[Barden]

(Original post by danny111)
Spain has jobs?

There is a thriving door-step collection industry there...

[greg.irvine]

the grass is always greener, although after a while wherever you go it is up to you what you do with your environment.
Although I think everyone should move countries at least once just to experience something new.

[Paul McCartney]

I'm not British, but I definitely want to keep living abroad. I've lived overseas (in Asia) my whole life and I really couldn't imagine living in America; it just seems so foreign to me

[cakefish]

Me included. Not saying I hate ol' Blighty but it's time to go exploring the world! See what's out there before it's too late!

[No Man]

(Original post by ifstatement)
x

It seems that pretty much all northern countries like their drink... Maybe it has something to do with the weather.

[lankymanky]

(Original post by cakefish)
Me included. Not saying I hate ol' Blighty but it's time to go exploring the world! See what's out there before it's too late!

That's something that I, as well as a few friends, have also contemplated.

[bengalisoldier]

Forget about weather can you really do a thing about it? No it's shouldn't be weather that for and your life down London weather is like that always and I won't live british for it I'm happy living here I born here in uk.

[Ewan]

I think for me it a grasses greener affect. I've lived abroad before & always ended up missing the UK a lot. That being said, I still do want to work abroad, but whether I'll stay there is another question entirely.

[cgraham15]

Defo leaving when I'm older (I might come back) so thats one of the reasons why I'm gonna be working hard

[PinkMobilePhone]

we've recently started seriously thinking about emigrating to Canada - all depends on if my husband can find a job over there in the IT industry.

[Cyanohydrin]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
I understand where you're coming from, though I think you're stretching out isolated incidents, extrapolating from your experience and generally make wide over-evaluating statements about a 60 million strong nation that you probably wouldn't otherwise make if you weren't trying desperately to prove some point about how 'awesome and amazing Britain is' and by extention, how smelly and terrible our neighbours are. Regardless of the points you're raising, it's impossible to deny that statistically, France is far better behaved and more responsible with their drinking culture and it's something I've witnessed myself. French students from Lyon who spend a year over here in Canterbury have been shocked at what we get up to on a Saturday evening.

Yes but France is really not a utopia - for a start 20% of the electorate have recently voted for the National Front, that alone should start ringing alarm bells. You have identified one problem in the UK. Great. Everywhere has loads of ****ing problems, including France.

I've spent time in Canada, and regardless of your endless desire to prove some inane point, I disagree. It's subjective, so if you love Scotland so much - great, I'm happy for you. On the flip side, I'm fed up of this country and my peers, its endless cycle of vomiting on pavements. In Canada, similarly aged peers seemed much more aspirational, full of depth, more uplifting. Britain meanwhile is a sea of orange faces, bleached puffs and beer soaked flannel shirts.

Erm great? I honestly have no idea what you are talking about?

Most Canadians are pretty dull, there are plently of interesting people in this country, the problem is probably..erm...you (especially your annoying superiority complex). Maybe you should move to London - it is the sixth largest French city by population (at 300,000 French people) so you can leave us horrid Brits alone and you can skip into the sunset and bake bread with them.

Jesus...right, I'm glad you've extrapolated that the opinion of two Canadians plus yourself is enough to prove the wide-ranging joint opinion of 90 million people, but I just don't agree. I've spent a significant amount of time in both the United States and Canada. Believe me, most Americans have no desire to live some antiquated existence in a grey hell hole somewhere in Scotland. And while we're at it, I find it somewhat facepalm worthy that your point of reference is 'Americans who think living in Scotland will mean having their own castle'. Somehow, I don't think residents of Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco are queuing up to live in Scotland. Again, there's a reason why Canada is consistently rated within the top 3 places to live.

Well places like Edinburgh are not a "grey hole". It just isn't. It has been voted as the most liveable city in the UK. The best large city in Europe. Top 25 city in the world. Top 10 city in the world. Best city in Northern Europe. And so on. When I walk around Edinburgh I cannot move for tourists who love the place. Pretty much the entire city is a UNESCO world heritage site. We have loads of culture - the festival, opera, theatre, political activism, fringe, film festivals, hogmany, tatoo it is a ****ing great place to live. As for Toronto and Chicago - yeah I would much rather live here. Do these places have over 1,000 years of history? Do they have a castle on a huge dormant volcano? No. Plus London is better than all those cities that you mentioned - in fact those cities do not have anything close to what London has. Toronto particularly is somewhere I found a disappointment.

A grey hole? You seriously think this is a grey hole?

[Chonicles]

(Original post by jumpingjesusholycow)
I've spent time in Canada, and regardless of your endless desire to prove some inane point, I disagree. It's subjective, so if you love Scotland so much - great, I'm happy for you. On the flip side, I'm fed up of this country and my peers, its endless cycle of vomiting on pavements. In Canada, similarly aged peers seemed much more aspirational, full of depth, more uplifting. Britain meanwhile is a sea of orange faces, bleached puffs and beer soaked flannel shirts.

Yes, there is a big difference between being a tourist in Canada, and actually living in Canada. Most of Canada is made up of boring sprawling suburban developments, lived in by normal people. I grew up in Canada but attended Bath University and I am applying to do a masters at the LSE. I personally have met much more engaging and interesting young people here in the UK than I did back in Canada - maybe you should hang about in different circles? Britain is brilliant you don't understand how excited most Canadians are to come here - it has so much history and culture and is sort of a 'mother country' to us. One thing I really love about the UK is how many of the small towns have so much history and character - small Canadian towns have absolutely no character to them. Life revolves around your pickup truck, the mini-mall and Thursday evening TV.

Canada is really quite a boring place. It struggles with forming a true identity of its own, most of urban Canada is just Suburbs, Strip Plaza's and Shopping Malls. Straight roads and traffic jams. Night life is very limited and Theatre culture is the latest musical. The people are hard pressed to understand a well turned phrase and the "sitcom" is king of prime time. When I go home all that I want is a decent chat in a decent pub with a decent beer.

I grew up in Calgary. I've lived there all my life and was dying of sensory deprivation before leaving. It's a company town, where almost everybody is a right wing, reactionary clone of the other guy, and what little culture there is, is cliquey and incestuous. All of the friends I've known here have left (as well as those I'd have liked to get to know) and I'm not planning on returning. The winters are obscene; the streets are rarely cleared of snow because people don't want to pay more taxes. And everybody's into line dancing and swing music.

The natural beauty of Canada is stunning no doubt, and it's cities are very liveable and functional. But Europe (inc the UK) > Canada IMO.

Believe me, most Americans have no desire to live some antiquated existence in a grey hell hole somewhere in Scotland.

Well a lot of people in Canada and America are of Scottish descent and/or hold a very romantic vision of Scotland. Scotland isn't antiquated or a hell hole? That's an awful thing to say. Edinburgh (as has been mentioned) is without a doubt one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Glasgow is great fun as well and the Scottish countryside is breathtaking. Scotland is a great place..

Somehow, I don't think residents of Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco are queuing up to live in Scotland. Again, there's a reason why Canada is consistently rated within the top 3 places to live.

Well, I would rather live in London or Edinburgh over those cities. London especially outclasses all of those in my opinion and is only really a stones throw away from the European mainland via the channel tunnel - what more could you want (apart from better weather maybe)..

Regards Vancouver it is a tad bit boring. Unless you are into individualistic outdoor pursuits like skiing, biking, running then what does Vancouver really offer? Take away the great outdoors and Vancouver does not have much to offer in terms of quality cultural pursuits, think of any rainy day in winter when there´s no snow on the mountains, those are the boring vancouver days. If you are a hardcore urbanite it is very lacking. It's cultural institutions are marginally laughable and cultural events are few and far between. Most festivals are not free so again it is truly Canada's have/have not city. Relatively low wages, very high general and child poverty rates and due to the extreme cost of housing it has the lowest rate of home ownership in the country backed up by the smallest middle class for those under 40. Vancouver to me just lacks an "umph" that places like London and Edinburgh (as well as Berlin, Paris etc etc) have in spades. Hard to put your finger on it but the city just doesn't seem to have a soul. Downtown Vancouver and all the new areas of endless glass and steel kind of reminds of an indoor car dealer. Tidy, functual, orderly and new. It works well but in it's strive to be so picture perfect it's a rather sterile joyless affair.

I find Toronto to be very bland and dull. It is surrounded by soul-destroying suburbs that can be tremendously boring. The city centre has a few things to offer but overall it is nothing compared to the richness of culture offered by European cities. In addition to being dull, the city is also quite expensive.

Regards American cities. I would not want to be a citizen of the USA. Their government and society is soul destroying.

[Herr]

(Original post by PinkMobilePhone)
we've recently started seriously thinking about emigrating to Canada - all depends on if my husband can find a job over there in the IT industry.

Why Canada? There are better IT jobs in Britain.

[Herr]

(Original post by Chonicles)
X

Your post is spot on with regards to Canada, unless you are going there for the great outdoors there really isn't much going on for it. In reality you don't need to move to Canada to enjoy such outdoors, you can find it in much of Europe unless of course your idea of fun is one big huge plains where there is zilch to do.

No idea why so many seem so gung-ho on moving to Canada, especially considering unless you are in the oil and gas, mining or forestry sectors it is often darn near impossible to get jobs and even those sectors are rather challenging.

[burgergetsbored]

I'd like to move to somewhere in the US after I've gained a masters degree over in the UK. Cheaper housing (subjective), less tax, food...., sun and everything seems cheaper in the US, only thing that might stop me would be distancing myself from family and friends.

[RJ555]

If it was an easier process (less paperwork, expense) I might want to move.

-Obviously the weather is an important factor. The lack of any sunshine or heat can really affect your mood. Traveling to hotter climes like California, you feel like a weight has been lifted. Of course this might be different if you are lucky enough to live down south but then you have increased living costs to deal with.
-Cost of living seems to be high at the moment, particularly transport. It would be great I could nip down to Cornwall once a fortnight, but with rail fares as they are, it's just not feasible.
-Lack of opportunities (although I know most countries are also struggling with employment at the moment)

People will always say "oh the grass is always greener", but I think in many cases it may well be. I can honestly say I'd be happier had I been born in Hawaii instead of some dead-end overcast northern town where the people look gray and miserable, only living for benefits so they can get their next drug fix.

This is an interesting article on the matter: http://www.livescience.com/3521-key-...-location.html

[PinkMobilePhone]

(Original post by Herr)
Why Canada? There are better IT jobs in Britain.

because Canada had less crime, better way of life in general, and isn't run by a pillock.

[Chonicles]

(Original post by PinkMobilePhone)
because Canada had less crime, better way of life in general, and isn't run by a pillock.

Believe me Stephen Harper is a complete pillock. Harper has aligned himself with the intolerant, extreme far-right of Canadian politics and with its cozy relationships to the fundamentalists Christians it shows that it clearly does not understand the separation of Church and state. This anti-woman (1/3 of the conservative MPs are anti-choice), anti-LGBT (Harper clearly mentions that he does not support gay marriage and thus makes LGBT citizens as 2nd class citizens).

The Canadian Conservatives spent precious little time and energy actually governing (a good thing), and a great deal of time and energy (and corporate-donated money) working to systematically, professionally, scientifically, manipulate the sentiments and perceptions of, shall we say, less-worldly Canadians.

I'm also afraid there is crime in Canada, this is an odd thing that British people have said to me before. Canada has a higher murder rate than England & Wales, as well as a higher % of people in prison. I'm not trying to bash Canada, but some people on here seem to have a ridiculously idealistic view of the place. Canada is like anywhere in the West - inequality is rising, public services are being slashed and burned, the government is controlled by corporations, crime is rising and the inner cities have gang problems and so on.

[jonnythemoose]

(Original post by bestofyou)
I didn't think 'latino' was a skin colour?

Surely white is basically all those of european decent no? Like Luis Suarez, he may be more tanned than a British person, be he is still white no?

Do you mean the inca populations? Because I don't think they count as latin anyway.

I think you need to do some more research on the country you want to move to!

Argentina had a massive European immigration influx in the mid 20th century, and as such has the most overwhelmingly white population for any country in the Latin America.

In fact most people in any Latin American country have some 'white' in them, from the Spanish or Portuguese descendency. However in many case they are darker skinned because their heritage is a mix of European and native American (making them 'mestizo')

[jonnythemoose]

(Original post by ras90)
I say that as Latin America (to me), is Mexico and the band of countries in the north of South America - Columbia - Venez etc.

Whilst Brazil, Argentina and Chile are not latin countries.

I am going to live in China full time (all going well, May 30 shall be the last time I ever set eyes on the UK (unless i return for some sort of business trip).

Of course Chile, Brazil and Argentina are Latin America. No idea how you came to any other conclusion.