I’ve always wanted to live abroad and there are several cities around the world I’d love to try living in, but my number one has always been London. I’ve visited several times and also travelled around the UK extensively, I even did a semester abroad in the UK during my studies, yet I still want to go back.
But I’ve come to realize that after brexit it’s become nearly impossible to move there. Currently I live in New York and it was easier for me (as a European) to get a job here than in London. I think the only possible route for me at this point is applying for a permanent position at the foreign ministry of my country after which I would be able to apply for a posting at the London embassy at some point. But it would be a big career decision cause the pay is shit compared to the private sector and it would probably take me years to even have a chance to get sent there.
First I’d have to apply and get accepted for the program and I know for a fact that many people apply for years without getting in. Then I’d have to go through a year of training and after that work in my home country for 3-4 years to build experience or take a posting in some small mission in a developing and/or war-torn country because it’s virtually impossible to get sent to a European destination unless you first work in a “less-desireable” place for a few years. And even then it’s pretty much up to luck. I’m in my late 20s now which would mean I’d be well into my 30s before even getting a chance and I’m just wondering is it worth the risk when there’s possibly not even a reward at the end? But then again the only other way of getting there with my educational background and skillset would be to marry a British guy and the chances of that happening are pretty much non-existent so…
My guestion is, do you have a dream destination where you’d like to move? And how much work and time would you be willing to put into getting there? Or if you’ve managed to move to your dream country/city how long did it take you to get there?
For me it was Vancouver. I visited with my now wife when we were students in the mid-2000s and we said to one another ‘we’ll move here one day’. We tried to move over just after graduating but a company that said they were sponsoring my visa dropped the ball/made false promises and we had to head back to our home in the UK. From that point, it took nearly a decade to get legitimate work permits, another couple of years after arriving to gain residency and now, I think 16 years after we first fell in love with the place we just applied for citizenship. We also have a Canadian born kid with another arriving next month.
Anyway in that decade of trying to get a visa in our 20s we lived in Edinburgh then London, both experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. But we’ve been lucky to travel pretty widely, and out of everywhere we’ve visited we just felt at home here.
Overall, it was worth the wait - there’s ups and downs like anywhere but I do love it still. The only other new destination I’ve thought about is SoCal where I’ve got family and my company has an office. But I don’t know, it was pretty draining completely resetting our lives once and I’m not sure I’d go through it all over again.