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!

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

Man i almost didn’t post this cuz I thought it might turn into a flame war.

Thanks for not being a stereotypical Redditor

batteries don’t like to sit on a charge continuously

I absolutely agree for traditional lithium ion batteries, but for lithium polymer batteries, a middle SoC is best for longevity. As far as I understand, it’s better to sit at ~100 SoC than to do full discharge cycles, again unlike older battery tech which absolutely wanted full discharge cycles.

If you wanna be gentle on batteries, it’s more about not rapidly charging them rather than doing charge cycles these days. So if the gameplay loop of optimizing your battery SoC is fun: do that, if not: I wouldn’t bother

https://batteryuniversity.com/article/bu-808-how-to-prolong-lithium-based-batteries

Lemme try my favorite way to explain the birthday problem without getting too mathy:

If you take 23 people, that’s 253 pairs of people to compare (23 people x22 others to pair them with/2 people per pair). That’s a lot of pairs to check and get only unique answers

This is technically fired, but it’s more like quitting. It doesn’t perfectly fit this thread but I love telling this story.

A few months into my first real job, the engineers got their raises (not me, I was new). 0%, after record profits, the team busting their ass and working insane hours, and promises of good raises. I think they got some gift cards or something.

One of my coworkers goes back to his desk, packs some stuff, walks to his car, and doesn’t come back. He got paid for a full month before they finally fired him. We got a beer after and he was like “oh I don’t think I’m gonna go back” in the most Office Space way

Ayo

Yup, same! Or I think of Two Trucks by Lemon Demon

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=om0lmExqKr4

Jesus that’s funny. I guess I am gonna go put that on right now while I shave too.

I opted out of this over a month ago, still opted out.

Wonder how long they’ve been doing this …

I’m in Asheville NC not Tampa. We’re not built for the hurricane we got.

Insurance covers very little. Not the fact that the city won’t have water for months, nor access to you property, nor flooding for the majority of people, and many many businesses are gone

All of this sounds so exciting. Thanks for the reply.

So excited and so overwhelmed.

We’re moving from the US to Denmark soon. We just had a hurricane destroy our city. We are fine, thankfully, but our city is in bad shape. I also just had a decently big surgery a few weeks ago and my doctor’s office is gone, so in the midst of all this I have to find a doctor. Just coincidental timing on all of it.

But it’s net positive. I look forward to the future more than I dread the bad stuff.

We’re moving away from the US, did you misread that or are you suggesting we should flee further than Europe?

Yeah, I’ll be in Copenhagen. I hope to not own a car at all! Just a bike and public transit

That’s great, I like that a lot. As the commenter below said, sounds like New England to an extent. I’m fine with that and happy with less superficial

The former :)

Yeah, this is all great advice. I work for a very European style company in the US and will work for a Danish company in Denmark. So I’m not expecting total culture shock (like our CEO currently wears a T-shirt and sneakers, you can have a beer with him) like going to Japan would be, but also looking forward to less work focus.

Yeah, the mental math of money, units, will all be a lot. But we’ll get used to it!

I’m stoked for the smaller, car-free, perhaps simpler life.