If anyone else finds themself in this position, I highly recommend you sell what you can, pack the rest up into a storage unit, and travel, 4 or 6 months in each location.
$80k can easily last you 4+ years of very comfortable living in much of the world. Enjoy the food, really try and learn some of the local language, and enjoy yourself.
My wife and I always say that the most dangerous show on television is "House Hunters International".
"I need a 3 bedroom apartment with a full kitchen in the village center, with at least parking for one car, I have a budget of $300/mo".
"Here's at least three options"
It also bring up a kind of discomfort between us, as tech workers, and regular people. The quantity of money we can earn, even at the lower end in the U.S., is unfathomable. It makes us want to go places and spend somewhat frivolously to support local businesses.
We were recently in Portugal. There's a ton of trendy food spots with prices near what we'd pay in HCOL U.S., but there's a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with absolutely incredibly prices, and they're incredibly appreciative of your business.
One place we frequented was maybe a 30 second walk from a very trendy tourist district, but served local food at very local prices. Ubers were lined up to drop people to go overpay for mediocre food in the district, literally on the street next to where we were eating. If they would have just taken a moment, they could have come and had a great relaxed meal and support some locals for almost next to nothing.
> We were recently in Portugal. There's a ton of trendy food spots with prices near what we'd pay in HCOL U.S., but there's a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with absolutely incredibly prices, and they're incredibly appreciative of your business.
I hear that - last time I was in Lisbon I got breakfast in one of those kind of places and had to ask the cashier if they made a mistake with the change and had given me back too much. Like literally, they could have charged double I would have accepted it as a fair price for a nice meal.
Yeah, we were sensitive to that fact. It's unfortunate.
We came across more than a couple business owners who had side hustles as property speculators. One owner basically said that he's buying whatever he can get his hands on since there's a guaranteed return.
As tourists we're of course part of the problem, but we're also a lot of the economy. I think Lisbon is also somewhat in a problem like San Francisco, constrained geography, and paradise for the climate, all creating very high demand from people who have the money. People with money will simply outpay people with less to live in more desirable areas.
It doesn't help that Portugal also has very cheap/easy long-term/permanent visa programs which doesn't help. They're almost one of the easiest ones globally that also gets you into the EU. https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/portugal-residency-vi...
As a Lisbon native, please don't feel like you're part of the problem. We've painted ourselves into a corner by failing to build more than a couple of thousand homes per year for a decade. I'm not even exaggerating, a few thousand new units per year is our current rate of building as a mega-popular European capital, home to 3 million people.
At the same time as we've completely failed to expand housing stock, we invented a new visa to allow wealthy foreigners to immigrate without a hitch. Then later a new visa to allow anyone who wanted to immigrate without a hitch (which about 600k people from developing economies took advantage of in the last five years).
There is nothing about our situation that has been worsened by tourism. It's the one economic sector driving the country forwards and I'm personally very grateful it has developed so much. A large part of my extended network can only make ends meet because of jobs created by tourism.
Not a lie, but not globally true. The price of milk and bread hasn't gone up because of extra people. Neither has the pice of gas. I know plenty of people who own their homes or have old bulletproof rental contracts that have felt the crunch of rising prices.
I finished college right at the beginning of the financial crisis. I can't overstate how bad of a state Portugal was in around 2010. There have been no jobs and no money for a long time. Since I can remember we have been the third world of the first world. Tourism and outside investment in real estate have been the one thing that's capitalised Portugal in a decade. There's been nothing else for decades.
Of course you're right that there have been economic losers from this recent large influx of people. The poorer segment especially has been betrayed by a government who opened the doors to functionally slave labour from Pakistan. There's no competing with half a million people who will pay to work if they're given a contract that allows them to stay in the EU. But that's not tourism's fault. We created our own reality.
The exact same conversations about lack of housing supply is happening in Ireland and the UK. The problem is highlighted now because the rate of immigration has increased sharply.
I have only met poor retirees when living abroad. The sort of people that have never been abroad before but love the low prices (and spend most of their time talking about it). I don’t think the House Hunters demographic has much money.
There are plenty of wealthy (by local standards) US retirees floating around the cheaper parts of Europe. The sort of folks who bought a house in New England in the 80's, and now it sold for a couple of million in cash - that sort of money goes a long way in a place like Spain or Portugal
As I near retirement I've thought about moving somewhere else, but never really thought about that someplace else being outside the US. But thinking about it, I think there are several other countries that would actually fit in well with most of what I'd need for a pleasant retirement. US citizens who retire abroad can still collect US Social Security so going abroad wouldn't affect my retirement income.
But what about healthcare? How do non-rich US citizens who retire abroad deal with that? There are actually two aspects to that--how do you get healthcare abroad, and if you later move back to the US are there problems getting on Medicare?
> But what about healthcare? How do non-rich US citizens who retire abroad deal with that?
You should look into it. It very much depends on the country.
But typically you just start paying taxes or fees or whatnot into whatever the national system is in place. Most countries will require you to have proof of some type of outside insurance before immigrating.
There are overseas specific health insurance plans you can get on -- typically not very expensive because healthcare in the rest of the world isn't insane. [1]
Most countries also have a cash-only payment schedule. Unlike the U.S., fees for health services are typically known up front.
In any case, even paying cash, you're likely to find healthcare outside of the U.S. (in tier-1 countries like the EU, Japan, Korea, etc.) to be high quality and very low cost -- often cheaper than healthcare in the U.S. with insurance.
> but there's a ton of really local, mom 'n pop places, with absolutely incredibly prices, and they're incredibly appreciative of your business
Yep, I was in Portugal back in June and was blown away by how nice it was. City life, the beach towns and overall prices of things. That was my first time going to the EU from the US.
I was on vacation so I ate out every day for all meals but I don't think I paid more than $5 for breakfasts and most sit down dinners were $12-15 all-in. I splurged one night in Lisbon and had the craziest plate of sushi I've ever seen and it was $18. That was from a 4.9 rated sushi bar with ~800 reviews.
My total food bill for 14 days of solo traveling was ~$475 and I wasn't purposely trying to budget. That includes randomly trying a lot of things that I normally wouldn't do like getting a fresh smoothie while walking around because why not. That food bill also includes 3 days in south western Spain because I moved around to a few cities (Seville, Spain -> Lagos, Portugal -> Lisbon, Portugal was the loop I took with day trips to a couple of places).
If it makes you feel any better, most of that show is faked. My friend was on it; she had already moved to another country and into her new apartment before applying to the show. Her apartment is where she “ended up”.
They flew her back to the US, where she’s from, to do filming there and have us friends come by to throw frisbees and talk about how much they’ll miss her. It was weird.
The trivial ability to use even a small fraction of this wealth to improve a huge amount of lives is exactly what the “effective altruist” crowd should be creaming themselves over.
The fact that I can buy a house in Thailand for something insanely cheap also means that I can make sure that the local school has whatever they need, for basically just a haircut.
You can take the local orphanage and make sure hundreds of kids are comfortable for hundreds of USD a month.
USD and EUR are in for a massive correction in foreign exchange value. It's not like a dollar earned in reality is worth ten times more than what a person in Thailand earns. So enjoy it while it lasts. The law of supply and demand means that as the supply of USD and EUR to other countries increases, their value will decrease. Especially the EUR, which has nothing to back it up. At least the USD has the world police to back up the currency value.
Foreign nations need USD because global trade is conducted in USD. Global leaders are arguing about this right in this very moment, BRICS feel they might leave the dollar without fear of being bombed. The EU has no military means to backup their currency exchange rate, only import and export. And if more Europeans are moving their spending abroad, that will diminish the value of EUR.
O Golfinho, literally right outside of LxFactory. You'd have to work hard to spend more than 12 euros a person. Simple, local food. Lots of specials (soup, sandwich, fries, beer for like 9-10 euro). Run by an older couple who spoke no English and treated us like we were their niece and nephew. I think both of us got in and out of there for under 20 euro combined.
For a bit higher-end, we liked Cantinho do Sol near the Marques De Pombal circle. I think we spent maybe 20-25 euros a person there, were stuffed to the gills, and nearly drown in our drinks. Employees were lovely Brazilians in the front of house and the owner, a local I think, was the chef.
My brother and his wife did this; quit their jobs and spent a year in Europe "slow living" (still did a bit of consulting work, maybe 10 hours/week), but with careful planning were able to keep their expenses waaay down (not sure of exact figure but much less than if living in the US). Month-long AirBNBs in non-tourist areas are inexpensive, so they'd spend 1 month in each place. A lot of walking, hiking, trains, just living. Not Paris, London or Zurich of course, but places like Albania, Montenegro, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, France of course. (Part of the reason for going to those countries is you can only spend so long in the Schengen Zone.) So you don't have to go as far as Vietnam or Ecuador to do this.
Obviously the OP has no children (and my brothers' kids are grown up) - if you have kids this changes the equation completely (though if they're very young then it can still work).
I have a cousin and his wife who did this with kids. They sold everything, bought an RV, and traveled north and Central America. They were homeschooling during that time. Their kids were 5 and 7.
It was not good.
I cannot stress enough how bad of an idea this is unless your children are under 3. Children need structure and permanency. They need friends, not just acquaintances. My cousin did everything else right, but his kids still have issues with relationships because 5 of their very formative years were spent without actual friends. It's really sad to think about.
For him, it was a wildly selfish move that negatively impacted his children. Don't be that guy.
I totally agree this is bad for the kids. Fwiw please try to encourage the kids to break out of their shell and socialize in college/high school/when they can. I moved a ton growing up, went to four different high schools, etc, and had a really hard time being “normal” with other people. In grad school I got a TA position that forced me to do 1:1 meetings with ~300 new students every semester, and that experience taught me how to be more normal. I’m still weird, but at least can fit in with Bay Area engineers. All this to say — I didn’t have their experience, but I think they can ameliorate it
Weird doesn't exist. You are not weird. You are not normal.
This may be different to your situation, but when i was younger I wanted people to like me, and if they didn't I'd blame myself for being weird. Now I'm older, I don't give a shit if people like me or not, and I've stopped thinking of myself as weird.
Weird definitely exists. If you can’t form social connections well with pretty much everyone you run into, you’re weird. You can pontificate about the proper terminology but that’s the one society understands.
I am very weird and quite capable of making friends with people. I am not super extrovert, I need concentrated down time. And will ignore people when I am doing the introvert phase. But overal people find me sociable. Weird just means not normal. It's basically a codified statistical concept.
There's whether or not you can make friends at all, and how choosy you are about who to make friends with, which aren't really the same thing.
As a moderate introvert (handle social situations OK but need the down time to balance), I just find some people aren't worth the effort, and like to save my energy for those that are.
But the weird/normal axis, I'm a little less comfortable with (similarly "neurotypical"/"neurodivergent"). Fundamentally I dislike the idea of letting the most boring people claim normal, in a similar way to how LGBTQ and nonwhite folks don't like it when cishet or white people claim normal. Most of the people I most enjoy spending time with are ADD, ADHD or ASD, and all the better for it. It's not like these are even disabilities, they're just different ways of being.
I'm OK with the labels themselves as a broad, shorthand way of understanding personality types / ways of seeing the world, but I don't buy that no-label people are more normal.
I agree to some extent, and I am getting better at just being comfortable in my own skin, but I think social conventions matter too. Eg I shouldn’t act overly surprised when someone says they’re a morning person, but I should/can do that when they say they’re pregnant. If you get too many conventions wrong, people are uncomfortable lol
Edit: I realized I didn’t respond as directly as I’d like to. I think I do want people to like me, and that’s ok. I think it’s also ok to not care
Thank you for the considered and insightful response. This is obviously a deeply person topic and each individual will have their own take on how they feel.
I think the key point in all of this, which you and others highlighted, is weird vs not weird is very much a consequence of social conventions. It's also important, generally speaking, to fit into these conventions to facilitate social cohesion. There are obviously extremes, which are outside of my considerations here.
I should have put more effort into my original comment but I was in a rush at the time. This bit might not apply to you, I don't know you, these are just my own poor articulations. Feeling like you are weird, or don't fit in, or make people uncomfortable, basically comes down to peoples reflections of their judgement on you. This is inescapable and to judge is human nature. But being on the wrong side of it, for long enough, can lead to a very negative mental state. Having the ability to realise you are not responsible for other peoples feelings is important. And also realising these feelings are largely dictated by the society you find yourself in is also important. These things can be changed, social circles need not be permanent, and should probably be changed if leading to a negative mental state, brought about because you feel you don't fit in.
I stand by my original point that there is no such thing as weird or normal, anymore so than some cultures or societies can appear weird or normal, which is highly relative. Otherwise intelligent and conscientious people should not believe themselves to be less than they are because they are at odds with their current time and place. As Yuval Noah Harari would say, society is a fiction.
Don’t worry at all, I think your original post was fine too, and I agree with what you say! I think some of this comes down to personal preference, how you want to relate to the world, and who you want to surround yourself with. “Different strokes for different folks” :)
If most people aren’t like you, you are not normal by definition.
Good for you that you learned to cope with that. After the ‘don’t give a shit’ stage there usually is ‘sit back and observe’ stage to understand what exactly you don’t give a shit about.
Define "most people"? Clearly an absurd question in the context of this discussion. It's like saying "Most people on earth are not like you". How do you define that?
I actually laughed out loud at how different this is to the usual "be yourself and to hell with what people think" advice. Can you elaborate on why it's so important to care if people like you?
Not OP, but we humans are social animals. As much as we may want to pretend we live alone just fine, it's not the common case. Sure, some people enjoy solitude and don't have to care about what others think, but most of us enjoy company, and this comes with caring about others and what they think of you.
You surely care about what your partner thinks about you. Your parents perhaps? Your friends? It's part of the emotional connection.
You can be laid back and easy going, but you're still going to care if your loved ones strongly go against your core beliefs and ways of living, right?
Also, whether we like it or not we depend on other people. If you want to get hired, reproduce, sell stuff, or just not be a hermit, it matters what people think of you.
Sometimes that means changing who you are. Sometimes it means finding people who are more like you (I know that I hate living in most rural areas based on the people I've met in them, for instance). Maybe a combination.
Yeah, most of the advice is really bad, because they want to avoid the harsh truth: that things aren't necessarily going to work out. You can't sell a self-help book that teaches "you need people to love you but you might be left alone forever". People want a guaranteed solution but that simply doesn't exist.
However, a lot of people, like the person I originally replied to, choose to remain alone, and that's often because they are scared of rejection or of being left alone. It's kind of ironic, like a contradiction. Longing for connection, but being so scared of rejection that you force the rejection to happen yourself, so that it doesn't happen to you involuntarily, but by forcing that rejection through self-isolation you basically guarantee your doom rather than opening the possibility for flourishing.
At the very least your parents need to tolerate you, because you depend on them for living during your early years. So early on it is a simple survival necessity.
It turns out that this necessity never truly goes away. Aside from merely surviving (e.g. you need your doctor to at least tolerate you) interacting with other human is what makes life more than just surviving. At least it’s like that for most people.
Even hermits and sociopaths need to be liked by at least one person, which is their own selves. Since the number must be at least one, it might as well be 2 or 3.
> At the very least your parents need to tolerate you, because you depend on them for living during your early years. So early on it is a simple survival necessity.
Yep, and even a slight degradation of that trust that your parents that are necessary for your survival will protect you can have devastating, life-long psychological effects. And indeed everything can be traced back to that.
Perhaps controversial but I think this is the origin of most religion: baby is protected by infinitely powerful parents, child has shocking and painful revelation that their parents are not infinitely powerful and have all kinds of insecurities and weakness, therefore a forever infallible representative (e.g. God) is constructed to fill in that gap.
But I think that's just one way to fill the gap, and people engage in all kinds of strange, obsessive behaviours to try and reclaim that illusion of eternal protection and safety.
i used to think that moving frequently when i was young was the cause of why i didn't make any friends, but i realized that there was much more to it. if the kids have relationship issues, then i suspect it wasn't the frequent travel that caused that but it may also have been relationship issues with the parents as well. staying in one place and going to school may have mitigated the issue or it may have not. we can't say. my parents went through a divorce when we moved, and we didn't get any help from family or community while my parents tried to sort out their lives. there wasn't much, if anything they could have done better. the things that happened were more or less unavoidable.
obviously i don't know your cousin, but before you blame him, consider that there may have been other factors that you can't see, that were beyond their control.
the worst thing in my experience is relatives who think they know what i am doing wrong as a parent, without understanding the whole picture. (friends too, but once friends do that, they are no longer friends). try not to be that person.
> the worst thing in my experience is relatives who think they know what i am doing wrong as a parent
Glad someone said it! I’m disinclined to take any parenting advice from a peer group that’s been raising kids on tablets for the last 10 years. But ya, moving around is the concern hah. God forbid they see life outside the suburbs.
I dont really see the issue here? Obviously the parents are the stable anchor in that situation, and the kids probably had a great time traveling and exploring the world with their parents. I would honestly prefer that compared to the usual childhood experience you get nowadays, which is sitting around watching youtube brainrot right after being subjected to public school brainrot for 8 hours.
> I would honestly prefer that compared to the usual childhood experience you get nowadays, which is sitting around watching youtube brainrot right after being subjected to public school brainrot for 8 hours.
There are more alternatives than the extreme you're describing.
I am into sailing and know a bunch of people that grew up “cruising the world” on sailboats with their parents. They’re almost all well adjusted, successful, and have unusually good social skills from learning how to make friends with people from other cultures. I think the structure and permanence that kids need is emotionally mature and available parents- the physical part is not the important part. Also, kids can have mental health problems and developmental disorders that have nothing to do with parenting- and it’s pretty awful to blame parents for their kids problems unless they intentionally abused them.
Hol up. Sailing culture is VERY different from RV culture. I lived on a sailboat for years, going up and down the US coast, startup hopping. The sailing culture is very friendly, especially to kids (who are treated more like small adults than children). The people I met along the way are life-long friends. If I needed a ride to an auto store to pick up new house batteries, engine parts, or even to a Walmart, there were always people to give me a ride.
RV culture is much more lonely and expects people to be more self-sufficient. If you need help, there may or may not be people to help you; for sure, the whole campsite won’t jump to help, unlike a marina.
I don’t think that’s true of RV culture at all. I currently live on the road with my partner, and while we don’t yet have kids, we’ve met dozens of families and many more dozens of kids. All were more than capable of socializing and making friends, both with adults and other kids, and could often be found running around whatever campground or forest we were parked at.
Certainly you can live a very isolated life on the road, but just like when living in a house if you put yourself out there there is a welcoming community that will respond.
Yes, I absolutely love how other adults in the sailing community treat my kid with kindness and respect, and listen to them the same as any adult. Sailing is somewhat of a dying thing- few young people do it and the older people are mostly really excited to see kids in the community.
We don’t actually live on a sailboat in the sense of this discussion, but a lot of our friends do.
It’s funny you mention sailing. The couple people I know who grew up on a boat sailing like you describe no longer talk to their parents and long for a normal childhood they didn’t have.
It's presumptuous to claim child abuse, since we fundamentally know very little about the situation.
I wouldn't say it's abuse, but it's certainly depriving the kids from learning how to develop socially. They aren't learning how to maintain friendships, and are being implicitly taught that such connections are disposable.
I've had the misfortune to see actual child abuse, from the story presented in the OP it doesn't rise even close to that level. Let's please reserve words/phrases like that for situations that warrant it.
It may not be an ideal parenting strategy, but claiming it's abuse cheapens the word. Are the children being fed properly? Are they being physically/sexually harmed? I've unfortunately had to intervene in a situation with my niece that involved the above 3.
The parenting method in the OP may not be ideal, but plenty of people have had childhoods like that
My mom grew up moving every 5-8 months, her dad was a contractor for the TVA. There are still people who follow around contracting work. Please don't minimize that actual harm caused by child abuse by cheapening the term.
While one is undoubtedly worse than the other, I don’t think it’s a good idea to say it’s not abuse because it’s not as bad as the worst possible variety.
I happen to agree this probably doesn’t rise to the level of child abuse, but there’s a large range between there and unfed/physically/sexually harmed.
We shouldn’t cheapen it, but we shouldn’t make it too expensive either.
You’re right. But this is decidedly not abuse; it’s a parenting style that many are unaccustomed to, and perhaps doesn’t work as well in the US, I have no idea.
But it’s not abuse.
You’re correct that physical/sexual harm and malnutrition are not the only things that constitute abuse either, though.
Humans have been nomads for most of our existence. I think if the traveling group had been larger so that there were consistent friendships of various ages that it might have gone differently. Carnival workers are a modern example in NA, they have traveling homeschools as they go to each ren-fair or whatever. So there are permanent friends, but the structure is pretty lacking.
Yes I know a woman who grew up this way, moving every couple of years, nothing ever permanent. As an adult, she has lived a life of self-sabotage, quitting jobs, moving and starting over, in and out of relationships with self-destructive men, never saving any money, never really planning for the future.
My family moved nearly every year (and sometimes twice a year) until I was in high school. I loved the changes. I liked that when I went someplace new, the only thing my peers knew about me was what I told them. I made many friends over the years and I’d like to think that I am happy. So YMMV.
This is correlation. Plenty of people are brought up this way and are completely fine, and plenty of people are just like this and stayed in one place their entire lives.
I know a woman who grew up in the typical way, in a stable loving household. As an adult, she has lived a life of self-sabotage, quitting jobs, moving and starting over, in and out of relationships with self-destructive men, never saving any money, never really planning for the future.
I mean, the adult life you describe doesn't sound different from my brother, and growing up we moved once.
Edit: my brother grew up into a child abusing POS by neglecting his kids, but let's looks at statistics VS anecdotes since individuals from all backgrounds can be garbage people.
This is not child abuse. It’s an anecdote of two kids. I’m sure the parents were very loving. Another pair of kids could turn out perfectly fine doing this.
In the above scenario, they were depriving their kids of any kind of meaningful friendship with peers during a critical development period. This is neglect, and neglect is abuse in children. If you care about your children, why would you risk permanently impairing their ability to form healthy relationships?
I'm not sure the average school peers are any better. Unless we're talking private education. Do consider that for the better part of history, even in school, kids were not separated into years.
That they need permanency, sure but that's the parents and the living situation
> Kids need structure and permanency. This is child abuse
Sorry, but this is BS.
Structure, yes. Permanency, no.
And certainly not child abuse.
I know just as many examples of people with this experience, for whom it was amazingly positive and contributed to the successful people they are today.
There is an extraordinary amount of scientific evidence that frequent moving during childhood severely impacts child psychology. I am not even sure how you can say it is BS while throwing up anecdotal experience.
Most of your "evidence" has to do with kids moving between foster homes, or families running out in the middle of the night because they don't have money to make rent.
No, this is extensively tested and include educated, higher social-class and stable families. Make a consultation with a practicing psychologist if you doubt the dozens of studies carried out across nations in both the West and the East.
"Even AFTER accounting for family background and achievement at the end of kindergarten, mobile students had significantly lower reading and math achievement tests scores in seventh grade."
"Frequent relocation was associated with higher rates of all measures of child dysfunction; 23% of children who moved frequently had repeated a grade vs 12% of children who never or infrequently moved. Eighteen percent of children who moved frequently had four or more behavioral problems vs 7% of children who never or infrequently moved. Use of logistic regression to control for potential confounding covariates demonstrated that children who moved frequently were 77% more likely to be reported to have four or more behavioral problems"
If you're going to quote studies, you should cite then. Then we can pick apart what "mobile" means to your ivory tower researchers, which is almost definitely not "traveling the world as a healthy, happy, family unit."
Diplomats travel with their families. Employees of multi-nationals travel. US military travel. At least that last group (i.e. their kids) I know does better than average.
It seems to me that their survey intermingles two very different groups – the larger group, those who moved due to extreme financial insecurity (who would do MUCH worse), and those who moved under "positive" circumstances.
Literally the first three proposed explanations in the discussion of the findings in the meta-study you linked are correlational. It is only the fourth proposed explanation that suggests a possible causal relationship.
And how much of this is just correlation and not due to mobility per se?
From the first link you provided:
> Firstly, increased risk for onset of mental disorders between mid-adolescence and early middle age could be a consequence of serious and enduring difficulties within families, rather than being a direct result of residential mobility. Relocation occurs more commonly amongst single parent and step families and those from lower socioeconomic background
It cannot be dismissed as mere "correlation". These studies have been carried out on people of middle-class background too. Esp children of defense service personnel who have experienced frequent mobility. And studies carried out by different nations AND different cultures as well! Mental well-being is not mathematics - you cannot proof a definite cause with utterly no ambiguity.
Unfortunately, you took one single "could be" sentence out of an entire gamut of data confirming mobility-related mental health issues in children and completely ignored the conclusions section in that same paper, so I think you have already severely hardened your position and are unlikely to be convinced by anything I offer.
I would suggest simply talking to a practicing psychologist about this - you would probably be far more convinced than a HN commenter. Actually, this is where I first found out the same - I didn't know about this until a consultation with a psychologist.
(You can also ask your AI buddies - ChatGPT also confirmed it with several case studies offered.)
At the same time I doubt anyone would use that kind of thing as evidence for forcibly settling nomadic cultures. I'm somewhat curious because I'm sure they try to do things like divorce socioeconomic factors, abuse, poverty, and other negatives from such a conclusion. But as someone who moved 7 times through 7th grade and attended at least 6 different schools through that interval, I'm generally quite grateful to not have been dulled and stultified by living in one place my whole life. To the point that I've contemplated planning at least one or two significant moves so my own children don't end up excessively influenced by whatever locality specific tints and delusions color a place. (Maybe another way to put it is its easier to boil frogs that have always lived in the same pot.) But I also do think it's nice for kids to have a solid friend group for a good part of childhood, and so forth. I suspect there's got to be a lot more complexity to this. (And I will say I do think there's a connection between moving a lot and loneliness, but I view loneliness as distinct from generalized depression. But totally not scientific.)
Socializing kids is about actual interactions with other kids. Something that nomadic life takes away from them.
In many cases they simply dont have any friends at all.
Or are always the incomers.
Of course you can live in a place with lots of kids of your own age and still be lonly, or the kids can be dicks, but in my opinion there is benefit in socialization at age 4-10.
Kids could go out ans play together. The nomads cant.
IMO permanent group of friends and place, repetition, predictability are a foundation for growth. Then you can sprinkle one off things on top.
Not a life of unpredictable mess when you are on your own.
Also if you dont speak the local language how can one even socialize
Look, I get you may have a bad experience with loneliness growing up, but this doesn't generalise. Lots of us grew up traveling for one reason or another (RVs, sailboats, military/diplomatic kids, etc), and I'd say on average we're about as well-adjusted as the kids whole spent their whole childhood in one of the various school systems around the US
I would say don't be the guy judging another parent, or another anyone, for simply living their own life differently than you happened to choose to live yours. A different lifestyle isn't child abuse. Get over yourself.
We moved a lot as kids due to my dads jobs. It was nothing you can point at and call call crazy like living in a rv, just normal jobs like a million people have to deal with, yet has essentially the same effect as your nomad rv story. Some time in the air force followed by different electronics and computer engineering jobs that just resulted in a significant move every couple of years.
Depending on my mood I can say I didn't make a lot of friends or that I made exactly normal friends, and that any weirdness about me was caused by that, or was my own nature and that didn't change anything. I can think of argumants that sound reasonable both ways, and I can cite various facts (things about me, events and outcomes in my life, etc, and the same about others with different events and outcomes) that support both ways.
Which means what I choose to say or blame says more about me than anything else.
Every thing you can say about stability I can say something equal about conformity.
Shouldn't something that unavoidably severe show up pretty clearly at a population level for military kids? I'd think there'd be some high-profile lawsuits by now.
Military kids hang out with other military kids for protracted periods (6+ months). Living in an ev in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language is different.
I mean, 'military brat' is definitely a stereotype. I'm not a sociologist so not familiar with relevant research, but I would be shocked if it hadn't been studied.
One thing I would point out is that military kids are in a far different scenario than the OP's cousins kids. Military kids will grow up moving from base to base, but the schools around bases are fundamentally different. Those are schools where teachers are used to student turnover, and the students are as well. OP talked about kids that were in a more nomadic situation, where they could only form brief <1mo friendships. The local culture of these communities is also used to and adapted somewhat to this.
That sounds like childhood trauma to me, the closest analog might not be military children but the foster care system. Not a 100% analog, since presumably the OP's cousins kids didn't have the pre-existing trauma that entry into that system necessitates, but that is the closest conventional analog I can think of. Moving around constantly into communities that aren't necessarily set up to deal with that is rough.
My mom was a navy brat in the 60's and 70's and she didn't like moving all the time, but has said that having a bunch of other families right next door all with little kids and stay at home moms actually made for a pretty great childhood.
I think it depends on the children and duration. 5 years might have been too long -- you start getting to age 10-12 stable friends become more important. But I know plenty of people who did it for a couple of years with kids - homeschooling - and it was a great opportunity for them.
Our neighbors a few years back had spent years living on a boat with their child up until age 6, I think it was, and it was great. And their daughter had a very positive experience. But yeah, once she was older they moved onshore.
I don't think moving itself has a negative effect. If you stay long enough for your kids to establish friendships, sometimes those friendships can remain when you move. My 8 year old boy still plays almost daily online + FaceTime with his friend from 1st grade in another city even though they were only a year together they established a bond that is very strong years later and they haven't seen each other. They're still best friends.
What does issues with relationships mean in this context?
Also, it sounds like they were traveling for 5 years? Yeah, that does sound like a very long time - I imagine if it had been 1 year or so it might have been a very different story (?)
Right. Beautiful country and amazing people but even when I was there in 2022 people were really angry about inflation and now it seems even more dire looking at the exchange rate
they did it in 2023 but obviously yeah, it'll depend on the situation at the time and also where you go in a country
Same with the Adriatic. If you decide to stay in Dubrovnik or Split, for example, it'll be quite expensive, but there are other places to stay in Croatia that are non-touristy and inexpensive.
You can spend 6 months out of the year (and 90 consecutive days) in the Schengen on an US passport without any special visa, and these other countries usually let you stay as a tourist for 30 days without a visa, some 3 months.
Also Portugal has the Digital Nomad visa for 1 year renewable. That requires employment in the US (or elsewhere outside the EU) so not the same as what my brother was doing but a good option as the min wage requirements are not high; could get by with what would be part time work on a US salary esp in tech.
Given that op talks about not staying in the Schengen zone too long, I assume they just used tourist visas.
When I lived in Ireland I occasionally met people who would bounce between Ireland/UK and Schengen to reset their visa clocks (people from US, Canada, etc. can spend 3 months at a time, or 6 months a year, in Schengen, though eventually you might start getting tougher questions).
Stories like this make me the most mad at the Landlords/NIMBY's (sometimes the same people).
An $80,000 "investment" into a one person startup should take you much much much farther than this, but it is completely gobbled up by literal rent-seekers.
BAcK iN mY dAy a room in a house would cost $400-$500/mo in most places in the Montreal-Waterloo corridor. Now runways have basically been halved (0.3x'd?) as an extra allowance to the landed gentry.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent tech boom happen to be the owners of land and buildings in and around the cities that tech companies prefer to be around.
Also a strong argument for remote-first companies.
Impossible to estimate the amount of damage the runaway real estate market has done to competitiveness, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the interest of funnelling more free money to entitled landlords sitting on their asses cashing rent checks
Oh they're not sitting on their asses doing nothing. They're reinvesting the rent into buying, renting and/or flipping more property faster, screwing up things further for everyone.
Is this a shot at zoning? This particular problem would be and has been solved by known better regulation. The macro housing market demonstrates that most people don’t want to live in an imaginary Randian empire.
Yes, restrictions are a problem where they’re a problem. YIMBY can help.
They’re not the problem. You could not only ban all zoning/building restrictions but make it legal to shoot people who suggest or support them you’d barely begin to touch the problem.
Incentives regarding what to build (or when or if) are as big a piece of the puzzle. And the fact that the very simple and hugely microeconomic concept of marginal returns rarely (if ever) makes an appearance in this conversation is a serious indictment of the economic seriousness of its players when it comes to how supply gets built. Cost disease also matters in construction. There are lots of moving pieces.
Even when supplying isn’t socially restricted, there are market forces that contribute to rising costs.
I've heard people say this before, but when they point to a particular problem, such as the market currently building primarily studio and one bedroom apartments, you can usually find that there is a straight line from the incentives created through our land use restrictions and that problem.
What specific problem are you thinking of when you talk about market forces contributing to rising costs?
Obviously, land use restrictions make a difference. I can think of a few acres down the street from where my parents house is that could easily be used to build about 48 units of modest (triplex/fourplex) density where a church on was just recently torn down. Neighbors NIMBYd a proposal along those lines.
But, notably, you could fit at least 12 single family homes with lot sizes that are 100% entirely in character with the surrounding neighborhood. Quite probably 16. Possibly as many as 20.
What's going in? 6 big lots + mcmansions.
Not because the city made the developer do it. Not because the neighbors wouldn't allow matching density. The difference between 16 and 48 might be a land use restriction problem, but the difference between 6 and 16 doesn't seem to be. For some reason, this is what the developer would rather build.
The microeconomic detail of the developer's decision isn't public, but it's a very well known phenomenon in many markets that producers do not want to oversupply and often target production a bit short of demand. This may not be true when marginal cost per unit is small (you may as well try to saturate the market and then create new demand)... but that doesn't describe housing, does it? Per unit costs are always non-trivial. Trying to maximize per-unit profit by producing short of demand may not be the only strategy, but it's an uncontroversial and reasonably incentivized one.
And this wouldn't be the first time that I'd heard that mcmansions on big lots can be considerably more profitable per unit. So I'm willing to bet that when these 6 houses go to market, they will sell for 2-5x comparable surrounding homes. There's comparables within a mile on smaller lots with multipliers in that range. So they'll get the same return from the project on without having to build as many units. And that's just on this site. In the geographic area, they will be keeping supply constrained and therefore keeping the marginal return on additional units they build higher.
Phrases like "per unit profit" and "diminishing marginal returns" commonly show up in some popular economic discussion in other markets -- agriculture at least. But for some reason, they're rare when not entirely absent from popular discussion of real estate development and housing.
I suspect additional significant dynamics with materials costs, financing costs, and price signaling (as well as supply) are also in play, but I'm probably a damned fool for posting as much as I have in hopes of a better public conversation and policy more beneficial for all. Probably would be smarter to find ways to play the game myself, especially given that existing homeowners share many incentives with developers. Other holiday activities are more likely to bring emotional rewards. Still, maybe someone smarter than me will provide me with the opportunity to discover why I'm wrong and more optimism is appropriate. That'd be a fine Christmas gift.
Not only you suddenly will get the entire week for yourself, to do whatever you want, and you will be able to travel, but the other benefit is reviewing your relationship with material possessions.
I did that (sold everything, and went traveling), and now I own very little stuff. Apart from the mandatory laptop I need for work, and clothes, I couldn’t care less about everything else.
Before selling everything, I had a sick setup of dual monitors, and external DAC, speakers, headphones, keyboards, etc. Today, I need only laptop. I was considering getting one monitor, but can’t seem to justify the need.
It really teaches you how little material crap you need.
You listed a bunch of crap most people wouldn’t buy anyways.
The bulk of what people own are things like furniture, artworks, plants, appliances, cookware… etc. Not particularly sexy, but essential for making a cozy place to live in the world.
What I failed to mention is not only about the stuff you own, but in general your relationship with material possessions.
Before selling everything, I’d constantly worry about whether I should get a third monitor, maybe try a curved one, get a new keyboard, upgrade the TV, get a new kitchen appliance, replace the sofa, etc. There’s always “newer and better” for everything.
Nowadays, I don’t care anymore. I bought a TV because we like watching movies, but I don’t care about the technology or the next shiny thing. Same with my computer, I work on a 14” laptop for the past two years, and I no longer feel like I should chase a better or newer setup.
You may be surprised but the majority of people who own stuff do not worry whether they should get a third monitor or a new kitchen appliance. We just use some items and don't care much about them. If the TV breaks I'd look for a new one, but otherwise I don't care.
Same. The exception for me is tools, because I really enjoy building things and I own a house. I feel they’re inherently useful and I do research to ensure I get those that will last [nearly] a lifetime. I never buy a new tool because it’s new, only because the old one has become worn or broken.
I spend time with the people I love and only buy a new TV or fridge when the old one breaks. I didn’t need to sell all my possessions to do that. But to each their own.
I wouldn't call dual monitors sick, barely entry level, but... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NSW5F8V they make good cheap external portable monitors that are laptop thin or thinner.
Having tried that, no no they are not. Sadly. Also they don't really pack well compared to another 1/2 laptop shaped thing nestled with your laptop and needing just a usb cable to work.
Think long and hard before cramming your crap into a storage unit. Outside of possessions with some sentimental value, it's likely the money spent on a year or two of paying for a storage unit (particularly one that is climate controlled) exceeds the value of the things you're storing there.
Agree with this. I put all my stuff in storage several times. One time I put it all in a smaller rural town because a because cost was 1/5th of what it was in a big city ($70 a month vs $350 a month). But even then, the stuff was in there for 4 years so ($3360) + the van to move it and most of it could have been replaced for far less.
I eventually emptied it but I made the mistake is discarding books and trinkets that were actually memorabilia. I didn't interact with the trinkets or pull the books off the shelves. I didn't realize that just seeing them would trigger memories of where I bought them, who I was with, what I was into then, what songs were popular then, etc... so I regret getting rid of that stuff. But that was probably no more than 10 "book boxes" of stuff
It’s not only about current value. As anyone who has had their house wiped out and an insurance payout, acquiring everything again when you settle back is a massive time sink (let alone cost, if you were insured at fair market value rather than replacement value)
So yeah, the rent on the unit might be more than your crap is worth, but having it all back in a blink (essentially) when moving back someplace has some intangible value too.
My point is, when you live on a boat or RV, or traveling around, you don't have a lot of space anyway. So, you will end up at a point where "thing goes in, thing goes out" or you won't have space. Might as well get to that point from the beginning. If you want to keep it, you'll need a friend to send stuff to anyway.
So, if you (somehow) don't have any friends, you won't be able to keep much anyway, except memories.
After a last horrible work experience, I decided to quit working for a while and travel. Haven't sold a lot of things, some are still stored at my parent's place but I managed to live off my saving for almost two years. I could have gone a lot longer but unfortunately some bad investment decisions and a long dream of obtaining a pilot license shortened my runway by a lot.
In the past months, my situation has gotten worse as I needed to tighten my belt due to my saving having almost completely melted. Hard but enriching times, I have now found a job after months of searching. The market in Europe isn't great these days. Back to hustling but without any regrets.
100% agree with OP, it was the experience of a lifetime for me. If I can give some additional advice, plan your finances. Even if you think a large sum will last you years and you're a bit lazy to plan it (as I was), don't be conservative with your forecast, plan large. Personally if I had to do it again, I'd try to keep half or one third aside for unexpected cases.
$80k will give you one year of very comfortable life in Central Europe. If you want to live in an international city in a decent flat 4 years is not realistic, more like 2.
I live in Poland in a city center in a metro area of 2 million people on $9k per year. That's rent free, because I own the place, adding rent would push the total cost to $13k per year. That's six years of living on $80k.
Also, I'm 42 and retired :) It's really easy to retire here when making software money.
If you are willing to forgo a car, expensive food and be fine with a small studio, you can easily do 4 years on $80k in central Europe. You can do 10 years in many parts of the worlds and it'll require some adjustments but some places (ie: Vietnam) can be really okay and offer a night life unmatched by the US.
I'm afraid you underestimate rent costs. In smaller cities you may still find something nice for ~900 usd per month, in more popular places like Krakow, Prague ~1500 usd is more realistic but still optimistic.
This feels incredibly out of touch with reality. Since you mentioned Prague, the average salary in the Czech Republic is roughly $20k per year, and that's the average, plenty of people take home considerably less. You're saying $80k is not enough for more than a year, how do you think all those people manage to get by?
1500 usd for Prague with bills included. Rent in Prague in a very good location is about 1000 eur. The bills can be about 400. For 1500 usd as rent you're looking at some very fancy places.
I’ll second this advice, counterintuitive though it may seem.
Back in the day, I had saved enough to take a nice 3 month leave of absence from work to do some travelling. Nudging my spreadsheet around, I tried replacing my rent, utilities etc. with the cost of a storage locker, and suddenly my “how long can I go for “ number shot up to over a year.
It changed my whole approach to life in my 30s, and it was a good 15 years before I committed to living in a single place long term again.
Travelling accommodation was usually some form of $5/night beach bungalow in some remote corner of the world. Thus the big savings compared to living in the states.
While working, I’d pick up a cheap room in a shared house for a few months.
These days I’d just stay remote. Maybe upgrade by a few dollars a night for A/C, reliable power and good internet.
If you’re an American and an engineer, how did you pick up work when needed internationally? I consider this, I’m a security engineer, but I haven’t had much progress considering how to pull it off, if not having an established consultancy.
Sorry, but then what - money will just be magically waiting for you when you’re ready to come home? Having spent every penny to your name?
God it must be nice to be in a position where you can afford to just be like “ok my partner and I are just going to travel for four years, and after that, idk, things will work out somehow.”
I did this. Was in a dead end job, left the job, traveled for a year, rented somewhere for 6 months, then out of money, moved in with parents... still here. Job opportunities where my parents live aren't great.
At the time the job was so boring, going nowhere, pretty easy.. I would do anything to go back in time to that role tbh..
I loved every second of traveling, and met some cool people, but none of that helps me find work now.
If you're a shy introvert, and struggle with social situations.. and you currently have a job, I'd advise to keep the job, even if it's not great, and try get something else lined up before leaving.
I have so many mental issues now (low self esteem etc)... therapy would probably help, but now I have no money sooo... I'm stuck in a loop of unemployable, no help due to no money, no money due to no work etc.
traveling alone doesn't help you find jobs, because you meet other travelers and random locals, but it doesn't help you build a network even if you are not shy introvert.
my strategy was to look for jobs in the places i wanted to go to or take remote job offers and then visit or move to the places of my employer.
that is what allowed me to spend a year in new zealand for example.
that's where i learned that new zealand is not a good job market. that's why i left again. i only got there because pike programmers like me were not easy to find.
what are your options now? are you looking for remote jobs? why do you think you are unemployable? can you use your time to improve your skills? feel free to reach out in private if you like to chat. email is in my profile
if someone is making poor life choices, they're going to be judged poorly for it. if those "poor" decisions aren't actually bad and are just outdated social attitudes, like judging gay people poorly because of the gender of who they love, then it's entirely right to question it. being gay isn't a choice so judging someone for that isn't right because they're consenting adults.
However, living beyond your means and buying luxuries you can't actually afford, and living a lavish lifestyle is entirely a personal decision. the problem with living paycheck to paycheck is that life happens. you get into an accident. there's a fire. your dog gets hurt. you get laid off, through no fault of your own. the company just decided to downsize. and now,
because you don't have any savings, you can't absorb that loss, and then you're out on the street. homeless. hopefully not literally, there's a grace period before you're kicked out. but food and shelter aren't as solid as they were before. your life could become very difficult. all that hardship was an avoidable problem with an emergency fund because you weren't able to not doordash dinner.
At least have a plan first and make sure you understand visas. I have fiends who sold up everything and moved to Switzerland only to be turned back at the airport because they didn’t know they couldn’t just move their life there unemployed
A lot of people start a business in parallel with a job search, or once their job search has completely failed. It both feels and sounds better (to a recruiter, or a journalist) than doing nothing.
Fair enough. From what I know about being unemployed, I am not sure I trust his retrospective narrative, but based on the information we're presented – have my upvote!
i did this more than 20 years ago. i was between jobs. my choice was to go back home or go travel. so i sent my stuff home to my grandparents and went to travel...
For me, it’s less about the food (but to be clear, still about the food) and more about the cultural experience. Going someplace different, seeing how other people live, and eating with them can be a real joy. Your mileage may vary, of course. But people often find ways to connect over our shared need to eat. I think fondly about a meal I shared in rural China. I was the only American in the group. Despite our many differences, we all learned a lot from each other. I have similar strong memories about having breakfast at Shaw’s hiker hostel in Maine (the one featured in Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods). And many others. I hope to have many more experiences like that in my life.
is utterly false. My wife and I have been traveling in Europe for the last couple of weeks. We've had maybe three or four meals in restaurants, and mostly gone to grocery stores and cooked in our Airbnbs. The array of (only) locally-available breads, pastries, meats, cheeses, wines, yoghurts - heck, even breakfast cereals - is incredible, and of fantastic quality. We just traveled <100 miles, and are sad we can't find our favorite cheese from the last spot (the visually-similar one here is a pale reflection), but the sausages we bought last night were outstanding. Virtually none of what we've bought are anything we've seen before - like, there are global-commodity brands, too, but we're avoiding them: trying new things is the point of traveling!
By the way, very little of this is in speciality shops, and none of it comes at a high price. We're going to normal-people shops (boulangeries in France count as normal-people shops) - even some of them chain stores - and paying way less for groceries than we would in the US. (Seriously, way, way less - even before adjusting for the "nice-cheese premium" at Whole Foods, or wherever.)
Again: if you don't like trying new foods, it's fine. I'm not trying to change your mind. It's just, fuck off with your ignorant opinions about how the world works, and the judgemental attitude about what other people enjoy doing.
They dont mean the food. They think they do, but they dont. What they mean is the sense of cultural inhabitation. Eating and living a certain way for tourism is deeply rewarding on a human level. Its about people, not things.
$80k can easily last you 4+ years of very comfortable living in much of the world. Enjoy the food, really try and learn some of the local language, and enjoy yourself.
You can do it, and there won't be another window.