread and muffins, we have the cheapest, most basic of cable services, get most of our entertainment from the local library, and work out by walking and riding our bikes.
Sometimes we have a vegetable garden...and sometimes we swap services such as dog-sitting...
It's actually quite simple, this life of ours...and we're very content. No debt.
I lived in Europe for many years and married a German.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get residency in ANY European country? To stay longer than 3 months will require an enormous amount of paperwork and fluency in your host country. You have to narrow down which country you want to stay in before anyone can help you.
To find a place in Europe today that values simplistic ways of life, you might have to move to the former Soviet Bloc. Because of the many decades of communist influence in this area, you might even find them to be somewhat liberal (although I'm sure they don't have New York Times delivery.):
To find a place in Europe today that values simplistic ways of life, you might have to move to the former Soviet Bloc. Because of the many decades of communist influence in this area, you might even find them to be somewhat liberal (although I'm sure they don't have New York Times delivery.):
There are eastern european countries like Czech Republic or Poland and then there are Eastern European countries like Bulgaria or Romania. In the former people are of almost German mentality, hard working and law abiding. In the latter people are of a very different mentality, corruption is rampant and for a foreigner it could be a 50/50 chance of having a good time or having a very bad time living there, depending on what/who they run into, what legal and paperwork maze they need to navigate and what corrupt or non-corrupt city/county government official they have to deal with.
I've lived my entire life in Wisconsin, USA. I'm planning to move to Europe with my boyfriend and a friend of his this fall. We've been doing a lot of research, but I think I will get the exact answer I want via this thread.
I'm from a small town, and am currently living in a small city. I don't agree with my current style of living. I would like to live somewhere fairly liberal, small, and beautiful. Somewhere that values simplistic ways of life.
Does this exist?
I am assuming you've got the practicalities like immigration,making a living etc. covered...
If you can handle inclement weather, I'd suggest something close to the coast somewhere in Scandinavia. Be aware that small towns are small towns: People have their well-trodden circles and they're sometimes very hard to break into. But it's as liberal as can be asked for, and people do like simplicity - there's respect for those who can grow food, nobody sneers at using bicycles for transport, that sort of thing. Not my cuppa for longer than a few weeks, but I can see how it clicks with some.
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