I moved from the US to Europe, people are wrong when they think it’s a utopia

They loved their jobs; they made a difference and their schedule was flexible. I remember thinking, “Is there a job like this for me?”

I graduated from college in 2009 during the financial crisis. I wasn’t sure what to do with my life, so I took the first job that would have me – at Dave and Buster’s.

During this time, my husband and I were taking major 10-day trips around Europe and we weren’t sleeping because we were trying to see as much as possible.

We thought the best way to continue traveling Europe was to move there, but we didn’t know how. Europe has always had a pull on me – it’s always been in the back of my mind.

In 2011, I started a travel blog called Helene In Between.

I wondered if I would ever be able to make money from it, but at the time no one was making money online.

I continued to hack. I tried and failed many different ways with the blog and finally found a way to monetize it.

The blog gave my husband and I the freedom to move abroad, and in 2016, we moved to Heidelberg, Germany without ever setting foot in the country.

Moving to Europe was not a utopia

We spent a year researching where to move before landing in Germany.

All of our previous trips had been to larger cities, but this time, we were going to a smaller city and seeing something I had never seen before.

It felt like a completely different world, like when Harry Potter first walked into the wizarding world.

We were charged with emotion. And then, of course, reality set in. Everything is different. It’s another language.

There are pros and cons to absolutely every place on the planet. I often see things online like, “If I were to move to Europe, my life would be better.”

Living any life this way—saying, “If this happens, then I’ll be happy”—is a recipe for disaster. Because wherever you go, there you are. You will still have issues and problems that arise. Keeping an open mind and seeing what you can learn is really beneficial.

We often think of Europe as a utopia because of its healthcare system or because workers have more free time. There is certainly something to be said for these things.

But making a general statement about Europe is wrong. Life can be hard no matter where you are.

Life in the UK

After three years in Germany, we returned to the US.

We bought an RV and traveled across America, splitting our time between that and spending time with family in Dallas.

Four years later, we moved to Oxford, England.

It was so wonderful because Oxford, in my opinion, is a lot like Heidelberg. Both are university cities – Heidelberg has the oldest university in Germany and Oxford has the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

It is also close to London and the airport. It was the perfect choice.

The plan is to stay in England for two years, then come back to the US and really start exploring. We have never been to Australia, New Zealand or South America and we want to do some longer trips to other places.

There are always more places to explore.

What has been so exciting about living abroad is the ebbs and flows. There are super high highs and low lows. You miss your friends and family back home. You often feel lost, whether it’s lost in translation, lost while driving, or lost in the various rules.

But it was always worth it.