Finding Your Foothold

As we move forward in the program, you will have narrowed your list of dream havens to one or two based on your lists of personal preferences, priorities, and agendas, as well as the residency visa, health insurance, and tax considerations we’ll have walked through.

The next step, once you’ve identified your most likely new home country, is to begin the work to identify where exactly you might want to live within that country…

This is a two-part agenda.

First, you need to narrow your focus within the place. You’ve already chosen your continent: Europe. Over the next few weeks you will have singled out a country, maybe two… but when it comes to thinking about setting up a home, you need to be far more specific. You need to identify not only to a city or a region within that country, but a particular neighborhood that you think you’d like to live in.

Second, you need to identify suitable digs.

Both of these things are difficult to accomplish long distance. To be sure where exactly you want to live in any country or city, you need to show up and take a look around.

Likewise, finding an apartment or house that suits you is best done on the ground in person. However, you can (and should) carry out some prep work in advance of your scouting expedition.

The fundamental question related to finding a place to lay your head has to do with renting versus buying.