Why I Left the USA for UK

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Kristin:    00:00:00    Even for experienced travelers, a lot can go wrong when you land in a new country. And that's what happened to me when I got to Manchester last month. My Airbnb wasn't cleaned, the internet wasn't working, things were broken. There was a lot going on and in the midst of everything, it was the first time in seven or eight years that I traveled without my Solis Hotspot because I was upgrading to the new one. And so I ended up being without functioning internet for the first weekend that I was here in England. Don't let the same thing happen to you. Pick up a Solis Hotspot using our link in the show notes and get a private, secure, portable wifi connection wherever you go with no extra sim cards needed. Solis has coverage in more than 135 countries and you can choose from daily passes or get a global monthly subscription. Get a Solis Hotspot today and support the show by using our affiliate link in the show notes and never be without wifi again, 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.  

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:01:30    Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 209 of Badass Digital Nomads. In today's podcast, I would like to share with you some of the reasons why I chose the United Kingdom as a place to slow travel this summer when given the option of so many countries around the world, why would I choose a part of Northern England to come to rather than, I don't know, Thailand or Bali or anywhere else in the world? And so I'm gonna share those reasons with you here today. Uh, but just one clarification from the comments of this video is that I didn't technically move or immigrate to the UK. I've been a digital nomad since 2009 to 2012 is when I really was working from home and traveling around more. And I continue to be a US citizen, a US resident. I pay taxes in the US and I'm just here for a couple of months this summer traveling around.  

Kristin:    00:02:41    I've been to Ireland this year a couple of times I've been here in Manchester. I'm planning on going to London and Scotland and Wales. I'm going to Amsterdam, I'm going to New York, I'm going to Denver, potentially Buenos Aires for the Digital Nomad Conference. So I'm gonna be traveling around for the entire year, which is what I've always been doing in recent years except for the pandemic. And so yeah, this is the way that I prefer to live. So I was thinking since I'm going to be here for a couple of months, that I'll do kind of like a series about being here and different aspects of English and British culture and places to travel around here talking to the locals and all kinds of fun stuff. So stay tuned. We're ---for lots more to come in the upcoming weeks and months and thank you this week to Ice Girl 21 from Denmark who left a review recently on Apple Podcasts.  

Kristin:    00:03:48    She says, very inspiring and great company. This is my go-to podcast, get inspired as a digital nomad, hear travel hacks and listen in on interesting debates with fellow nomads. Thanks Ice girl, really appreciate it. And thank you to you and everyone who is supporting the show leaving reviews. We love it. And make sure to check out today's featured partners in the show notes we have Solis Wi-Fi Hotspots and you can get 10% off of a 23andMe DNA Test, which is one of the things that inspired me to travel to England and Ireland. And if you'd like my personal help with an upcoming move or building your slow travel itinerary, then you can apply for relocation support, either one-on-one or in my group program Ready to Relocate by going to travelingwithKristin.com/relocation. And one of the first things that we do is try to figure out where you should go, right?  

Kristin:    00:04:54    Where is the first place you should go and what are the first steps into starting to plan this relocation so that you can actually make it a reality? So that's at travelingwithKristin.com/relocation. Without further ado, let's jump right in. And at the end of this episode, I'll leave you with some of my thoughts and favorite comments from the video so far. Enjoy.

Podcast:

Kristin: If there's a reason that you feel drawn to that place, then it's for a reason and it's up to you to go explore there. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? Chances are not Manchester. And so if you're wondering why I'm here, you wouldn't be alone. Every person I've met since I got here has said, Why? Why move from the US to the UK? Or why move from Miami to Manchester? The weather's horrible here. And so in this video I'm gonna give you some of the background into what brought me to this decision and why some of the insights and the framework that I use to choose where to travel or live in the world.  

Kristin:    00:06:03    So if there's a decision that you've been struggling with, whether it's where to travel or live abroad or something else that other people just don't seem to get, then I hope that my tips in this video will help you out. So the first reason that I chose to move to Europe specifically is because I really miss the lifestyle here. I was living and traveling in Europe for years before the pandemic started. And in the two and a half years that I was back in the United States, I really just missed everything about living in Europe. I missed the lifestyle, I missed the people, I missed the conversations that I had with people. I missed the quality of life, the pace of life, like the kind of slower pace of life, the lack of the rat race. Uh, the ability to kind of escape the narrative of politics and anger and a lot of the hate that's in the US right now.  

Kristin:    00:07:00    And also the food. Like I missed having flavorful food, I missed having affordable food and I really like going to the grocery store here and being able to spend 20 euro or 20 pounds for what I would spend $80 for in the United States. So the first thing was just wanting to come back to Europe because I really feel like I resonate more with this lifestyle than the status quo back in the US. And the second reason is because I can, and maybe you can too, whether you work remotely or you're retired or you live off passive income or something like that, we're living in a time of great mobility where you can basically go wherever you want as long as you have some source of income from the internet. And I have a lot of videos on my channel about how to find remote jobs, how to make money online, things like that.  

Kristin:    00:07:57    So I'll link to all of that in the video description, as well as interviews with other people about how they make money online. But I've been working remotely since around 2009. And so this is just the lifestyle that I'm used to is being able to have the choice of where I want to live and work in the world. And I think it's just a really cool time to be alive with so much flexibility in travel visas and passports and digital nomad visas and other types of long stay permits that you can get in countries around the world. So once you have the ways and the means to be able to live this lifestyle, it's all about where to go and why. And what I like to do is just follow my natural intuition and you'll notice that the places that you're interested will change a lot over the years.  

Kristin:    00:08:48    And the longer your living location independently or the more years that you have to be able to travel internationally, the more you'll start to notice your desires and likes and dislikes start to change. When I first started traveling, it was all about surfing and I would just stay in $5 a night cabinas or couch surf, like literally couch surfing and regular surfing. And I would go to Puerto Rico, California, Baja, Mexico, Hawaii, anywhere that there were waves. But as I got older and my interest started to change, it was less about surfing and more about exploring and learning about the world and learning about myself and learning about history and culture. And so I started to really open up to different types of places that I wouldn't have traveled before when I was a competitive surfer. So fast forward 20 years and the things that are important to me now are a lot different and it will be that way with you as well.  

Kristin:    00:09:51    Um, one thing that you might relate to is being curious about where you come from. And I know that's definitely the case with me. I have taken DNA tests on ancestry.com and also 23andMe and I love pouring over those results and seeing where my ancestors are from. And what I found in those DNA tests is that my family is primarily from England, Northern England, Scotland and Ireland. And so this entire year to date, I've spent most of my time in Ireland and England. And this summer I hope to travel up to Scotland, just experiencing where my family members came from, doing some more research and seeing what there is to do and see around here. And so I really like to keep a home base in a country that I'm interested in exploring and I like to do that in a slow travel manner where I'll stay for three or six months in a country so I don't feel rushed and be able to have that home base, get to know the people and the culture and then be able to explore on the weekends and have just like a normal pace of life where you don't feel rushed, like you have to do a different site or city in a different day.  

Kristin:    00:11:06    Another thing is that even though my family members are from here, I had never been here. I've been to London before, but I had never explored the north of England. And so that's something to think about too. Do you want to go back to a place that you've been before and get to know it on a deeper level or do you wanna go someplace entirely new or maybe you always go somewhere new and in your case you might wanna go back to somewhere you've already been and see it with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. So at the moment, this was what I was in the mood for, to kind of explore new lands and also because it is a great time of year, which brings me to seasonality, deciding when to go somewhere is just as important as where to go. You wouldn't necessarily want to go to Costa Rica during the beginning of the rainy season, especially in the rainiest months of September and October.

Kristin:    00:12:02    But you might also not wanna go there during the holidays or during Easter, which is the most crowded and the most expensive. So something that I like to do is travel places during the shoulder season, which can be the spring and the fall in Europe, I typically come here in the fall. And so this is my first time spending an extended amount of time here in the spring and summer. And it also coincides with the much better sunnier and warmer weather in the north of England and Scotland. And also the longer days. It doesn't get dark here until 10:00 PM in the summer. And so the days are longer, the days are warmer and it just gives you a lot more time and flexibility to go around and see the sites. Another thing to consider is if you can visit a country and how long you can stay there, can you go with just your passport?  

Kristin:    00:12:55    Do you need to apply for a visa? You can find this information through your consulate or state Department Department of Foreign Affairs. You can also check online with a website like VisaHQ. This was a big factor for me in deciding to come to the UK because with a US passport, I can stay here for up to 180 days per year. So that's a lot longer than certain countries which might have a restriction of 30 days, 60 days or 90 days. And I do plan to spend a lot of my time this year in Europe and in the Schengen zone. And so there's no way that I'll reach the 180 day max this year in the UK, but I can keep a long-term rental property here and then travel with just a backpack or carry on only to other countries in the region. Another thing that really attracts me to Europe is the time zone, which allows you to get all of your work done in the morning before most people wake up over in North and South America.  

Kristin:    00:14:00    And so I really like this lifestyle of being able to work first and then enjoy the rest of the day before lots of phone calls, emails, and other interruptions. So that is something that definitely weighed in on my decision to come here. Something I've talked about and written about a lot in my book Digital Nomads for Dummies is your ability to associate a new destination with a fresh start in life. So this could be as simple as choosing anywhere to go in the world and just kind of wanting to get that fresh start effect, but you can also choose a specific location to form new habits. Like maybe he wants you eat better, maybe you want to start spending more time outside and doing exercise and outdoor activities. You can actually choose a location that will support those goals rather than detract from them. So if you find yourself up in Canada in the winter and it's freezing and you don't wanna go outside and you're getting like seasonal effective disorder and things like that, then that's why so many people go south for the winter, right?  

Kristin:    00:15:11    But now it's not just retirees, it's people who work remotely where you can actually link your destination to a professional goal that you have to a hobby or an interest that you have to a health or a personal goal. So if you wanted to go somewhere where you had better access to fresh and organic food, you can move somewhere like Costa Rica or Bali. If you wanted to go somewhere where you wanted to learn how to surf, you can move to Maui or Brazil and if you wanted to attend some conferences and events in different countries, you can do that as well. Um, I interviewed a girl on my podcast who was in Lisbon, Portugal for Web Summit and to hold some in-person events and decided to just stay in Portugal for a while. So you can actually choose a destination based on an interest that you have or some other type of goal.  

Kristin:    00:16:07    And so that is one of the reasons why I came to Manchester specifically. Um, besides that, I had never been here before. The weather is great right now. I wanted to explore this entire region. Um, one of my hobbies is music production and DJ-ing and Manchester has a really cool music culture, a lot of the music that I like. And so I wanted to really immerse myself in this area, also do some local DJ-ing, study music production on the weekends and be able to really integrate my remote work life with my love of travel, with helping to support my hobbies. And so I am basically living my best life right now, at least for 2023, where I can work here from home, I can walk across the street to the grocery store and get really healthy, affordable food. The people are super nice here, like all of my neighbors, everyone that I've met.  

Kristin:    00:17:08    And then I can just ride my bike 10 minutes down the street to go to my music production classes one day per week. And so it's also a very safe area and it's kind of like ticking all of those boxes that I was currently looking for in a destination. And there's also a great international airport here. I can take the train throughout the country, but I can also fly around Europe and the region and get those really affordable flights that you can't get from the other side of the pond. So those were some things that I took into consideration as well. This is a strategy that you can use if you want to learn a language going to a country where they speak that language and you can really immerse yourself in the culture. Or maybe you're just really a big fan of skiing and so you wanna go to the Swiss Alps in the winter to go skiing.  

Kristin:    00:18:00    Uh, think about what you like to do and where would there be a geographical location on the planet that supports those goals. And it's important to note that it doesn't have to be outside of your home country or even your city or state. It really depends on what those goals are. For me, it's studying music production in Manchester. And for you it might be studying art history in Florence. And if you've ever read any of Stephen Pressfield's books like The War of Art and Turning Pro, he talks about this in the context of your career. So if you wanted to make it on Broadway, you would move to New York or make it in the movie business, you'd go to Hollywood or LA. But this really extends to any career path that you have. You want to be able to surround yourself with like-minded people and people who have the same interests and goals.  

Kristin:    00:18:55    This is kind of like creating a mastermind effect. The options are really unlimited. It's up to you and your imagination of where you want to go and what you want to do. Another reason I came here, which might seem counterintuitive, is that it's not a very popular expat or digital nomad destination. And since the pandemic, especially in with the explosion of remote work over the past 10 years, there's also been an increase in digital nomad communities and hubs, which I love. They're all over the world. They're in Bali, in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in Buenos Aires, in Portugal. Throughout the world you'll find these small villages communities, uh, cities where there's a large expat or digital nomad population. And although I love my people and I love being a part of this community, I also like to balance out all of that with also some solo travel and alone time and going places that really remind me of being a foreigner in a foreign land.  

Kristin:    00:20:02    And being here in Manchester, I, I am definitely the only non-local person in my community, whereas these days it can actually be easy to feel like you haven't left your home country if you're surrounded by a bubble of other people from your country, in a foreign country. It's really good to connect with other expats and digital nomads and global citizens because you have that in common. And there's this community now that you can travel around the world together and meet up in other places. But there's also something to be said for going back to the roots of travel and adapting to these local places as an outsider and having that experience as well. I have not heard a single American accent in the first month that I've been here, and the people that live in my neighborhood have been here, some of them for 83 years.  

Kristin:    00:21:02    So it is a really fun to meet people and they say like, you know, why are you here? And they've, they've actually never met anyone from the US who was living in their neighborhood. And so I find that to be a really fun and significant to form these deep connections with locals and, uh, remind myself that I am a visitor here and not just staying in my comfort zone within the digital nomad community of people who I already know and have met in different countries and who travel together from place to place. So starting out your travel or location independence journey in a group or in a place, uh, where you can get a lot of support from other people who have been through the same things is really important, but it's also important to equal that out with going places that are kind of off the beaten path. So don't be afraid to go somewhere that you don't know anyone else there or you don't know anyone who's ever been there. If there's a reason that you feel drawn to that place, then it's for a reason and it's up to you to go explore there. I'll be sharing a lot of my experiences and travel videos with you here from England, so I hope you'll join me for the journey.  

Kristin:    00:22:25    Okay, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this podcast, which you can leave over on the YouTube video, which I'll link to in the show notes. One of the top rated comments so far with nearly a hundred likes is from OB who says that they moved from Brazil to the US 30 years ago. And I'm highly considering moving back to Brazil in the next 10 years. Unfortunately, the American dream is dead and the division's censorship and surveillance and corporate greed are destroying a beautiful nation. What a shame. I found their comment very interesting because living in Miami for a few years, I've talked to a lot of people from Cuba and Venezuela who kind of came to the US for the American dream and then maybe second guessed that decision and considered going back. But it's, it's a tough one because there's so many good things about the United States and I feel like what you focus on grow.  

Kristin:    00:23:30    So if you just focus on the negative aspects of it, the pollution, the division, the Franken foods, <laugh>, like all of the bad stuff, the healthcare system, okay, it can be overwhelmingly negative, but there's also a lot of good things about the us. There's so much history and nature, there's dynamic cities, there's great entertainment, there's beautiful beaches, there's fun things to do. Like there's good things about the US as well. Great people, you know, I'm from there. A lot of us are from there. And so I think for me it's all about balance. But I can definitely empathize with people who move to the US from other countries and then decided, you know what? I wanna opt back into a different lifestyle. And traveling is just a consistent reminder that the rat race is alive and well in the US. And I don't know, sometimes I just think no matter what successes, financial successes are possible in the US, is the trade off worth it with the health risks, stress, lack of time with your family, lack of time for relaxation.  

Kristin:    00:24:48    And I really wish that the US could bring things down a notch on that corporate America culture so that people could just generally have a better quality of life and not be so stressed out. Linda Doorman says, all good insights. When I was younger, I traveled as a corporate expat to Asia and Europe for 10 years and lived in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, London, Paris, Barcelona, et cetera. Now that I'm older and self-employed, I see that those big cities have changed a lot. I still enjoy Asia and Europe, but prefer smaller, more walkable cities with a slower pace. Plus they're more affordable. And I agree, I think, well it must have been quite an experience to travel through Asia and Europe as an expat for 10 years and then have a different experience being older and self-employed. And I love big cities as well. I love the energy of big cities.  

Kristin:    00:25:49    I love how many things there are to do the public transportation, but I definitely appreciate a slower pace of life and just being in a quieter area, <laugh>. So maybe as Linda says, maybe that's just part of getting older. Lisa chimed in and said that she was in a small city outside of Madrid and it was amazing. And um, even though Madrid is walkable, it's not a small city. So it is nice to be within walking distance from everything that you need and in that one place and not just a neighborhood. Carla says, I loved this video. We moved out of the US to Ecuador along with six kids for the first time in 2010. We were able to stay there for eight months. And even though there's a strong expat community in Wanka, our focus was to immerse ourselves in the culture, get to know the locals, and learn Spanish.  

Kristin:    00:26:42    It was such a great experience for our children who our ages nine to 21. And since 2013, I've spent some time in Europe every year except for 2020, I was able to live in the UK with two adult sons for three months in 2018. Thanks to my business. Kristin, I can so relate to all that you say about Europe. It's definitely become my happy place for so many of the reasons you listed. Thank you. Well, thank you Carla for sharing your experience about living in both the UK and Ecuador. It must be quite a feat to be traveling with your children there and I'm glad that you were able to have those experiences and have multicultural kids. We do have a podcast with another family that was living in Ecuador that I'll link to in the show notes, so check those out. And then JP says, I'm moving to London in either July or August to attend the Royal College of Art.  

Kristin:    00:27:44    I would not have chosen the UK as a permanent home, but I'm excited to be able to attend RCA once I'm finished with my master's degree. There. I plan on moving to Portugal. I'm tired of living in the US. There's really no viable future here. Thanks. I found JP'S comment very interesting and wanted to share it with you because it shows that very often in life you just know what the next step is. So he didn't have the UK on his radar, but he is going as a student to study art. But then after that, he already has the idea to move to Portugal and then you can see what happens there. So there's no way, especially after having played a DJ gig at the top of the Amsterdam Tower, there's absolutely no way I would've thought that I would be doing that 10 years ago when I was in Amsterdam for the first time.  

Kristin:    00:28:39    It's just surreal. Like you just don't know what's gonna happen in the future. Uh, even though he says there's really no viable future in the US. There is if, if that's what you want to make of it, but if you prefer to make your new life abroad, then that is definitely your prerogative. But one thing often leads to the next. And so don't stress out too much if you don't have everything figured out just yet. And then Travel Videos says, Americans like to go to Europe, Europeans like to go to Asia, and Asians like to go to America. This is how we move around. And I thought that was kind of funny because the grass is always greener, right? And it's true that many Europeans like to go to Southeast Asia, for example, for their holiday. And um, many tourists from Asia like to go to the US and come to New York or California or Las Vegas or Florida and so on and so on. But that's the nature of being a human. We all want to explore somewhere offshore and outside of the borders of our home country and the familiar and the sometimes boring and what we know. And so, yeah, let's not apologize for that. Let's just all keep traveling and keep learning and you know, the more that everyone is traveling and mixing together, the more creativity and ideas and influences we'll be able to share with each other. And that's just what makes the world go around.  

Kristin:    00:30:22    So thanks for tuning in today. I hope that this episode gives you some food for thought. And remember that you can get 10% off of a DNA test with 23andMe linked in the show notes if you too are inspired to learn more about your ancestry. Also, remember that relocation services have reopened for the second half of the year. So you can apply for personal support from me to help with your upcoming move overseas by going to travelingwithKristin.com/relocation. That's travelingwithKristin.com/relocation. Have a great day or evening wherever you are in the world, and see you again next week.