On finding a new home

Thoughts and lessons from moving abroad

Feb 05, 2024

The urge to migrate, to quest, to go on a journey, is deep-seated – it’s ancestral, essential and instinctive – Felix Marquardt

I don’t think humans are meant to stay in one place their entire life.

We evolved as nomadic hunter-gatherers. We’re hardwired to seek out new people, places, and experiences. The act of searching for a better life is at the core of our existence. I felt the nudge to leave the US ever since my first visit to Barcelona.

It’s tough to pinpoint exactly what it was, I just had a sense that a better life awaits me here. Now that I’ve experienced it firsthand, I don’t ever see myself moving back.

As Kirsten Powers wrote in this brilliant essay, the way we live in the United States is not normal:

The thought arose with surprising clarity: something is deeply wrong with the United States, and I don't want to live here anymore.
I realized there are other places in the world where life isn't about conspicuous consumption and "crushing" and "killing" your life goals, where people aren't drowning in debt just to pay for basic life necessities. There are places where people have free time and where that free time is used to do things they love — not to start a side hustle.

Amen. I too was tired of the “live to work” mentality so engrained in US culture.

The good news, it’s possible to leave the North America bubble.

Here’s how I did it…

Hitting reset

Choosing where to settle down might be one of life’s most important decisions, if not THE most important decision. It’s right up there with choosing your life partner and what you do for work.

I didn’t want to settle and end up somewhere by default, that’s boring.

Why Barcelona?

It fit the criteria I was looking for: good weather, good urban design, and affordable.

My first visit was in 2015, after one walk down La Rambla to the beach, I knew I wanted to move here. So after that trip, I went back to the US and worked. The plan was to stay for one year but the golden handcuffs had a tight grip on me. I ended up staying for three years, in a job that I knew wasn’t right for me. It was soul-crushing.

Telling my supervisor I was quitting and moving to Europe was as delightful as you would expect. He said something like “Wow that’s awesome, go for it!”

I could tell he was genuinely excited for me, which was reassuring.

At last, on January 16th, 2019, I boarded a plane and wrote:

“I’m sitting on a plane heading back to Barcelona for good this time. Now that you are moving there, the pressure is on. If you want to live there you have to find a way to make money. No more dilly dallying. It's time to get back to work. Cheers to new beginnings!”

It sounds like rainbows and butterflies, but then reality smacked me in the face.

Less than 24 hours had passed since I arrived, and I wrote:

“Fuck this is so fucking hard. Here I am in this apartment all by myself, I know what I have to do, but I’m finding it so difficult. I feel lost on my own. I had so many things to distract me before, but now I’m here in this city with no job and no friends. I know this is just part of the journey and not everything works out perfectly, what did I expect? A cool job is not just going to fall in my lap, I have to go out there and find it.

There’s no better way to feel like a child again than moving to a foreign country. I remember sitting on a bench one morning thinking:

“WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING HERE???”

I had no job lined up, no bank account, no local phone number, I couldn’t speak the language and didn’t have friends to rely on for help. I was starting from zero.

“Well, I should probably go get a SIM card.” - I stood up from the bench and off I went.

Slowly but surely I started to settle in. I found a language school and started going there a few times a week. Then I signed up for a co-working space where I met many of my first friends.

The whole thing unfolded so organically. Looking back I’m glad I didn’t try to plan out every little detail prior to moving. This might have led me to analysis paralysis and overthinking. Maybe I would have backed out had I thought about it too much.

Instead, I think a better strategy is to….

Take risks - but have a safety net

I saved up enough money from my corporate job to last me a little over a year before I either had to return home or start selling my organs for money. When I got to Barcelona I rented a small room in an apartment outside the city center.

This place ran me $250/month:

Let’s do the math - $250/month comes out to $3k for the year. That’s my rent covered.

For food, I could get by on about $500/month, which comes out to $6k for the year.

So for less than $10k, I had a roof over my head and food in my belly for an entire year.

One of the many benefits of living in Spain is the cost of living is significantly lower than that of the US. The savings from my engineering job, although it wasn’t much, provided a safety net.

I didn’t have to stress about finding work immediately. I knew I had a solid runway and some time to get my bearings straight. I lived frugally and began exploring my interests on a deeper level. I started taking online courses and following my instincts instead of setting hard goals and deadlines.

After a few months of meeting people and having conversations, I started picking up random freelance work here and there. I did food tours and pub crawls, which were netting me about $2k/month so I wasn’t dipping into my savings anymore.

Then when COVID hit, I found a full-time gig doing remote sales.

The safety net did its job.

It got me through the transition period and helped me get settled into my new home. Had I come here with no savings AND no job lined up, I would have been stressed out.

Some say “money is the easy part” - what about the transition socially/culturally?

I’ve been asked about homesickness or missing family and friends. I imagine doing something like this twenty years ago would have been more difficult, but now we have technology like Facetime and Zoom to keep us connected.

I can call my parents and see them whenever I want. Same with friends, they’re all just a tap away.

Sure there was a ton of uncertainty involved in this decision, but I would rather live with uncertainty than unhappiness.

I often think about how each of us could be living a different life from the one we’re currently living. Perhaps a life that would make us happier. Yet we have no way of knowing about it unless we go out there and test stuff!

Ignorance is bliss I guess?

Prototype your life

I’ve now been living in Spain for five years and it’s safe to say I found my new home.

I wrote this to show that I had no grand plan when I moved here. Over-planning can lead to inaction. This method is more effective:

“Prototype your life. Try stuff instead of making grand plans” - Kevin Kelly

I sometimes wonder what life would look like had I stayed shackled to the golden handcuffs of the corporate world and not left the US.

When I picture that life, I’m overcome with a sense of gratitude. I was nervous going into the unknown, but I prefer putting myself into an uncomfortable situation for a short period rather than spending my entire life thinking “What if”.

When Tim Ferriss asked Malcolm Gladwell what advice he would have for his 30-year-old self, I was surprised by how quick and simple his response was:

“Leave North America…. Which is — despite the fact that it pretends to be the only place that matters — is not the only place that matters.”

He then recalled an opportunity to live in Jamaica. “I should have done it,” he said.

Until next time my friends,

<3 B

H/t to Chris James & Edward for reading early drafts of this essay and providing feedback.

Additional Resources

To test out cities without fully committing, try Living Mini-Lives
To research cities and compare the cost of living I recommend Nomad List
This video from City Nerd might give you some ideas about how to choose where to live: The Venn Diagram of Sunny Weather, Urbanism, and Affordability