Expats: Where are your favorite places you've lived?

[Anonymous]

Mexico (lived in a small town outside of Mexico City and it was great with amazing food and low cost of living)
Kuala Lumpur (gateway to travel all around Asia, terrific international schools, and super safe-plus right next to Singapore and both countries have a great foodie culture)
Oxford (such a lovely college city-so picturesque and fun)

[Anonymous]

I didn't like Helsinki, Finland. I lived y Milwaukee for 2 years and was happy to leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tanzania was amazing.

Dar? We lived there for 3 years. So freaking hot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a related question: how do you do with taxes, our family is exploring living abroad for a few years (dual European citizenship) but are worried about taxes implication. Also wondering if one of can keep their US job...thoughts?
TIA

There is no easy source for this, as it is country-by-country. Several accounting firms, like PWC, have country write ups that you can read through.

I’m the PT poster above. First, you need to look at any special tax incentives the country has. Portugal, for example, runs a program called NHR, which dramatically reduces taxes on non-Portuguese assets. Then, you need to look at the tax treaty between US and your target country. You can offset many taxes paid as a foreign tax credit against your US obligations, but watch out for things that don’t fall neatly into categories, such as Roth IRAs (often seen as just a normal retirement account even though tax has already been paid, or as deferred income).

Then, you also need to consider any wealth taxes, inheritance/estate taxes (be very careful here - you can get hit with inheritance on top of US estate tax as they are not the same ‘category’ and therefore have no offsets in many treaties) and exit taxes. It’s complicated & you would be well advised to find a good accountant in your target country before committing to any move. It’s not to say you should never move, but you might want to rearrange your assets a bit before making the transition to avoid triggering more tax than you might otherwise pay.

Ok, this is helpful. I have been looking online and can't find a thing. Right now the country we are interested in are : Belgium (DH is from there), Australia or New Zealand and Canada. If anyone has any info/resource on any of this country regarding taxes (work permit), please post here. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have lived in multiple cities in Europe, where would you recommend for a small family who wanted to do a lot of traveling. We were originally thing Paris would be fun and centrally located, but people don’t seem particularly high on it around here. Vienna maybe? We’d like to take our kids as many places as we can during our two year stint.

I would avoid bigger cities. That's just me. After a while, they are all the same and if you think you'll be drawn into a "foreign"culture living in a major city, think again.

I would recommend Lyon. Much more pleasant than Paris, nicer weather, well located to travel Too many places in Europe, also a diverse and dynamic city.

+1. I lived in Lyon for 2 years and absolutely loved my time there. Not touristy, beautiful town and weather, fantastic food, high quality of living. There’s a great energy there. It’s really nicely located between Paris, the south of France, and the Alps/Switzerland as well.

I think every day of my time there and dream of moving back.

Brussels is very centrally locates. Vienna is amazing. I lived in the Netherlands in a small town, and it’s amazing how good the public transport infrastructure is. I was able to travel by car and train / plane to many places in Europe particularly that they had last minute very deep discounts on flights. So we’d just check the day before and choose destination by price. Be mindful though of language barrier though, and if you speak German / French / Dutch it would make your life easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to Vienna and its hands down the best city I have lived in which includes paris london madrid stockholm cities in afria and south america. Def come here with children!!!!

I have the opportunity to do just this with work but can't convince DH. Ugh! I have small kids that I know would just love it in Austria/Europe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to Vienna and its hands down the best city I have lived in which includes paris london madrid stockholm cities in afria and south america. Def come here with children!!!!

I have the opportunity to do just this with work but can't convince DH. Ugh! I have small kids that I know would just love it in Austria/Europe.

Vienna is quite conservative/a lot of racism.

[Anonymous]

Im surprised no ones mentioned Ireland!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tanzania was amazing.

Dar? We lived there for 3 years. So freaking hot.

Not to mention not that safe to be out & about on the streets walking around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just moved to Vienna and its hands down the best city I have lived in which includes paris london madrid stockholm cities in afria and south america. Def come here with children!!!!

I have the opportunity to do just this with work but can't convince DH. Ugh! I have small kids that I know would just love it in Austria/Europe.

Vienna is quite conservative/a lot of racism.

+1. Yup. I have two friends who were posted there. The white one loved it. The brown one found the professional and social environment to be very difficult.

[Anonymous]

Most of europe is racist. Vienna not more than other cities. And sorry most of the rest of the world is racist as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tanzania was amazing.

Dar? We lived there for 3 years. So freaking hot.

Not to mention not that safe to be out & about on the streets walking around.

There are no side walks so walking is not a thing you do 😂😂😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of europe is racist. Vienna not more than other cities. And sorry most of the rest of the world is racist as well.

I am just relating the experience of my friends who moved there. They had lived in Paris and Edinburgh before and said that Vienna was noticeably racist in a way that paris and Scotland were not. I have headd the same ghing from others, including in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Portugal expat:

Thinking of doing the same as you. What are your thoughts on places to settle in? We would be looking to rent in a city or town that has a large number of expats, and convenient to airports for flights within Europe.

Any advice you can give for this process would be really appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of europe is racist. Vienna not more than other cities. And sorry most of the rest of the world is racist as well.

I am just relating the experience of my friends who moved there. They had lived in Paris and Edinburgh before and said that Vienna was noticeably racist in a way that paris and Scotland were not. I have headd the same ghing from others, including in this thread.

I agree with this. I'm from London, and lived in Vienna for a while. I'm white, I found it to be a great place to live in a lot of ways (comfortable, easy place to live, lots to do, especially with kids, easy to get around, great access to other European destinations, lots to do in the country outside Vienna, etc) but coming from London it felt very non-diverse and extremely, extremely traditional. I felt like with everything there was only one way to do things. I don't even consider myself to be a non-conformist but being there made me want to do everything differently just because I hated how traditional and conventional everything seemed.