[hellosputnik]

Maybe I'm becoming (or already cynical), but I'm increasingly tired of the genre of posts/reels/TikToks where someone moves to Vietnam, Portugal, Thailand, Mexico, etc. and comes back with profound observations about how "people there really know how to live" and how life is simply better there.

A lot of "I've discovered a better way of life abroad" stories seem to quietly assume continued access to US wages, US assets, US equity compensation, or US retirement savings.

[mahirsaid]

regardless if you hate hearing them promoting their experiences or not, it's still true. People want to have fun and live happy not worry about school shooting, healthcare costs, living standards.

I watched a video of a teacher that moved from Canada to China. He explained how much him and his family love it there, after 14 years he moved again to Singapore and loves it there just a little better than China. it is NOT all that unusual to move and have life shared across multiple countries. I think it's natural. We were literally doing that none stop during 1500's , 1400's ,1300's, just imagine the ancient silk-road.We might make it sound and feel like it is the worst thing you can do is move to another country in a form of guilt to betrayal of your residing country, but it's really not.

Stop listening to everything that you hear. Choose what you want your brain to experience. Do what YOU think will bring you joy.

I have lived in three states so far, yes lived not just visited. A relative told me numerous times " to not go, its a bad idea and far away moving to Florida, New York" guess what I should of moved sooner. wasted time and years listening to scared of change people.

[fivetomidnight]

> I think it's natural. We were literally doing that none stop during 1500's , 1400's ,1300's, just imagine the ancient silk-road.

That's not quite true. Just looking over my families ancestry data. There are outliers, but most died in a couple kilometer radius where they were born. Even more further in the past. At least until the 1650s when it's hard to find data. Before the 30 year war, both documentation gets rarer and poeple apparently didn't have lastnames as they did today. It wasn't neccessary. ...Because they moved so little...

Sure, silk road. But how many people moved along a bigger part of it?

[seanmcdirmid]

I loved china but eventually had to come back due to mostly air quality and some career issues. I’m back in my favorite American city at least, but having spent 11 years out (2 in Switzerland and 9 in china), I feel anxious (and I came back just in time for Trump 1, ugh).

[mahirsaid]

Again i wish more people did what you did and experience life outside of their norm. Indeed it's not for everyone but the point stands. You made the choice to come back after experiencing something else for a while.

[Paradigm2020]

Air quality in china has massively improved over last couple of years... Oc not as fast in all cities but might want to update your priors :)) (if that trump 1 is not a typo 8 years is a huge difference)

[seanmcdirmid]

Beijing is better now but still not good enough. Anyways, we had a baby on the way in 2016 and my wife was pretty sure Beijing wouldn't work out for his lungs.

[Paradigm2020]

Now it's better than quite a few places, personally based in Vietnam and wouldn't mind swapping air quality sometimes

2016 was definitely too bad and especially with a baby...

[mahirsaid]

I hear Philippines and Indonesia is another one people are picking to settle down.

[cahoot_bird]

I suspect some people moved there years ago with the lower cost of living little money around the time/since of the four-hour workweek tim ferris movement . Some countries do not allow public criticism, so of course they would make videos of wonderful places to live hoping to scratch income-wise by after some moving there with no backup plan. Just a little critical thinking.

I can understand the just indiehacker and mvp/yolo it, but there is real risk there and I'd question the wisdom of that.

[adrian_b]

The US wages are desirable only for buying the things that have about the same price everywhere (because they are imported from the same Asian countries, with prices passing through US dollars), i.e. mostly electronics and computing devices.

Other products and services, like food, clothes, a home, healthcare, education, or even cars, you can get better than in USA for lower prices, so that the budget for them can be even a lower fraction of a typical local wage, than it is in USA as a fraction of a US wage.

Depending on personal needs and preferences, either USA or another country may be the better choice, but the value of a US wage has a much lower weight in a correct decision than you assume, because a wage must be compared with the expenses. Its absolute value tells very little, because the US dollar appears to be greatly overvalued in comparison with other currencies (which is a consequence of its role in international commerce).

[dgellow]

> A lot of "I've discovered a better way of life abroad" stories seem to quietly assume continued access to US wages, US assets, US equity compensation, or US retirement savings.

What’s the issue with that? You obviously have lower income in the rest of the world, the US is literally the wealthiest country. If you can benefit from US income and live in places that suits you better it’s clearly a pretty good situation.

If you instead get a local wage you will still be in a good position, people leaving the US are generally with college education and high income. Maybe less wealthy but that’s ok, you don’t have to literally have the highest income in the world to be good.

[mathgeek]

I believe GP’s point was that folks conflate being in the upper wealth class of a region with that region being inherently better for the locals.

[porknbeans00]

I remember in 2012 or so I did a baseline comparison of a typical Starbucks employee in Montana versus a Silicon Valley software engineer and the cruel reality was that even thought he software engineer was making a lot more in their salary they were wildly more poor than the Starbucks employee.

at the time ( this has changed ) the Starbucks employee could own a home and put into that equity. so lower cost of living and ability to save towards equity massively overwhelmed any perceived value of a 'high salary'. Throw in the cost of living in the Bay Area and the reality was the software engineers were barely subsisting while the barista was actually building a life for themselves.

essentially. even inside the continental US.... the cost of living and cost of equity, tax structures, etc all matter a great deal. That doesn't change leaving the US. In fact it largely just gets more complicated.

but you can ABSOLUTELY make a whole lot less in a region where you will live better and make more money Long term.

[xocnad]

US equity assets are generally available to most. Where I earned my savings is also irrelevant.

[throwaway67678]

Did you read the article?

[dilyevsky]

Did you? That's exactly what they are discussing except Spain and Portugal. One of the profiles still works remote at a major US software firm.