Moved from the US to the Netherlands in 2023 and regret nothing. The opportunity came in the form of the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty. It makes it ridiculously easy for Americans to move to the Netherlands, if you are self employed. It worked for me to move, and when my business went sideways due to my main client screwing me over, I got a normal Dutch job as a highly-skilled migrant.
Downsides:
Pay is decidedly lower compared to American salaries (but pretty good compared to Dutch standards)
Spicy food is rare
Korean food is also pretty rare
Good Mexican food is borderline nonexistent. My coworkers saw nothing wrong with “cheese flavored yogurt” being applied to nacho chips instead of actual cheese. I once tried a local restaurant’s nachos and got a plate of chips covered in a really sweet ketchup.
While everybody speaks English pretty well, you WILL want to learn basic Dutch to better understand important legal or medical meetings. But you should be learning the native language anyway, no matter where you go.
Benefits:
Everything I need is within walking or a short bicycle distance
Nobody is going to shoot me here
I can get medical treatment without going bankrupt
Health insurance doesn’t cost as much as rent
My asthma inhaler doesn’t cost 1/4th of my rent
High fructose corn syrup is rarely found here (it gives me migraines)
The cities are more attractive (more appealing architecture)
The roads are damned near immaculate. I don’t drive here because I don’t need to, but on the rare occasion I’m in a car it’s impossible to not notice how good the roads are. I have crossed the country from Schiphol to Nijmegen and didn’t see a single pothole anywhere, in roughly two hours on the road. Seriously, they could spend 10 or 20% less on the roads and still have what would be the best roads anywhere in N.America by comparison.
The work-life balance is insanely better (I get 35 paid days off a year, starting from the moment I started working). I can tell my boss I’m sick and that’s that. If I move to a new home I get a free day off.
Trains are much more enjoyable for traveling between cities than driving; I’ve been reading so much lately
Dutch is a pretty accessible language if you’re a native English speaker that already understands some basics of German
Nearly everybody speaks English better than the people I grew up with in the mid-west
A huge amount of Europe is only a single day’s travel away
Store workers here aren’t obviously beaten and ground into a raw bundle of nerves and depression like in the US. Of course it’s not a workers paradise by any means, but people generally seem more genuinely happy.
So many restaurants have patios or tent covered tables to enjoy a drink or meal while staying outside to enjoy the weather when it is good
Food from Suriname is really good, as are frikandelbroodje and kaassouffle
Nijmegen’s Vierdaagse can be a blast, the whole old/inner city becomes a giant festival
There’s probably more benefits, but those are the highlights for me. All around though, the biggest advantage is that I can easily see a much better future for myself and my wife in the Netherlands than I can in the US.
This is an amazing rundown and I can appreciate how most of the downsides are food-based.
I can tell my boss I’m sick and that’s that.
This is huge, it’s exhausting to have to deal with the fallout of calling in sick that I sometimes work through it so I don’t have to deal with the bs.
I almost asked my boss like 20 years ago while I was vacationing near Amsterdam with my girlfriend-now-wife about moving to The Netherlands as we had an office there, but never did. Still wonder how different life would have turned out. It’s an amazing country.
Good food does exist, it just takes some time and effort to find out where to go and where should be blacklisted. And there’s like three good Mexican restaurants in the whole country.
Well, in Europe we have considerably less mexicans. But in exchange you get lots of Italian, French, Spanish, Belgian, Turkish/Mediterranean and specially in the Netherlands, Indonesian cuisine.
The melting pot of flavours is there in NL, just not so much in a place like Nijmegen. Go to Den Haag, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and you’ll find whatever you want.
Spicy food - eh I guess I could ship in hot sauces etc. No biggie
Korean food - damn…that really sucks but
Mexican food - dammit, I’m done
I always joke with the wife about opening restaurants for hard to find cuisine wherever we evetually move to. Currently that’s legit BBQ for the PNW if we end up there.
Moved from the US to the Netherlands in 2023 and regret nothing. The opportunity came in the form of the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty. It makes it ridiculously easy for Americans to move to the Netherlands, if you are self employed. It worked for me to move, and when my business went sideways due to my main client screwing me over, I got a normal Dutch job as a highly-skilled migrant.
Downsides:
Benefits:
There’s probably more benefits, but those are the highlights for me. All around though, the biggest advantage is that I can easily see a much better future for myself and my wife in the Netherlands than I can in the US.
This is an amazing rundown and I can appreciate how most of the downsides are food-based.
This is huge, it’s exhausting to have to deal with the fallout of calling in sick that I sometimes work through it so I don’t have to deal with the bs.
Edited formatting
I almost asked my boss like 20 years ago while I was vacationing near Amsterdam with my girlfriend-now-wife about moving to The Netherlands as we had an office there, but never did. Still wonder how different life would have turned out. It’s an amazing country.
Isn’t there a housing problem atleast in Amsterdam?
There is, nationwide.
But also everywhere else in Europe, and everywhere in the US that I would be willing to live. What can you do eh?
Really in germany too?
The only places without a housing crisis at the moment are places where nobody wants to live.
very much, yes
I’m sorry but you lost me at the lack of food options
There are probably more food options than most U.S cities, just not the same ones.
Good food does exist, it just takes some time and effort to find out where to go and where should be blacklisted. And there’s like three good Mexican restaurants in the whole country.
Well, in Europe we have considerably less mexicans. But in exchange you get lots of Italian, French, Spanish, Belgian, Turkish/Mediterranean and specially in the Netherlands, Indonesian cuisine.
3 in the whole country basically means there’s always one at most a 1.5h drive away.
One redeemable thing in the US of A is that we have melting pot areas with lots of food options. Just the other day I had great Sri Lankan food
The melting pot of flavours is there in NL, just not so much in a place like Nijmegen. Go to Den Haag, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and you’ll find whatever you want.
I’ll definitely check those out when I go to NL
We also have heaping piles of fascism here
Wait until you hear about the ruling party in the Netherlands
Oh I thought the same thing.
Spicy food - eh I guess I could ship in hot sauces etc. No biggie Korean food - damn…that really sucks but Mexican food - dammit, I’m done
I always joke with the wife about opening restaurants for hard to find cuisine wherever we evetually move to. Currently that’s legit BBQ for the PNW if we end up there.