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Hello everyone! Has anyone here had the experience of emigrating from your home country to a new one?
Hi I am 23 year old and I want leave my country. I hold work visa for Canada. I am convinced that I should leave my country due to political changes happening in my country. What was it like for you? And especially how was it like when you emigrated to a country when you was adult?
Hi,
I have lived in four countries and moved countries once on my own (the other times was with my family). My last move was from Australia to Sweden. For me it was a positive experience, but I was also lucky that I had a housemate to move in with when I got here and we split rent 50/50. My move went basically like this:
I luckily found a job that I started a couple of months after moving so there wasn't too much financial stress, but during those first couple of months it was definitely a lot of financial uncertainty - the idea of not being able to support myself always bothered me. After my working holiday visa expired my employer helped me apply for a proper residence and work visa, and I just got my permanent residence about a year ago (and applied for citizenship this year!)
One thing I regret is not learning the language right away - everyone in Sweden speaks such good English and English is the main language used in my workspace, but I feel I could get integrated better with the actual Swedish community if I spoke the language. That coupled with wanting to take some math courses in university that are only taught in Swedish means I'm now catching up and taking Swedish classes after work. Overall the move was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I almost did the opposite journey! Not from Sweden to Australia, but from Sweden to New Zealand. In my case I got a job first and managed to get a sponsor for the visa. Moving two kids to the other side of the world was hard on them (they didn't know English when we got there). But I think they appreciate the adventure now. We didn't end up staying in NZ though, mainly because we decided to have another kid and felt it would be easier if it was born back home. All in all great fun and great memories. Not at all the same reasons for doing the move though as OP.
It is quite expensive to move though. If it had been only me I could have lived out of a suitcase, but that's not viable when kids are involved. Just getting an apartment, furniture and other household things can be expensive when you need to get it all from scratch. YMMV.