How to Leave America and Never Come Back
Why the life of an expat, digital nomad, or emigrant might be the new American Dream.
It seems like the new American Dream is…to move away from America. A recent Gallup survey found that 20% of American adults would like to move permanently to another country.1 This percentage has doubled since 2010, when only 10% of Americans wanted to move away from America forever.
The desire to get out of America was especially strong among women ages 15-44: 40% of this younger female demographic wanted to move away from America in 2025, down slightly from 44% in 2024. This is pretty remarkable: young American women are four times more likely to want to move out of the country than they were in 2014.
What’s driving this new American Dream of leaving America? At the risk of “getting political” in a blog that’s supposed to be about making money and having fun, it appears that the answer is: politics. Young women are more than twice as likely as young men to want to leave America. This gender gap is a sign that younger women feel like America’s political climate is becoming more hostile to them.
Gallup’s research says:2
Rising interest in leaving the U.S. is shaped not only by age and gender but also by political attitudes. In 2025, there is a 25-point gap in the desire to migrate between Americans who approve and those who disapprove of the country’s leadership…
Younger women’s much stronger orientation to the Democratic Party than other age and gender groups exhibit helps explain some of the differences in desire to move abroad. So far in 2025, 59% of women aged 18 to 44 identify as or lean Democratic, compared with 39% of younger men, 53% of older women and 37% of older men.
Gallup also found that American women and girls ages 15-44 have lost the most confidence and trust in America’s institutions during the past 10 years. American women don’t trust “the system” anymore. The biggest increases in young American women’s desire to leave America seem to have happened because of the election of President Donald Trump in 2017, his re-election in 2024, and the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022 which ended Roe v. Wade and took away Americans’ nationwide right to legal abortion.
And it’s not just politics. Everyone in America is stressed and upset about the cost of living these days, but women are feeling it even worse. That’s because American women tend to get paid less money than men: American women earn an average of 85% of men’s income.3 Given their lower incomes, it’s no wonder that women are also more likely to feel anxiety about money. A recent GOBankingRates survey found that 34% of women feel extreme financial stress, compared to only 24% of men.4
Other age and demographic groups like older men (ages 45+) seem to think that everything is hunky-dory in America. That’s understandable, because older guys like me tend to make more money and own more investments than the average American. And the civil rights and reproductive freedoms of American men are never up for debate or at risk of going away because of one flukey election result. (Oops! Not to get political!) If your lifestyle is free and prosperous, if you’ve got money in the bank and can afford to own a house and have a booming investment portfolio, if you feel like “the system” works for you, you don’t need to leave America!
But even if America is successfully creating a hospitable climate for older white guys, it’s clear that lots of younger women are fed up with this place. Can you blame them? If you feel like your own country is run by people who hate you, if you feel like the government is taking away your human rights, and you’re struggling to pay your bills because the cost of living just keeps going up, and the car that is your only way to get to work keeps breaking down, and the copays and deductibles on your health insurance keep skyrocketing, and you feel underpaid at your job and undervalued in the workplace, and you’ve lost trust in your nation’s government and institutions, then…why not leave America and move to another country?
Huh. Young women seem to want to leave America for the same reasons people have always emigrated away from unstable countries: political extremism, government and cultural oppression, and lack of economic opportunities. Apparently young women aren’t into all of this American “masculine energy,”5 fellas!
The point is, no matter your gender, and no matter what your reasons are for wanting to leave America, it can be done. I know because I’ve done it myself. My first job out of college was teaching English in Japan, and over the years I’ve been a part-time digital nomad in Europe. Even though I’m an old, crotchety man now, and the American system is mostly “working for me” on a financial level, I sympathize with people who want to leave America. It’s very tempting! My international travels are some of my happiest memories and favorite learning experiences. Traveling in other countries makes me feel like I’m really doing something with my life. I’ve never felt more free and prosperous than when I’m not in America.
The life of an American living abroad can be pretty sweet. In many ways, being an American in another country feels more exciting and inspiring than everyday life in America, where life often feels stressful and money-obsessed and mundane, like the American way of life is all about paying bills and barely scraping by and worrying about health insurance. (Ugh. This is supposed to be a fun money blog! Fun!!)
Anyway, here are 4 ideas for how to move away from America that I have personally tried (or would consider if I was young and single):
1. Teach English in Japan (or Korea, or China, or Czechia…)
If you’re an American native English speaker, especially if you have a college degree and/or some other formal certification, you can get jobs in other countries as an English teacher. I did this. For my first job out of college in 2001, I taught English in Japan as part of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program.
Being an American English teacher in Japan was a marvelous adventure. It was the absolute best thing that I could’ve done with that first year out of college. I made lifelong friends, I ate delicious sushi and ramen, and drank many tasty Japanese beers and bottles of sake. And living in Japan was a 24-hour-a-day immersive learning experience: new language, new culture, new perspectives, new ways of being. I lived in a tiny apartment that cost less than $300 a month (at the time). I slept on the floor on a futon. I didn’t need a car and I commuted to my job at school by bicycle and bus, I rode the fast, efficient trains into Tokyo on weekends to hang out with my friends in the neon futuristic nightworlds of Shinjuku and Shibuya, where the city looks like Blade Runner, where the lights are so bright at night that you can see your shadow on the sidewalks.
And despite some of the usual young-person-in-their-20s malaise and anxiety about Careers and Relationships and The Future, I was happy! It was an amazing experience! I got to explore the world’s largest city and meet fascinating people from all over the world! And my cost of living was shockingly affordable! I never worried about money when I lived in Japan, I saved a weirdly large amount of money that year, without even trying too hard! In many ways, teaching English in Japan might have been the best job I ever had.
And it’s not just Japan that offers these opportunities. I have friends in America whose son taught English in South Korea for several years, and he loved every minute of it. China is another country that hires lots of American English teachers. I have a good friend who lives in Prague, Czech Republic, who’s been teaching English there for more than 10 years. He lives in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, and he’s one of the happiest, most fulfilled people I’ve ever met.
Teaching English abroad isn’t the perfect long-term career for everyone, but it might be the easiest way for many Americans to get a job in another country. It can at least help you get a work visa and get established. And you might even earn better take-home pay as an English teacher in other countries versus the cost of living, not having to worry about car insurance or medical bills, than you made at your old terrible job in America.
Here’s an article I wrote about this: I moved back to the US after 1 year abroad in Japan. My American career is more lucrative, but life is better in Japan.
2. Sign Up for Expat Relocation Coaching
I actually did this too. I almost moved away from America (again) in 2017. In 2017, my family went on a beautiful, life-changing vacation that is permanently engrained in my memory as one of the happiest times of my life: we spent a month in Europe, traveling and visiting friends in Germany, Prague, London and Glasgow. (I’m blessed to have many awesome friends in other countries, as well as America.) Our kids were ages 9 and 7 that summer, the perfect ages for an international family trip; they were old enough to be independent and curious about the wider world, but not yet teenagers who mostly want to hang out in their rooms or go out with friends. They still were at an age where they wanted to travel with Mom and Dad, they still needed us in those precious little ways, and it was all perfect.
That was a golden summer of life, the sweetest of days. I’ve never felt closer to my family or more grateful for my international friends than I did that summer. We stayed in gorgeous apartments with hardwood floors and high ceilings and big windows, we sat at peaceful sidewalk cafes, we walked everywhere, we took trains, we shopped for groceries at German Aldi, we ate at British fish and chip shops and Indian restaurants in London and French-style brasseries and Japanese ramen shops in Dusseldorf, we visited castles and museums and hiked in forests. My kids quickly learned a surprising amount of German and played pickup soccer in parks and ate shocking amounts of gelato.
Traveling in Europe as a family was paradise on Earth. And I was surprised to discover that, as a digital nomad freelance writer, I was just as productive (or more) working from a laptop on AirBnB couches in other countries as I was from my home office in Des Moines.
So we were completely smitten with the European lifestyle. Why not do this all the time? I needed more information and reassurance, trying to see how to move to Europe as an American freelance writer. I signed up for coaching from a company that offers expat relocation coaching to help people emigrate to Germany. We did a coaching call via Skype and it was very tempting!
My Germany expat relocation coach was an American who was originally from Indiana, another Midwestern state. She and her husband were raising their kids in Berlin and they loved it, and had no plans to move back to America. And my expat coach said to me, “Compared to America, our life in Berlin just feels more active, more connected to the world. The winters are milder here, so we spend more time walking outside all year round. Back in Indiana, it feels like most people just sit on the couch all winter.”
That line really stuck with me. In my everyday American life, I also spend way too much time indoors and sitting on couches and in cars. One of my favorite things about living in Europe would be not having a car, being able to take well-funded, on-time, efficient public transit everywhere. The climate is milder there compared to the American Midwest, where we get All the Worst Weather in the World. The cities in Europe are built for walking, the public spaces are made for lingering. You can be a person there, instead of just a “car occupant.” In the American Midwest, you can drive for 10 hours and still basically be in the same place. In Europe, the trains can take you to vastly different countries and cultures in a few hours. The whole world feels within reach. The overall lifestyle and built environment in Europe is probably, in most important ways, better than America. Could there be a greater gift to your children than to help them grow up multilingual, with a multicultural perspective, with an extra passport in their pocket?
But my wife and I decided not to go through with moving away from America. Ultimately, I just couldn’t quite commit to taking that big plunge. I love our little city and our kids’ schools and our life in Des Moines. I wasn’t 100% sure if my kids’ life would be better growing up as non-native German-speaking immigrants than growing up in their own country, close to family, where we speak the language and we know how the schools and the systems work.
And on a selfish level: I worried that my career opportunities would take a hit if we left America. I’m a freelancer and I can be a digital nomad and work from anywhere, but some clients prefer to hire American writers who are based in America. And I’m not multilingual enough. As an international freelance writer, I’m a one-trick pony: I’m only fluent in English. Despite visiting Germany more than a dozen times, I can only speak enough German to order ice cream (“Zwei kugelen, bitte” -- “two scoops, please”). Despite living in Japan for a year, I’m not fluent in Japanese; but I was able to speak enough Japanese to give a toast at my friends’ wedding. And I’m far from business fluent in Spanish, despite studying Spanish for approximately 6,000 years in high school and college.
The point is: language matters a lot to me. I’m in awe of people who are fluently multilingual. I know how hard it is to get up that steep learning curve of living in another country where you’re trying to learn the language, where you’re constantly forgetting things and tripping over things and making mistakes and slowing down the checkout line at the grocery store. Getting to work in my own native language, where I can type and write and create fluently, fluidly, at the speed of my own thoughts, without the little delays and mental snags and switching costs of trying to speak another language, is a huge privilege. Americans are very lucky that our native English has become the world’s second language and the language of international business. I get to make a living in the language that the rest of the world is making great efforts, at great expense, to learn. I don’t take it for granted.
In the end, my family has had a wonderful life in Des Moines, Iowa where we love our schools and our community and our friendly neighbors, and I’ve been grateful that my kids got to spend lots of time living near their grandparents. I love and appreciate the unique cultural nuances of this little place on the planet. These are my roots, this is my home base. I don’t regret staying in America instead of moving to Germany. (But it was close! We almost did it! I hope I made the right choice!)
Learn more: If you’d like to get expat coaching and find out how to move to Germany as an American and get set up as a freelancer (or possibly find a job), check out this company: Start Relocation. The company that I used for Germany expat coaching in 2018 is no longer in business, but my contact there recommended Start Relocation. Companies like these can help you understand the process, fill out paperwork, and deal with the steps required to get a visa and be “legal” to work and live in Germany.
3. Find the Best Countries for Digital Nomad Visas
What if you’re not sure if you want to move to another country as a permanent immigrant, but you want to try living in another country on a temporary basis as a digital nomad? Many countries now offer digital nomad visas. If you can qualify, this gives you the ability to legally live and work in those countries for longer than you can stay as a typical American tourist.
For example, Americans are allowed to visit most European countries for up to 90 days at a time for business or personal travel without a visa. But if you want to stay longer, you’ll need a digital nomad visa. Getting a digital nomad visa is not the same as getting a work visa from an employer in the other country; it’s more flexible and short-term. This can make it a good choice for entrepreneurs and freelancers who work remotely.
And the good news is, some of the best-ranked countries for quality of life are also making it easier to get set up with a digital nomad visa! I recently wrote an article about this based on the Global Digital Nomad report from Global Citizens Solutions. According to this group’s research, some of the best countries for digital nomad visas include:
Spain: This is a marvelous country to visit! So much good food and wine, pretty beaches, and Madrid’s art museums alone are worth spending a week there. God, I miss Spain.
The Netherlands: I recently visited Amsterdam for the first time and I loved it! I ate mind-blowingly delicious Indonesian food and sweet Dutch stroopwaffels and generally spent most of the time stumbling around giggling with a big smile on my face. The Dutch are some of the happiest people on Earth for a reason.
Canada: If you want to leave America but stay in the same time zone, Canada could be your ticket out of here. I’ve only visited Canada once, so far. But we visited the cosmopolitan, fascinating, English-French bilingual city of Montréal -- and I want to go back! Montréal was fantastic. Lots of good food and unique culture and international flavor. And attending a Montréal Canadiens hockey game was one of the greatest live sports experiences I’ve ever seen.
Want to learn more? Read my article: Want to Start a Business as a Digital Nomad? Here Are the 10 Best Countries to Move To
4. Marry a Foreigner
I’ve never tried this. But if I was young and single and depressed by the dating apps and frustrated with America’s stressful, overpriced, hyper-competitive, socially atomized, excessively commercialized way of life, I would think about it. Sometimes the easiest way to leave America forever is to marry a citizen of another country.
Seriously. Go on vacation in another country where you’d like to live, and go on the dating apps. Go to bars, go to coffee shops and beer gardens, talk to people! Live life! Be open to possibilities! Flirt a little, in a culturally appropriate way!
I’m not saying “you should marry someone just for a visa.” You should only marry for love, or for health insurance. But getting dual citizenship and another passport in your pocket could be a nice fringe benefit! And as for you Americans reading this who are already currently married to a fellow American: I’m not saying “you should divorce your American spouse and marry a foreigner to escape from America,” but…how much has your American spouse done for you lately? Are you feeling well-loved and appreciated? Are they helping out around the house? Are you feeling good about being a one-passport household? Huh??
Beware: The Downsides of Leaving America
In all seriousness: moving to another country and learning a new language and adapting to a new culture is not easy, and it’s not for everyone. Sometimes people move to another country and discover that the reality of everyday life there is less beautiful than it looked in the vacation photos. You still need to pay taxes and pay bills and have income of some kind. Language barriers are real. Culture shock can be tough, especially in the workplace. Your job in another country can still be frustrating, your American professional credentials might not be accepted, your paycheck can still feel too meager, your apartment can still feel shabby.
You might feel lonely and misunderstood, like you’re in a club where you’ll never fully understand the unwritten rules and secret handshakes. Foreign school systems and government bureaucracies can be mysterious and baffling and arbitrary, especially if you’re not a native speaker of the local language. There might be little things you miss about America more than you expected, like college football and fast food drive-thru milkshakes. There will be communication disconnects and little moments of cross-cultural friction in your new country that might feel more painful than they’re worth. Being a long-term expat often requires an open-hearted spirit of extraversion and patience that not everyone can sustain.
And if you’re trying to escape from some deep dissatisfaction with your relationships, your personal life, or yourself, moving to another country ultimately won’t solve those issues. That was another lesson I’ve learned from my international adventures: “wherever you go in the world, there you are.” I lived in Japan, in a culture and country that were radically different from my upbringing in a small town in the Midwest, and I learned massive lessons and life-changing perspectives that have stayed with me all these years; I think about those memories and life lessons everyday. And yet, I feel like living in another country didn’t fundamentally change me. I remained the same person, for good and bad. Maybe no one “changes,” maybe we just become more like ourselves. (Maybe I should have stayed away from America longer…)
I also don’t want to sound too negative about America. This country has big problems and complexities and exasperating political and social divisions just like every country. America is not alone in going through political upheaval during the past few years. Most democratic countries right now are going through the same kinds of pressures for the same reasons: people all over what we used to call the “free world” are feeling furious at corrupt elites and disaffected by “mainstream” politics that has failed to deliver for them. People are exhausted by inflation and struggling to maintain their standard of living. Every country is trying to afford to keep paying for its social safety net and healthcare system and future retirement benefits, while dealing with stagnant economies and aging populations. America’s political problems have a uniquely American flavor, but they’re not unique. Even after everything that America has been through in the past 10 years, I’m not sure that I want to trade problems with any other country on Earth.
And at the risk of sounding like an out-of-touch bougie old guy: I’m grateful for the good things about America. There are a lot of important things I value and appreciate about my American life and my family’s life, and the education I got here, and the career I’ve been able to build here. Living in another country and traveling the world has taught me just how stubbornly, culturally “American” I am, and mostly not in a bad way! And America has powerful strengths: diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship, economic dynamism that not every other “rich” country on Earth can match.
At its best, America has an exceptional spirit of optimism, open-mindedness to new ideas, a capacity for reinvention, a drive to shape the future. There are many reasons why so many ambitious, talented, hard-working and hopeful people from all over the world still want to come to America to study and work and start businesses, no matter who’s in the White House. And the American Midwest where I live, to me, represents some of America at its best. This was the place that nurtured and shaped me, with a spirit of community, generosity, humility, egalitarianism, earnestness, and a world-class work ethic. I can’t run away from my home country and my Midwestern roots, even when America is disappointing, even when it feels tempting.
So instead of leaving America, I’m going to stay here and try to make it better for everyone. I’m going to try to be a more welcoming host to people who come here from other countries. I’m going to try to be more generous to the people who rightfully feel like America’s system is not working for them. And I don’t want to sound dismissive of marginalized people’s concerns about American politics and America’s bitter sociocultural divides. If America really feels that bad to you, and the future of America feels so bleak that it’s time to pack a bag, I’m not telling you that you’re wrong. But on a big picture level, I feel like most Americans just don’t have the option -- or the real desire -- to leave America forever. People might blow off steam while responding to Gallup surveys, but most Americans will stay here. We have no choice -- it’s too hard for most Americans to get a work visa in other countries. Leaving America as an expat or digital nomad often requires money, education, and privilege that not everyone has.
And more than that: as Americans, we’re all in this together. We’re mostly just going to have to muddle through, learn from mistakes, repair damage, protect our communities, and try to create a more hopeful future, just like always. If America really is becoming such an irreparably terrible place to live, such an impoverished and corrupt and oppressive and backward place, that millions of young Americans decide that they’re better off fleeing the country…well, in that world, we’re all gonna be in big trouble. Europe and Canada and Japan don’t want millions of American refugees. They love our pop culture and our tourist dollars, but they don’t actually want “us.”
But if you do want to leave America forever, or just for a year, I understand. And I wish you good luck and Godspeed! Moving to another country is possible, and there’s not just one right way to do it. Living life in another country can be a grand adventure that reshapes your world. Leaving America won’t solve all your problems, but it could solve your biggest problem. And maybe that’s enough.
Want to hire Ben Gran for your next freelance writing project? Send me an email (benjamin.gran@gmail.com) or check out my freelance writer website at BenjaminGran.com.
Benedict Vigers and Julie Ray, “Record Numbers of Younger Women Want to Leave the U.S.,” Gallup, November 13, 2025, https://news.gallup.com/poll/697382/record-numbers-younger-women-leave.aspx.
Vigers and Ray, “Record Numbers of Younger Women Want to Leave the U.S.”
Richard Fry and Carolina Aragão, “Gender Pay Gap Has Narrowed Slightly Over 2 Decades,” Pew Research Center, March 4, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/gender-pay-gap-in-us-has-narrowed-slightly-over-2-decades/.
Kerra Bolton, “4 Reasons 34% of Women Say They Have Extreme Financial Stress,” Yahoo Finance, January 19, 2025, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/4-reasons-34-women-extreme-160104846.html.
Alyssa Goldberg, “Mark Zuckerberg Says Companies Need More ‘Masculine Energy.’ What Does That Even Mean?,” USA Today, January 17, 2025, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/01/17/mark-zuckerberg-meta-workforce-masculine-energy/77755286007/.