If you could move anywhere in Europe where would you go?

gc2006

Hi all,

Is a very general question, and one that come up over a bottle of wine at the weekend. We're (my girlfriend and I) together quite a while, are living together in a house we own, are both in our jobs over 4 years have no kids and no immediate plans to marry or anything. We've travelled quite a lot, and both have mentioned before a desire to move abroad and live for a while. The reasons to go are - something different, the weather, different lifesytle and of course the reasons not to are the usual - family and friends, fear of change, comfortable in jobs etc. BUT it's something we're seriously considering. We have the sort of "whats the worst that could happen" idea if we line up jobs before we go, we rent our place out, take an apt wherever we move to and try and socialise in clubs etc where we end up and try it for a year. If not there, maybe somewhere else etc. Long story, sorry

So the "where" is now the question. We're ruling out Oz, NZ, US and Canada for now - all of which we really liked but due to their distance. We have family / nieces etc that we'd lke to see a bit more often than they would allow. We're also ruling out the UK as have lots of friends over there and from talking to them isnt that much different from home. So that leaves us with mainland Europe, which now means we need to learn a language - but we'll come back to that later

Our shortlist at the moment include Switzerland, Sweden and ITaly but we're VERY open to suggestions. I suppose it'd help if I explaned what we're looking for:
- somewhere thats a direct flight to Dublin and no more than about 3 hours away
- somewhere where the standard of wages are ok, so we could come back home if we needed to and not be broke etc
- somewhere with good weather (or at least a good summer)
- somewhere that is "mildly" open to foreigners and has some expats. Have been to places were you'll aways be a foreigner!

So if you could live anywhere in Europe, where would it be and why?

ibh

I'm currently looking into working in Denmark, Copenhagen most likely.
Very expensive and taxes are high, but quality of life is great and it's a really nice friendly city.

English is pretty much the language of business, depends what you work as i suppose, but we're both in International companies.
Was considering asking for a transfer to Copenhagen office but there are tax implications to this, as in you have to pay higher taxes than if you just rocked up in Denmark and got a job.

Me and theGF would consider anywhere in Europe and we have mentioned Spain, Germany, France and Itakly as possibles, but they would all be dependant on us being able to pick up the the lingo. We are considering taking a course but atm don't know what language to do it in..

Another option similar to Denmark is a move to Sweden. Again it is expensive etc, but I have visited the country and loved it.
I have lived in Canada and Australia and it is easy to adapt cause there are no language problems. I think it would be a much bigger challenge to do this in Europe.

ballystephen

I would like to move to the uk.People are polite and friendly.Food is 100% better.You can go for a nice meal with drinks for 4 people for £32 and they speak the same language.The weather is better etc etc etc

jim o doom

OTHER

Holland ftw

jim o doom

OTHER

(because) - way better food, way better everything, some Dutch people are rude, but for the most part fairly sound, EVERYTHING is cheaper and generally better quality - if your tight you can get three cans of cheap beer in the supermarket for 1 euro, nearly all of them speak not only English, but several other languages as well.. it's cool.

BarryCreed

What about Quebec? you'd be able to live in a French speaking environment, but have the rest of Nth America on your doorstep and make good money (I think)

Do you want to make bobs? I'd forget about Italy, France and Spain unless you land a cushy number. I'm considering it too, speak French and Italian, and a bit of Spanish, but would be reluctant to go to any of them unless I poxed a sweet number.

Scandinavia would be a good option, something different, and you could save a few quid.

estebancambias

ballystephen wrote: »

I would like to move to the uk.People are polite and friendly.Food is 100% better.You can go for a nice meal with drinks for 4 people for £32 and they speak the same language.The weather is better etc etc etc

are you a ****ing retard?


I'd like to live in Switzerland, cause I lived there for a while when i was younger or Italy and maby France or Spain. In no hurry to move though.

oh and poland is such a great country as well, been there twice and the people are so good.

gc2006

Sweden

hi all - cheers for all the replies so far. Just to quickly touch on each one:

Denmark & Sweden & Holland- spent a bit of time there, had a few mates that have (and do) live there (Aarhus, Copenhagen). Lovely place, nice people BUT feel the winters are too harsh to be honest for me

UK - have lots of mates living over there, would be easy enough to move to London, Edinburgh etc, but to be honest just feel it wouldn't be different enough from my life here in Dublin to be justified.

Quebec - again just that wee bit too far away. Know its only an extra few hours, but to be honest neither of us want to be away from our families / parents etc that much, that we can't just get a cheap flight home for any weekend we want sort of thing. Like for example if living in Spain know that for €200 we can both get home anytime we want for a few days etc yknow?

The bobs question - I liked how that one was phrased alright to be honest bobs aren't as important as standard of living if that makes sense. What I mean by standard of living is 2 fold:

1) CASH - In Ireland between us we earn good money - but when you take out the mortgage, car tax, petrol, tolls, price of taxis, pints etc suddenly we end up with enough for 1 holiday a year and thats about it. Like not stuck for money, dont get me wrong but we're never flush

2) THE OTHER STUFF - Whilst we may have some cash to spare at the moment, we dont get to do things we'd like to due to the nature of the country - like beaches, water sports, sailing, walking, evenings spent kicked back in a park etc. I KNOW you can do all of these in Ireland (at times, in places etc), but the lure of living somewhere where its attractive to spend a Sunday afternoon having coffee in a park, in shorts kicked back etc.

I think these 2 points are really what we're after. I KNOW that in Spain & Italy we'd earn 50-60% of what we'd earn in Denmark, or even what we'd earn at home, but if we had lower costs of living and a better standard of life then that would be different. Like wouldn't be moving abroad to save, if that makes sense.

Again, thanks for replies - all info thats very important to me, keep them coming

gc2006

Sweden

.. and found a list of salary comparisons of 70 cities world-wide.

The top ones (in Europe are):
Zurich
Geneva
Oslo
Dublin
Luxembourg
London
Copenhagen
Helsinki
Frankfurt
Munich

I did some checking and on average you will earn about 18% more in Zurich, 10% in Geneva than you do in Dublin. There is then of course the cost of living aspect, but both of these places score very highly in this too.

Fully appreciate they wont have "meditarean winters" of course but in their favour they do seem to be places that have nice long summers and where you can earn a lot and pay very little rent. Like by converse the wages in Madrid / Barcelona / Roma / Milan etc are c.40-50% lower than Dublin, and rents are in the region of 800 a month in some of them. So would have better climate, but less cash etc.

all part of the toss up I guess!

m@cc@

OTHER

BarryCreed wrote: »

What about Quebec?

Not part of Europe, as much as they'd like to be.

m@cc@

OTHER

jim o doom wrote: »

(because) - way better food

I wouldn't agree with that. There's certainly less convenience food in supermarkets. But there is an awful amount of fried snacks in Dutch cuisine.

BarryCreed

m@cc@ wrote: »

Not part of Europe, as much as they'd like to be.

silly me....lol. The clue is in the title!!

Well, having lived in Italy for 2 years, if it's a good lifestyle you're after, no better place. i would recommend one of the smaller cities though, not really Rome...

Bologna and Perugia fare high on good places to live in Italy...

estebancambias

im going to try to live in a few of these countries for maby a year each...

i dont get the swedish attraction tbh, the culture is too like our own, which is not a bad thing but even the countries have simular climate.

getz

try gibraltar everyone speaks english' lovely sandy beaches .nice weather . good schools for the kids .good health service . only one let down--bad neighbours

watna

Estebancambias infracted for personal abuse. There's no need to respond to people's posts like that.

koHd

Spain

Italy. Nice weather (in the right parts). Great culture with a little alcohol, relaxing out on beer garden type areas on the very trendy streets. Would suit if you're sick of our binge drinking nightclub/pub culture. Which I am.

But not very knowledgeable about cost of living/healthcare etc versus rate of pay.

But you sound like you know a lot about that yourself.

Maybe you could fill me in! heh

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Italy

estebancambias wrote: »

im going to try to live in a few of these countries for maby a year each...

i dont get the swedish attraction tbh, the culture is too like our own, which is not a bad thing but even the countries have simular climate.

Sweden is completely opposite to Ireland! Much more liberal and open-minded, and far, far, better infrastructure!

Denamrk would be (would have been) my choice, but they're very nationalistic over there. makeing it hard to get a job when you're not Danish.

Berlin, I picked, because it's got a much better art scene, but that's obviously personal.

estebancambias

I notice holland doing well. somehow i think its amsterdam that is the attraction, not holland exactly.

kleefarr

Voted other.

Cyprus for me. Will probably move over there at some point.

getz

as a ex merchantseaman -i have been lucky enough to see many countrys -greece is nice and so are the people -trinidad-and tobago is ok- if was looking towards canada i would go to newfoundland or toronto

estebancambias

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Sweden is completely opposite to Ireland! Much more liberal and open-minded, and far, far, better infrastructure!

Denamrk would be (would have been) my choice, but they're very nationalistic over there. makeing it hard to get a job when you're not Danish.

Berlin, I picked, because it's got a much better art scene, but that's obviously personal.

Ok Ikky Poo once again. I am an 18 year old lad who is just out of school. I don't know what age you are, or who your mates were but I'm guessing you lived in a completely different world and Ireland from me. Did you grow up in the 70's?

In my universe and in my life, I don't see close-mindess, i'm too busy living(i do concede my post count might not show this) to even notice anything different.

i dont even know how you can get a vibe of a whole group of people anyway. i probably asked you this already in a different context before but what makes Sweden more liberal and open-minded than Ireland?

getz

ok estembancambias i did not like sweden that much either--i live in the uk and i am happy -but if i could pick a country that i had to live in .it would be the republic of ireland-after all we brits have our own ethnic shops now--ie tesco-marks and spencers-boots ect ect

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Italy

estebancambias wrote: »

Ok Ikky Poo once again. I am an 18 year old lad who is just out of school. I don't know what age you are, or who your mates were but I'm guessing you lived in a completely different world and Ireland from me. Did you grow up in the 70's?

In my universe and in my life, I don't see close-mindess, i'm too busy living(i do concede my post count might not show this) to even notice anything different.

i dont even know how you can get a vibe of a whole group of people anyway. i probably asked you this already in a different context before but what makes Sweden more liberal and open-minded than Ireland?

Yip, me again...!

Well, judged, grew up in the 70s, and have lived in Denmark and, albeit briefly, in Sweden. How's it more open-minded? Well, let's just say this: try telling people that your a semi-professional bodypainter. In Sweden, people are interested. In Ireland, poeple just giggle like schoolchildren. Someone on boards.ie used this fact once to try and imply that I was peadofile!!!

They do more varied things with their time off, and they don't think you're 'weird' or 'antisocial' because you don't drink. Admittdly, it's changing a bit in Ireland for the positive, though.

Trust me. I'm not saying Sweden is in any better, but it IS more open.

KTRIC

Ì moved to Germany (Munich) just over a year ago for work and to be honest I find it a bit too big and not a lot going on over the weekends.

One thing it does have is good salaries, good food and a non-existent crime rate.


After a year I still long for Dublin, I don't know if it will pass. Even though I hated the place when I lived there.

Thinking about Zurich at the moment, it looks pretty good. Probably equally as boring as Munich though.

Zatman

France

Agree with IkkyPoo. I am just back from Sweden and its the most open minded country i have been to. People do things in public there that you cant do here and its normal for them.

As for original post i would move to Sweden or Spain as they are both great places to be

estebancambias

like what? genuinely interested.

eVeNtInE

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Crann na Beatha

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smoke.me.a.kipper

Austria

id stay right here in southern germany... the best place in europe ive been so far...

kromm

Love to move to ireland. In fact I'm really considering it.
I have a 1 1/2 of school left and am trying to figure out the best place in ireland to live.
Certainly not dublin, I don't like the city life.
Ireland was wonderful. I traveled there for a summer and fell in love with it.
Everyone was so friendly and it was just gorgeous!