My wife and I decided to do something new in our 'mature' years: move to Europe! We both love Iceland and looked for a home there for a year or so, but couldn't. Then, after visiting Portugal, and hearing about others' great expat experience there, we thought that might be a cool place to live. But we eventually settled on Germany - mostly because I'm originally from there and speak the language and because my wife's company has a subsidiary in Heidelberg. We visited, loved it, and as a sign from above - an apartment within 500ft of her office and only a mile to downtown was for sale.
I am writing this because a lot of the experiences we've had so far might be of interest to others thinking of doing the same. And I do encourage everyone to live abroad at least once in their lives - it'll not only open your eyes to another culture, but make you a bit more empathetic, I think. The world is still a friendly place and putting yourself out there in a place where you occasionally need help and understanding, will let you see others' vulnerabilities when they come to a new country.
This initial post will describe our preparations, the move, and initial experiences. I will do follow-up posts as new experiences accumulate. Hope you find it helpful.
Preparation
Well, the first decision was obviously the country. We started looking at Heidelberg because, as mentioned earlier, my wife's company has a subsidiary there that she could transfer to. So we started looking at the german real estate web site www.immobilienscout24.de which seems to be the most widely used one in that country. The first thing we noticed is the prices - Heidelberg real estate is expensive! And we didn't really see anything we liked for a couple months. Eventually, there was one apartment that seemed ideal - very close to my wife's company office and right along the Neckar river and within a mile of old town (the tourist area where all the good restaurants are). But it was out of our price range. In May 2025, we happened to be in Switzerland for vacation when one evening I scanned immoscout again and saw that the seller had decreased the price by over 10%, so we cut our vacation a few days short and hopped on a train to Heidelberg to check it out! And we ended up making an offer that was accepted. Yeah! The purchasing process is going to be another post - very different from the US - but what is important, in terms of preparation is that you need a residence in your new country1
And, of course, in order to stay more than 90 days (US citizens can stay 90 days visa-free) you need some sort of residence visa. I have German (and US) citizenship, so my wife (American) had two options: a "relative-of-German" (me) or a work visa. Since the road to permanent residency is quicker via a work visa (27 months vs. 36 months) and she had the above-mentioned subsidiary she could transfer to, that's the route she went. We started this process before we moved to Germany, but didn't complete it until after we moved in and registered as residents in the local town. You need to show you have a residence before you can get a work visa. Speaking of work visas, there are several types - the most advantageous, if you qualify, is the "Blue Card" - that'll give you the most flexibility of movement within the EU once you live in Germany.
Packing and Shipping. We found shipping to be incredibly expensive. I mean, really expensive - to move all our furniture, clothes, etc. would have probably cost more than $20k! We decided it would probably be cheaper to just ship essentials and buy everything else. But even shipping those essentially (we used a service called https://upakweship.com/that works what it says: they give you a big cardboard box on a crate, you fill it, and then either you take it to their terminal (for the big box we chose) or they pick it up. A relatively small L 83″ x W 44″ X H 78″ box cost us $3500 (plus $200 for the rental truck to take it to their terminal). I just went to their web site and the cost is now almost $3900!
We still have our place in the US. So now whenever we visit, we bring empty suitcases there and filled ones back to Germany. Much more cost effective, if you don't need to ship everything at once!
In our digital life nothing is more important than our smartphones. And the one thing you can't do when moving overseas is port your number. I don't recommend you go "cold turkey" and simply get a new phone number and plan in the new country as you will end up missing a lot of important texts and phone calls meant for your US identity. Instead, I recommend keeping your existing plan and simply add an (e)-SIM to your device for a new local plan. Plans here in Germany are much cheaper than the US. I simply added an eSIM from the German O2 provider ($20/mo) to my iPhone and use that as my primary voice and data line while in Germany and switch to my T-Mobile provider whenever I'm in the US. Once we're completely settled here and all affairs in the US have completed, I'm thinking of "parking" my US phone number with Google Voice and have it set to forward all the texts/voice-mails to my email. That is the only 'free' solution I could think of so far.
Health insurance. to reside in Germany (all of EU?) you have to be insured. In Germany, you have a choice between private and public insurance. 90% of the population has public insurance. Picking the right one is a pretty important decision, so don't make it lightly. Things to think about: if you pick "private", you can never switch to public again. So why would someone ever want to pick 'private"? Because if you're reasonably young, private insurance will probably be cheaper than public as premiums are based on your health and age, whereas the public insurance is based entirely on your income - around 16% of your income! So if your income is 50,000 Euro, your yearly insurance cost in public will be 8,000 Euros. If you have an employer, that cost is split between you and your employer. And the premium is capped at around 70,000 Euro income level. But when you're old and unhealthy and are on a fixed income, you don't have to worry about your premiums sky-rocketing. As they will with private insurance.
Lastly, I want to talk about money and banking. Before you move to Europe - or as soon after as possible - you need a bank account. Because you will need to start and pay utilities, grab money from an ATM, etc. and they all require a German, or at least, an EU-based bank account. On top of that, you'll want to convert money from USD to EU. And for all of these things, there's no better friend than wise.com - a global currency conversion AND bank account service. With Wise, you start off with a USD based account (that's based in the US) and you can add other currency accounts. If you add one for the Euro, you now have an EU bank account too! Conversion between currencies is MUCH cheaper than you could get from traditional banks too. With your EU Wise account you also get a Visa Debit card that you should use instead of your American credit card, since your US card operates in USD and every purchase you make in Europe will undergo conversion which is, for many credit cards, a profit center for the CC company. With the Wise debit, since its balance is in Euro, there's no conversion fee. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, your Wise EU account comes with an all important IBAN - the number you will let your EU employer deposit your paycheck under, with which you will pay your utility bills, your HOA fees, and even your property taxes. IBAN-based payments and auto-deductions are the norm in Germany. You can't live without one.
If you're moving to Germany in particular, I suggest getting one additional bank account - but with a real German bank, where your IBAN starts with "DE" (Wise Bank, being based out of Belgium begins with "BE") because there are some old-fashioned services in Germany - e.g. Deutsche Bahn - that restrict payments to/from "DE"utschland based banks.
Initial Experiences
I only ever lived in Germany as a child. It's amazing how different adult life is here from the U.S. From buying real estate to banking to paying for utilities. From healthcare to transportation - all handled differently from what I'm used to in the U.S.
Aside from the banking and payment related differences, the first "new" thing (aside from real estate purchases, which I'll talk about in another post) is the "resident registration": after you move to an address in Germany, you have 14 days to register your residency with your local town's "Einwohneramt" (resident registration office). This is critically important as you will need the proof of residence you get there to get your residence visa, a job, and to tax id.
Life is more communal than in the US. We've now been here for over 6 months and haven't really missed not having a car. We use public transit for almost all our needs. Filling the tiny fridges here in Europe doesn't require a car - a backpack full of groceries already does the job. If I don't want to wait for a bus, I take my e-bike or e-scooter - or I simply walk. We both have a "Deutschland Ticket", which lets us ride any local transport (i.e. bus, subway, tram, and local and regional railroads) in Germany for $65/mo. We only needed a car once or twice - so we rented one. So much cheaper - and healthier! - than owning and maintaining a car!
Speaking of cars: we need to get our German drivers license soon. Once you become a resident, you're supposed to convert your US license within 6 months or risk having to take the driver test again (for NC drivers license, by reciprocal agreement you only need to take the theoretical test as well as a first-aid course to convert to the German drivers license). You might want to check your state - maybe you get lucky (e.g. if you live in VA) and don't even need to take the theoretical!
Well, this is where I will leave it for now. More experiences in the next post.
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