[davidw]

Sure, but objectively, it's probably easier and more remunerative in many ways to work for Google in the Bay Area than, say, seek out a job in Sicily, where the weather is certainly wonderful, but there are not many IT jobs and they generally aren't of the interesting variety (unless you did something, like, say, create Redis, in which case you can happily stay in Sicily and hack on your project:-). Not to mention the language barrier and cultural differences.

Our move from Padova to Innsbruck, Austria, 4 hours away by car, was far, far more difficult than when I moved from Portland, Oregon to the Bay Area years ago. For instance, there are no one-way rental trucks in Europe that I know of, so if you have furniture or things to move, it's going to be expensive and/or time-consuming.

[mulch]

Trucking is hidelously expensive on the continent. No idea why. Shipping will be WAY cheaper in any port city. You'd be better off probably getting rid of your stuff and just getting new stuff (used, Ikea, whatever).

[davidw]

Renting a van isn't that expensive here. The problem is that you can't, say, rent it in Innsbruck and drop it off in Padova, but you have to drive down to Padova, rent the van, drive it back up to Innsbruck in the middle of the night in a snow storm over the Brenner pass, with the unloaded rear wheels not getting a lot of traction, load it up, and then drive it back down to Padova.