To explain first, I would like to say that I’m not asking about temps, local flavor, ease of transfer or the like.
My wife and I are stuck in the US while caring for her father. When the inevitable happens, however, we would like to be prepared to head out ASAP. We’ve done a lot of searching but I thought I’d ask here in case someone’s done some legwork for the same goals as us. I traveled a bunch as a kid in the military but that was a very long time ago and I wouldn’t trust my notions of the countries in question to have remained the same.
Basically, a lot of our goals will be achieved just by not being in the US any longer but we’d hate to end up in a spot that’s working hard to emulate the current social and political climate here. Just as an example, we don’t consider a large portion of Europe to be feasible for us due to the widespread tracking, online verification, etc. These aren’t huge points by themselves but does lead one to believe that it’s similar enough in it’s trajectory to warrant concern.
I can answer any questions you might have that may be able to help guide suggestions but I’ll leave it at this for now so I don’t throw too many wrenches in the conversation.
Thanks for your time!
An immigrant joins a country
An emigrant leaves a country
OP doesn’t know where they’re going, just that they’re leaving a country. Because of that “potential emigrant” is the pedantically correct term for now.
When/if OP enters another country, he would be an immigrant to that country and an emigrant from the US.
They say “expat” in new country because they don’t want to call themselves immigrants searching for a better life, even when they’re open about that being what they’re doing. And they get to keep “US” in front of it which is a huge bonus for some people despite America’s reputation.
But once over there when talking to people also over there, they should be identifying as an immigrant.
Doing anything else, is only going to make friends with other “US expats” like the boomer communities in Mexico where no one speaks Spanish and they put zero effort into fitting in. Wherever you go that paints a target on your back, not just for outright crime, but to get taken advantage of by locals at every opportunity.
Ironically they’re often liable to keep complaining about how immigrants don’t try to integrate in America, even after leaving.
They just want to live somewhere that they’re “rich” compared to everyone else.