Yes, I should’ve been clearer with the ‘usually’. People definitely need to be super clear on what they’re doing in any given country and how it might impact visa opportunities etc.

Depends on what the working rights situation is with the desired new country. Many countries won’t provide work visas without a job, but you can usually visit as a tourist and also do some job hunting while onshore.

You can always sell your car with a condition that you’ll need it until date X. You might need to take a small hit on price but it’ll probably still work out better than having to hire one or rely on uber, friends etc

It’s a bell curve—most people are somewhere in the middle, living life. Some are miserable, some are deliriously happy.

It is totally normal to feel anxious and unsure as you prepare to leave what you know for something new and unknown. It is totally normal to have lonely blue moments as you settle in. Our brains love familiarity, they love habit.

Get to your new home, build habits like a morning walk route, a favorite coffee shop, a cute wine bar you pop into every Wednesday night. Explore and enjoy with your husband but make sure you seek out friends and activities of your own too. There are expat groups everywhere that offer a great start and valuable advice; and over time you’ll start to settle in and make local friends too.

Dubai when you believe in individualism? lol

I’m an Aussie in the US, it was hard work to begin with despite my familiarity with American accents. You gradually learn to understand people and figure out the unspoken cultural stuff. You’ll get there!

Try watching Aussie tv, even with subtitles on, so you learn more of the patterns and pronunciations.

If you get on with your manager or make a decent mate at work, I’d talk to them about it (not ‘OMG IM OVERWHELMED’ but ‘haha it’s really something getting used to Aussie accents!’). Aussies absolutely love talking about themselves/their culture so you can always ask people friendly stuff ‘hey what do you reckon are the top 3 things I should know, what’re your favourite Aussie sayings to use’ etc and you’ll pick things up.

I think it’s pretty normal to have some complex feeling when you have strong connections to different places and people in them. I don’t think it’s ever easy to leave,

Yeah fair enough. I was sure I’d heard it’d changed in the last year or two.

Really? I thought they had just started to be included.

Getting a visa without a university degree is more difficult. You should also think very carefully about what your job prospects would be in the US, given the impact of health insurance, vacation time, and how much you can earn. You won’t be able to get a work visa for retail, hospitality, beauty etc.

Your best option with no degree is to try for a green card via the diversity lottery. Entry has closed for this year (it’s in October-early November each year), entrants will find out if they’re able to interview and get a green card next May-ish, for entry to the US in 2025. So even assuming you enter next year and are successful first time around, you’re coming into the US in 2026 at the earliest. Some people are successful first time, some people miss out 10 years in a row or are never successful.

Women are suspicious of thirsty creeps everywhere, sorry dude.

Usually you can bring 3 months of meds (with doctors letter and in original packaging) as the ‘usual supply’ to tide you over.

She will need health insurance first. Assuming she isn’t going straight into a job with insurance, she might have to start with a few months on something like Cigna’s global cover (it’s expensive but means no concerns about not having immediate regular insurance) or you’ll need for figure out how to get her onto your insurance as soon as possible.

Yes she’ll need to see a doctor, and depending on her condition and what she’s already prescribed she may have to fight to actually get the same meds again. US insurers can be real assholes about what they’ll ‘let’ you have regardless of what your doctor says. She may be in for a nasty shock on cost, too. I have a medication that cost me $6US a month in my home country and $180US in the US despite insurance. You can start to figure out what her costs might be using price checks on goodrx etc.

America Josh is Australian-focused so not everything is relevant for you, but lots of good practical information about making the move.

If you’ve got savings or will get a redundancy payout, you can travel to New York on an ESTA and go to industry events, network, meet recruiters, etc, you just can’t do any actual work and you would need to leave the country again before applying for a work visa. As with other big competitive cities finding jobs takes persistence (you should have an American format CV and know your elevator pitch inside out).

Age is no big deal at all.

Do you have a relevant bachelors degree (at minimum)? Most visas require specialist skills and a bachelors at a minimum.

Two biggest things are finding jobs willing to sponsor visa holders (there are lists of companies who have sponsored H1B out there to give you an idea of who they are), then getting lucky getting a visa as many are over-subscribed.