I currently live in South Africa and well, I want a plan for a place to move to in the next 5 years max. The problem is i can’t decide where to go and as much as I love Australia, it feels too far from the time zones where all my people are.
So I have decided that Europe/UK would be perfect but can’t find a perfect fit. I have a UK passport
I am looking for:
- mild weather. Not too bothered to be honest but not looking for a snow 8 months of the year or rain 8 months of the year. Ideally i just want a place that gets some sunlight, some rain, some cold and some hot days
- low level or low acknowledgment of corruption. I want my taxes to do something -low crime rate
- good work life balance with a decent opportunity for living. Currently working at a Big 4 consultancy so hoping I can have a nice enough lifestyle but not be working 24/7
I really like places like Netherlands, Scotland, Germany but have found various flaws. I also really like the Mediterranean
I don’t really like the UK but prefer something like Scotland. They just apparently get less sun than I’d like
So I would have to look into the visas in Spain before I could make a decision but I really like what I’m seeing. Another potential is to go to Ireland for a while as people said and then see if Spain does a nomadic Visa like some other countries do though again, I am not clear on the logistics
Who will you be working for on this digital nomad visa?
Currently working with a big 4 consulting firm so will likely end up trying to transfer to an international firm internally
Ok, but a digital nomad visa won’t be useful for that. You’d need to work elsewhere and then only spend limited periods of time in Spain. You’ll also likely run into strict time limits set by your employer, based on the country where you are employed’s rules on tax residency.
I see, let me maybe ask this. If you were planning to do what I’m doing from my position then what path would you recommend and why? I haven’t gotten to the point of looking at Visas yet so I would really appreciate an early understanding of a route I could go down
Pick a country first, then go from there.
Yea so the point of this post is to seek out help in picking a country. Though maybe I expressed that badly
So by now you should have eliminated a few places based on your criteria, corruption isn’t a major factor: https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2022-western-europe-eu-corruption-undue-influence-hurt-progress
Weather:
Scotland - not mild Ireland - not mild Netherlands - not mild, very wet England - out
Crime - rules out a few cities
Jobs - depends on your employer
Where is left, use nomadlist.com, then look at the visa options:
Blue card: Germany, Poland, France
Looks like you have a shortlist.
Thank you, I really appreciate the help. By not mild I assume you mean it’s quite cloudy? Also I had been looking at cologne Germany as a potential option as well so will look there and see