Thoughts on moving out of the USA

[Young_Mike]

As the title says, I'm thinking about moving out of the USA. Trouble is, I'm not exactly rich. I work a minimum wage, entry level job in a gym with only 2 semesters of college under my belt but I feel like I've run my course with the US. I've been to only 3 other countries in my lifetime (Canada, Hong Kong, and the Philippines) but I kind of liked it and wanted to know what people think on here. Any advice/thoughts?

[Fallen_Horse]

From what I have heard, the key to getting into an awesome country (Switerland, the Nordics, Australia) is to find a job that wants you and will give you a work visa. Having a work visa pretty much gets you into the country and, of course, also lets you pay for food, housing, etc.

[FormicaLinoleum]

My thoughts are just that it's not easy. It can be really hard to get a visa to move to another country. If you don't have any links to a country your only chance is, as the previous poster said, to get a work visa or perhaps a skilled migrant visa. But neither one is easy, and most countries are tending to make things harder these days.

I moved from the US to the UK (London) six years ago and love it here, but my mother is English so I have British Citizenship. I don't know that I would have been able to do it otherwise. Actually I might have been able to get a highly skilled migrant visa at the time (I have a PhD in psychology) but I don't think those exist any more.

[SyrLinus]

Mike, what kind of skills do you have? Canada could probably be one of the easier places to move to. If you are young enough, I believe Australia is also relatively easy to get into (takes a year or two to get some kind of work visa). As a Canadian living in the US, my g/f and I likely to move back to Canada since my immigration process into the US is longer than anticipated (I have a work visa and have a green card application in but the GC may take anywhere from 7-20 years, depending on recent reform). I'll retire by then and in a lot of ways, Canada has a better support system for retirees.