Yeah, certainly depends exactly where you go. A capital city and a rural town will feel extremely different on English speaking (and cultural/political views at that).

I think it’s quite possible to do though. Happy to chat or answer any specific questions you have, especially if they’re Scandinavia based.

It’s a tough choice to do something like you’re talking about but extremely fulfilling. I wouldn’t trade the decision for the world at this point. I wish you the best of luck!

US ex pat here:

I think you will find more success in this if you find a place or two you want to live in and run TO something instead of AWAY from something. It’ll always be a bit of both, but this post reads more like (very understandably) “get me out of here” than “I want to be somewhere new”.

Being an ex pat has plenty of hard aspects of course. I think some of them are made quite a bit easier when you passionately dive into the culture and life in a new place. At least to me it would be impossible if my head was still in the US.

Of course you’re doing nothing wrong! Just some advice if it gets a bit more serious.

Like many in the thread: Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Scandinavia, Germany, UK (not that they’re doing fantastic right now), Netherlands would be my top choices with your criteria. Most large companies will be more likely to have English speaking as the working language and you’ll learn the local language (s) while living there. Best of luck!

Met my coworkers after work yesterday. 21 minute bike or car ride by the GPS. By the time they parked downtown it was 35 mins, meanwhile I shaved a minute off the GPS :) feels goooood

I’m glad you asked!

I didn’t really like the aesthetic at first so I was on the fence.

It’s 3D, and most things take up more space with plenty of them taking some height as well. This makes the builds a bit more complex in a fun way. Also, the scaling is wild. You need a LOT more shapes, so you can duplicate or make more efficient things, ship them by train eventually, really makes it feel like a different game by the end than it does in the start.

They have a huge content update coming June 2 as well

Frostpunk 2 is a really interesting one to me.

I LOVED the first game. Soundtrack on in the background sometimes, liked the board game (just manual meh balance FP1), got all the achievements, really enjoyed it.

The second IS a good distinction from it, it’s not just rinse and repeat the same game. Great story, epic music, different scale and problems. It’s just like… They took the second tier of ideas they had for FP1 and implemented them. It actually probably would have been a good game if it didn’t have those footsteps to follow in.

Surprisingly, a few recent sequels have been amazing. Shapez2 is an unbelievable follow up to the OG. Hades II is the same imo. Massive, beautiful, fun distinction in gameplay, but still great ideas and balanced and such.

Monster Train 2 is great in demo, Kingdoms 2 crowns is a bit less recent but is such a great follow up to what’s effectively an arcade game in the first. It’s not all downhill or anything

Also silksong wen

Southern Scandinavia checking in with 13 and sunny with a light breeze

10 is optimistic imo

I couldn’t find any properly dumb tvs in a recent search and got a Google TV. You can set it up in “dumb mode” at startup and it never does a thing online. Can even do firmware vis USB if you felt like it for some reason.

Happy with it so far! 4k and OLED, a decent price imo as well. I’d rather it be fully dumb but this is close enough.

They’re efficient and have no sense of humor

Dave not coming back

I have a bit of an ocean/diving fear and some mild claustrophobia, so this is the perfect doc to scare the crap out of me

I do basically only play indie games sans like, 2-3 Nintendo games per console generation. but yeah, sure feels like you get it all in the worst way

Okay, fair enough. Just appreciating the lack of shit and (for something like an Animal Crossing or a BoTW quality Zelda game) I’m super happy to pay that much for a game I’ll sink hundreds of hours into, and I’d rather reward that price hike than any other form of monetization by them.

I’m real enraged by like 99% of things on the internet and in the world these days, but this pales in comparison to the rapid pace of enshittification I feel like I’ve had in virtually every other place in my life.

Still don’t love it.

Okay, here’s a slightly hot take.

I’d rather the price go up and the games remain ad free and high quality (not you, pokemon, you can get fucked) than become enshittified with micro transactions, ads, etc

I don’t like it. But it’s much more acceptable to me

I live in Denmark. I’ve met a few people who don’t speak any English but they’re not Danish :D

Also it’s a fun language learning trope here that it’s hard to practice because people will just reply in English if your pronunciation isn’t good/it’s obvious you’re not Danish. It’s not ubiquitous but it definitely exists sometimes

Totally agree, but you really never know where would be insulated from everything

I mean surely in the 1930s Hawaii felt like an excellent place to be insulated from war…

All I have to add is be careful investing in a Roth if you plan to leave the US. Some countries don’t acknowledge it as a retirement vessel and tldr it’s a pretty bad investment if that’s the case

Cash travels, sell your non -heirloom stuff.

Doesn’t need to be a lawyer, relocation companies are amazing at this stuff. They can help with taxes, government registration, all of it

Totally. But “down pat” and conversational are a bit different.

US ex pat here:

I agree with a big decision, but I strongly disagree with needing the language down pat before you go. You should know some for sure, and mostly have a willingness to learn it. You’re going to learn so much faster while there than you will studying in the US.

Just need enough language to get by at first

Does… Does this person reach through the legs from the front?