Where should I live?

The question of "Where should I / we live?" can be a really challenging one. I've had many conversations about it with friends and colleagues who are either already living and working internationally, have the opportunity to move abroad, are in relationships with partners from different countries, or are seeking a change or an adventure.

Now, one of the most common questions I receive is how we ended up in Como. Whilst the short answer is that my husband is Italian, the long answer is that it has been the result of many conversations discussing what was important for our family, as well as discussing would could be the right timing.

My husband and I met in Singapore and lived there for nearly 10 years, and this was followed by a three-year period in the US for my career. Prior to these places, we had both traveled and worked in multiple locations. I mention this to provide more context on our family decision. Given this experience, we felt somewhat confident in our ability to move around and create homes in different places. When I was offered a role in the US, it wasn't part of our broader plan, however, we thought it made sense for a few years for my career, and as an adventure for our family before returning to Europe. (And with hindsight it was an incredible experience for us all).

I remember one of our first discussions about "Where we should live" late one night over our dining table in Singapore, shortly after our first child was born. We talked about what was important to both of us, and the key themes that emerged that we wanted to have in the next 5-10 years were "work flexibility" and "connection with family & friends". These were themes that we felt were missing from our current day to day.

During the pandemic, these themes became more urgent for us. With travel restrictions and the inability to attend important life events, we deeply missed our loved ones. Living in the US, we felt isolated and far away from any safety net, particularly when the pandemic came with so many unknowns. I know this happened for a lot of people who decided to return back to their home countries between 2020 and 2022.

We accelerated our decision-making process, knowing that a move with a family and financial considerations would likely take multiple years to materialize. Between the UK and Italy, we chose Italy based on our perception of a higher quality of life, strong emphasis on family and children, and an overall lower cost of living. This was especially important as neither of us planned to pursue corporate jobs after the move, aligning with our goal of more work flexibility.

Once we decided on Italy, we started considering personal criteria for our ideal location, such as living nearby to an international airport and big city, having proximity to wonderful nature (ideally water and mountains), being close to good schools and the ability to host visitors when they came to stay. We did our research, but the reality was threw ourselves into the decision accepting that, whilst we were broadly sure we were on the right track, we wouldn't really know how it would all work out until we got there.

If this is a critical question for you, one starting point is to determine what is most important to you at this moment, or in the next 5-10 years. For us, it was optimizing for lifestyle and family, even if it meant not living in a big city and potentially having limited choices from a career perspective. Clearly, this is a highly personal and complex decision. Your criteria will all be determined by what matters most to you at this stage in your life, what tradeoffs you are willing to make and what’s a realistic timeline given financial and other commitments.

I of course recognize the extremely privileged position we are in to be able to even consider and make this decision, and that a lot of factors were in our favor to do so.

If you have already made the decision to move somewhere, or are in the thick of it, I would love to hear more about your process!