Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

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Spartan_Warrior
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Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Any thoughts? Personally I'm looking for the best combination of the following:

1) reasonable cost of living (no more expensive than east coast US, ideally far less)
2) under the radar of US foreign policy, not a major player on world stage (certainly no enemies or countries rich in oil, nor major allies, the further away and more insignificant, the better)
3) easy immigration policies
4) English is widely spoken if not predominant
5) low crime/low danger
6) affordable/public health care
7) modern tech and internet connectivity
8) generally "progressive" policies: low police presence/security state, low or no prosecution of cannabis or other drug use, low political corruption (things like ranked choice voting or more than "two" political parties a plus), emphasis on personal (versus corporate) rights and freedoms, including right to bear arms

Nice to haves would include good scenery, interesting culture, maybe ex-pat communities, and good farming conditions.

I'm not necessarily anticipating finding all of that in one place, of course, but a majority would be nice. For instance, I've been thinking about Canada, New Zealand, or Australia, which I believe hit most points except 2 and parts of 8.

Thoughts? Resources?

P.S. Thread not intended for discussion of my political preferences or US politics. Thanks.

jacob
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by jacob »

There were some suggestions in the Brexit thread.

OTCW
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by OTCW »

New Zealand seems to be the place where the mega rich want to emigrate to as their SHTF insurance policy. Also gaining steam for the not as wealthy.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.bbc.co.u ... p/38766821

George the original one
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by George the original one »

Ireland used to be the obvious choice if you were artistic due to favorable tax treatment. Don't know if that's still true.

distracted_at_work
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by distracted_at_work »

Other than not rich in oil, further away and right to bear arms you described Canada.

I don't think there is a country in the world that fulfills every bullet point. I'd recommend a decision matrix to weight what you value more and then rank countries from there.

BRUTE
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by BRUTE »

brute thought Canada was very expensive? all the Canadians keep complaining about high costs for gas, products, rent, .. or maybe that's just Vancouver.

brute seriously recommends looking beyond English-speaking. English-speaking is expensive. Spartan_Warrior is essentially paying the population of the country to speak his language, instead of learning to speak their language.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

My recommendation. Lovely small city with all sorts of amenities, surrounded by parks and farmland. Just watch out for senior discount night at the more popular fish and chips joints and you can't go wrong.

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-livi ... on-ontario

simplex
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by simplex »

5) low crime/low danger
and
including right to bear arms

might be a tough combination.

distracted_at_work
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by distracted_at_work »

@Brute. Correct, avoid Toronto and Vancouver. An American with any assets at all should love to emigrate to the other parts though. The exchange rate is extremely favorable. Gas and rent can be managed depending on where you live within the country.

General goods, alcohol and tobacco will cost you quite a bit more yes. In exchange, you get everything else on the list, less my prior exclusions.

@7Wannabe5 My friends that went to London for University loved it. Personally, I plan on picking somewhere in Southern B.C to ERE after I finish making all my dirty oil money.

thrifty++
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by thrifty++ »

Couple mentions of NZ here. Meets all of your conditions except number 1. It is very expensive here. Generally alot more than USA. NZ is ranked as having the most unaffordable housing in the word by The Economist - house prices vs income. So its not really an ERE friendly place. Rent costs and house purchase costs are very high. Food is not too bad. Maybe slightly more than USA. You can grow almost anything in NZ and the food tends to be very high quality too. Anything else will cost alot more than USA. Incomes are average globally and are less than USA which makes it harder to manage the high costs. Also the right to bear arms is not really a thing here but you dont need them.

On the other hand NZ can be very cheap if you dont really need to work here and can spend all your time in a campervan touring and/or travelling amongst all the nature trails everywhere. Lots of natural beauty with few people, beaches everywhere, lakes everywhere, forests everywhere mountains etc. You can freedom camp in NZ or live on a boat. Camping fees can be tiny or free. That way you dont need to live in one of the expensive cities. So I think it works if you can live that life and dont need to accumulate. But if you are needing to accumulate funds then not a great place to come
Last edited by thrifty++ on Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:54 pm, edited 4 times in total.

jacob
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by jacob »

@SW - Would also sincerely suggest (w/o being to flippant about it although it is kinda funny/ironic) to look into just relocating within the US and moving to another state. A supreme strength of US culture is that it tends to be much more tolerant AND diversified in terms of cultures compared to other/smaller countries.

Externally, the US is often seen as a single uniform country ("America") whereas it's definitely not when you look locally. When looking at things at the ground level, California and Indiana might as well be entirely different countries---they're more different than Denmark vis-a-vis Switzerland. Aside from the shared language and the unifying ideal of "these united states" ... it's similar to Europe (no shared language .. and as far as united goes ... that's getting abandoned real fast these days). It's a continent sized power ... but in terms of integration, the US is 50+ years ahead of Yurop, at least. TL;DR --- Americans consider themselves Americans first and "states" second. Europe is the other way around with countries first and EU second. Whatever you like depends on your [globalist] orientation.

I'm somewhat of a cosmopolitan at heart, so I think the US has a better handle on this (200+ years of experience), whereas the EU is still struggling and currently looking like it might fizzle. After all the former was built on enlightenment ideals, whereas the latter was an attempt to avoid WWIII...

What you're looking for (based on my semi-limited/lived in three states understanding) might be found in NorCal? Or just the PNW in general? As for (7), the Kaiser system might be as good as it gets currently. For the eastern seaboard, consider Vermont ... but you gotta be semi-loaded $$$ to consider that. There's a bunch of books discussing the different "nations" within the United States. I've found them very useful.

The other thing to consider is that in terms of personal happiness, all that might be required is to move across your city. Just as things tend to get culturally segregated on a continental level, the same fractality works at city-scales.

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Ego
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by Ego »

In general, those who are genuinely enthusiastic about being in their new home country, state or city usually thrive after the move.
Those who move to get away from their old country, state or city usually do not thrive.
While this is not always the case, in my experience it is true more often than not.

Mrs. Ego recently had a long phone conversation with a young woman who had just received her green card by way of the immigration lottery and was thinking of renting an apartment with us. The woman explained how she had always dreamed of living in California and was so excited she was jumping out of her skin. She kept saying she had won the lottery. Which she did.

I'd encourage you to do two things:
1) Travel to those places in the off-season and rent an AirBNB. See if you can carve out a short-term happy existence while there.
2) Spend time with immigrants while here in the US. Especially those who came for the proverbial "better life". See the place through their eyes.

enigmaT120
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by enigmaT120 »

simplex wrote:
Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:15 pm
5) low crime/low danger
and
including right to bear arms

might be a tough combination.
It describes most of the rural U.S. Probably 75% or more of the country.

sky
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by sky »

Namibia

IlliniDave
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by IlliniDave »

Sounds like you're describing Colorado except for affordable/public healthcare. You'd be dealing with ACA.

The first place I'd look to go is Canada. It's not cheap but the area I'm familiar with (N. Ontario) is less costly than the northern half of US East Coast. Doesn't meet all your criteria--it's large and close, but enough of an ally that the US doesn't meddle there much. A big part of the economy is about exploiting natural resources, which some people find objectionable. But lots of open space, clean air and water, a very polite culture, and depending on how immediate of a threat you think climate change is, it seems well positioned for a warmer world. The immigration process is not instantaneous so you'd want to plan a few years ahead of time.

New Zealand is also intriguing based on the scenery alone. I don't know how favorably they view Americans though.

IlliniDave
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by IlliniDave »

Ego wrote:
Fri Apr 07, 2017 2:45 pm
In general, those who are genuinely enthusiastic about being in their new home country, state or city usually thrive after the move.
Those who move to get away from their old country, state or city usually do not thrive.
While this is not always the case, in my experience it is true more often than not.
Luckily those two are not mutually exclusive. But you're right. I think it applies to ER(E) even. Much better to identify a life after work that you desire and excites you than to simply hate a job and want out. People who are habituated to seeing/focusing on the negative tend to carry that trait with them wherever they go. Folks here are probably sick of me repeating this (dunno the source), but, "It's not what you look at that matters most, it's what you see."

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C40
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by C40 »

Why leave?

distracted_at_work
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by distracted_at_work »

^

For what it's worth, if given the chance, I'd move to the United States in a heartbeat.

thrifty++
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by thrifty++ »

IlliniDave wrote:
Fri Apr 07, 2017 8:43 pm
New Zealand is also intriguing based on the scenery alone. I don't know how favorably they view Americans though.
New Zealanders are friendly towards Americans and they slot in easily here. NZers are sometimes not favourable to US politics though.

The Old Man
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Re: Best Countries for Americans to Immigrate

Post by The Old Man »

You should add point (9):

(9) Ease of qualifying for immigration. Many countries put up road blocks preventing or severely restricting immigration.

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