Where would you move to if you had the choice in your 20s?

Mars Bar

I'm in Abu Dhabi and it suits me down to the ground. I've been to Dubai a few times and I know that it's just too big and fast paced for my personality. Abu Dhabi is smaller and more manageable and slower paced. I moved here in my late 20's and it was perfect timing for me and I honestly wouldn't change it.

Kuwait is a hell hole and the short while I spent there was more than enough. Would never send any 20 something year old there.

maninasia

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Don't rule out the US OP. I know it's hard to get to but that may change with the E3 visas and the Trump administrations desire to allow more skills based immigration, rather than the randomness of the DV lottery.

There is good money to be made there and you can really notice the value in working hard.

A poster previously mentioned it being "volatile".
It's not, it's a huge country with a huge diverse population with very decentralized government.
So just because something is happening in one part of the country does not mean it is the norm across the country.

With trump in charge immigration seems to be a right pain and the two of them won't get work visas anyway.

Fr Tod Umptious

maninasia wrote: »

With trump in charge immigration seems to be a right pain and the two of them won't get work visas anyway.

Trump's long term immigration plans are far more favorable to well educated, English speaking Irish people than the current system.

thegills

Germany for me. I lived in Munich. Great infrastructure and quality of life. As mentioned already only a drive away from many great places. I know many people there who went with no German

8-10

Came in here to say Germany. Berlin or anywhere in Bavaria

Outkast_IRE

The southern German provinces are a bit more easy going than their northern brethren. So Bavaria or Baden Wuttemberg would be good . My brother is in Stuttgart over 10 years , went with no German worked in an Irish bar to get going.

I would like NZ i think , the whole OZ thing never bothered me but NZ would be tempting.

thegills

NZ seems fantastic and for a 20s person worth a shot. Too far away for me though.

seannash

If it were me I'd move somewhere that forces me to learn a new language. That will be a great asset to have in the future.

ted1

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

No one from Ireland moves to the US (or any other country for that matter) to go on welfare or become homeless.

They go to work and enjoy what the place has to offer, if for some reason they can't find work in the long run they usually come home.

Most companies supply good health insurance also, and as a 20 something health care is not something that's high on people's list.

As regards gun problems, as I said it's a vast diverse country, in some places you will never see a gun let alone be the victim of a gun crime.

Some do end up getting sick or losing their jobs, the labour protection jobs are very poor. Pretty much hasn’t changed since the cotton plantation days.
As for the homeless issues, you mightn’t but many people do have issues with living in countries gar is ethically and morally bankrupt. 3rd world countries look after their citizens better

Fr Tod Umptious

ted1 wrote: »

Some do end up getting sick or losing their jobs, the labour protection jobs are very poor. Pretty much hasn’t changed since the cotton plantation days.
As for the homeless issues, you mightn’t but many people do have issues with living in countries gar is ethically and morally bankrupt. 3rd world countries look after their citizens better

So you have obviously never lived in the US them I see

CBear1993

Roadtoad wrote: »

For a long while (late 1980s, early 90s) I thought the only thing in the world was to get out of Ireland. I worked in USA for 2 years previously. Both my fiancée and I got work visas to USA. After we married we delayed going, then eventually cancelled the idea. I suppose the plan was to stay away while the (then non existent) kids were in primary school, and return to Ireland then, if appropriate.

The plan never crystallised, but four kids did. All now are working in Ireland or in college. Perhaps we sacrifised some financial well-being for living close to parents, our siblings, old friends, the kids cousins, but I consider it a fair swop.

This is a good place with many advantages over other places. Don't under value it.

Not being smart or picking holes in your argument at all; it’s very fair.

But can you say what are the advantages of living here in Dublin / Ireland as a whole in your younger days with no kids vs abroad? Genuinely curious; maybe I’ll appreciate it more if they’re pointed out

Since I moved to Dublin 2 years ago from A year in Australia I’ve found it’s grand but a bit lacking or very old. Probably doesn’t help I don’t have much of a network here at all socially , which is why I got back out to the GAA. Found it very hard to integrate socially, all my best friends are still the ones I grew up with in the north

CBear1993

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Don't rule out the US OP. I know it's hard to get to but that may change with the E3 visas and the Trump administrations desire to allow more skills based immigration, rather than the randomness of the DV lottery.

There is good money to be made there and you can really notice the value in working hard.

A poster previously mentioned it being "volatile".
It's not, it's a huge country with a huge diverse population with very decentralized government.
So just because something is happening in one part of the country does not mean it is the norm across the country.

Fair on the US points. Although am I not correct in saying they’re all workaholics in industries like mine; construction. I wouldn’t move from Ireland to work longer hours which from my brief J1 stint as a junior Estimator/project manager in manhattan seemed the case. 12 hour days were the norm.

On the visa thing - one of my friends moved over at the beginning of 2019 to New York and got a work visa set up before he went because he’s a QS like me. I don’t like the profession personally apart from it paying well, in fact I hate it. He’s now sponsored by one of the big construction consultancies and working on google projects etc. he was put up for 6 weeks and now has an apartment in upper east side.

Anyway New York wouldn’t attract me at all.

It would be west coast

CBear1993

Interesting to see the amount of +1s in here for Germany!! Definitely going to visit it once this whole thing lifts

What’s getting a visa to go to Dubai like?

Zascar

I've heard many excellent things about Germany too but can you get away ok with only English?

CBear1993 wrote: »

What’s getting a visa to go to Dubai like?

Visa is tired to your job - so get a job and they sort the visa.

CBear1993

Surprised there hasn’t been more Australia advocates to be honest. As I mentioned previously though, the entire 20s age population of some parishes in Ireland are basically in Sydney Melbourne or Brisbane at the moment! Would be like walking down your local village street where everyone flocks to the same pub

Zascar

Australia is a brilliant place, so many cities all quite different, something for everyone. Only problem is it's just so bloody far away...

FVP3

CBear1993 wrote: »

Surprised there hasn’t been more Australia advocates to be honest. As I mentioned previously though, the entire 20s age population of some parishes in Ireland are basically in Sydney Melbourne or Brisbane at the moment! Would be like walking down your local village street where everyone flocks to the same pub

Is that not a few years out of date? it maxed out in 2012 or so.

https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12960-019-0365-5


I was surprised to hear somebody commend Dubai's weather. While nice in the winter the best way to experience Dubai in Summer is indoors.

As for San Francisco, the glory days of San Francisco are well past it. It's still a pretty city of course, in parts, and doesn't have that much of a crime rate by US standards. However you are still paying $3-$4,000 per month for a 2 bedroomed apartment where you might be stepping out into human faeces when you step outside, or trash on the street, or humans on the street of course.

It's like a dystopia in many ways, like one of those science fiction movies where the rich are super rich and the rest are struggling or on the streets. There probably is some of the old hippy character to it in some jobs, but in general they work as hard there as New York. That said I liked it in my 20s but no way did i think then I was staying, and that was 15 years ago when prices were a manageable $2K for a two bedroom.

CBear1993

Nope, I've found from about 2017 to now, especially in ireland, the amount of young people in the last 3 years who have went to australia is mad. There are countless GAA teams in my home county that have lost 6 &7 players from the team due to emigration to australia only. When I was out there for a year there was a group of about 25-30 from the county that hung around at the weekends. Not exactly "getting abroad to experience somewhere else" is it !

San Francisco..maybe you're right, my brief month in it I just was blown away by it and thought it was amazing. But then a holiday is never like living somewhere. Are you still in the US?

FVP3

San Francisco..maybe you're right, my brief month in it I just was blown away by it and thought it was amazing. But then a holiday is never like living somewhere. Are you still in the US?

A month is quite a long time but you were presumably in a nice enough area. Look at rent there. If you were happy for a month you might be happy for a year, however they do work hard and you said you found New York to be too hard working.


I am back more than a decade. As I said San Francisco was never going to be permanent. I like visiting it now, but wouldnt live there again.

Granadino

What about smaller cities on the east coast of the US? Boston etc. NYC is a fantastic city, if you're loaded with money.
Or smaller cities on the west coast. Seattle, Portland etc. There are probably places the size of Cork city, which we've never heard of over there.
But if you're asking about moving without taking the type of job into account, I'd go for the north of Spain, Basque country. Good weather, good food, good lifestyle, good people, the Atlantic.
NZ over Aus too. I only visited NZ, the south island for 3 weeks, and the countryside was far less "harsh" than the Aussie countryside.

Zascar

FVP3 wrote: »

I was surprised to hear somebody commend Dubai's weather. While nice in the winter the best way to experience Dubai in Summer is indoors.

The summers definitely hot - it's up in the late 30's and early 40s for about 3 months - but the rest of the year is glorius. Hoenstly the summer was not as bad as I thought it would be - yes it's hot but it beats the sh1t out of the bitter cold or constant dreary overcast you get in Ireland for half the year. When you are cold it gets into your bones and its horrible. When you are hot, you go into Air Conditioning and you are nice and cool in seconds. In the summer your activities change and you don't spend a lot of time outdoors but you can still be in the pool and in the shade - again better than wind, rain and rain cold.

I cannot tell you how nice it is to live in a hot country and never have to wear a jacket or jumper, and when I'm home I'm mostly in nothing but shorts/boxers. Driving around with the windows down and sunglasses on, I'm really not sure I could go back to ireland the weather is just depressing.

FVP3

Zascar wrote: »

The summers definitely hot - it's up in the late 30's and early 40s for about 3 months - but the rest of the year is glorius. Hoenstly the summer was not as bad as I thought it would be - yes it's hot but it beats the sh1t out of the bitter cold or constant dreary overcast you get in Ireland for half the year. When you are cold it gets into your bones and its horrible. When you are hot, you go into Air Conditioning and you are nice and cool in seconds. In the summer your activities change and you don't spend a lot of time outdoors but you can still be in the pool and in the shade - again better than wind, rain and rain cold.

I cannot tell you how nice it is to live in a hot country and never have to wear a jacket or jumper, and when I'm home I'm mostly in nothing but shorts/boxers. Driving around with the windows down and sunglasses on, I'm really not sure I could go back to ireland the weather is just depressing.

The weather here is pretty good now, you are basically saying that its ok if you are indoors, which is also true of rainy Ireland or anywhere with a cold winter. The weather is always good indoors unless you have a hole in the roof or can't afford the heating or anr conditioning.

I have lived in hot countries but they were more reasonable than Dubai is in summer. Not that I like the winters here either.

Skidfingers

I was in America last summer, San Diego to be exact. Was class. Everything so relaxed and it’s a gorgeous city, although rent is very expensive. I’m also a QS but I was labouring last summer. There didn’t seem to be a great deal of work going on in construction, took me 2-3 weeks to find work labouring which was longer then I thought (and longer then the likes of San Fran, NYC, Boston, Chicago etc.). Didn’t realise how good it was till I came home.

How would you go about even getting sponsored out there? I’d love to know how the sponsoring works.

CBear1993

Try to get in with one of the big consultancies, that are over here as well. DM me if you want. Friend got in with one of them for New York.

Queasy Tadpole

The reason for people not mentioning Australia is because it's full of Irish. The idea of leaving this country just to be surrounded by Irish people is not appealing at all. The US is near impossible to move to. You need to marry a citizen or have a job willing to sponsor which is much more difficult than Canada/New Zealand/Australia.

the-island-man

My wife and I spent two and half years in Switzerland in a village about a 20 minute train ride south of Zürich.

If you enjoy your pints at the weekend probably not the place for you. For me, it was a place that I'll never forget. We spent the majority of our days off\holidays either traveling to different parts of Switzerland on the train, surrounding countries or further a field.

I worked for a pharma company as a Software Engineer and my wife worked as a nanny.

I'm glad I'm back home to be close to family but I could have easily seen myself spend the rest of my life there.

Ireland is a lovely country but if you're starting from scratch here it's very hard to get ahead of the curve before you're old and grey!

victor8600

I had moved to Ireland in my early twenties. It was not a well thought out decision. A reasonable, less adventurous choice for me would be Germany or England.

But I am so glad that I chose to come here. I just love the Irish culture, its people and the craic. The politicians not so much. What I am trying to say is that a good, well balanced choice may not be the best thing. Going somewhere less obvious may work out better

CBear1993

Queasy Tadpole wrote: »

The reason for people not mentioning Australia is because it's full of Irish. The idea of leaving this country just to be surrounded by Irish people is not appealing at all. The US is near impossible to move to. You need to marry a citizen or have a job willing to sponsor which is much more difficult than Canada/New Zealand/Australia.

+1. A night out in bondi junction at the moment would be like coppers on all Ireland night

CBear1993

CBear1993 wrote: »

+1. A night out in bondi junction at the moment would be like coppers on all Ireland night

This is my third time living here.

Came for the first time in 1998.

The Irish have a weird habit of leaving Ireland to go to a smaller Ireland in a different country.

Never got it myself.

I’ve been here 5 years now and genuinely have only met 1-2 Irish people. Maybe that’s because I don’t drink very often.

As someone that left Ireland to experience something different I’ve never got the whole fascination/desire to connect with the Irish community abroad. It confuses the **** out of me as to why people do that. Each to their own.

This is an amazing country. Safe. Clean. Great health care. Great standard of life/living. Great opportunities. I can’t think of a negative. It can be a bit boring though. The culture here does seem to be early to bed and early to rise.

It’s not comparable to Ireland. Each time I go back to Ireland I’m thankful I left. I have family in England and when I visit there I despair. A horrible grotty and crime ridden country. Very few opportunities for the youth. Ireland seems to be heading that way too.

Have lived in America and while I loved the experience (I will go again but only to travel for 1-2 years) I think it’s a horrid rat race. If you’re not swimming you’re definitely sinking.

Canada is next on my list to live for a few years. After that I’ll decide where to live/retire. From my experiences and from talking to people I’ll be surprised if I don’t retire to Australia or Canada. New Zealand is also on the list but I feel like I’d need to have the money, already in the bank, to retire to move there.

And the Junction has lost one of its Irish hotspots. The cock n Bull was demolished and apartments are going up in its place. No loss. A business that did very very well out of the Irish need for alcohol to socialise. A sad place that won’t be missed.

snoopboggybog

Honestly wherever you move to the novelty wears off after a few months.

Returning from the US now after two years here and looking forward to going home.