‘Pack up your whole life’: More Americans are making the decision to move overseas

Well it's an interesting trend that is getting more popular. More and more Americans say they want to leave the United States permanently. Boston 25's Mark Ockerbloom wanted to find out what's actually behind this and what it's really like and what the reality is like to actually move abroad. Throughout much of American history the Statue of Liberty stood on Ellis Island welcoming immigrants but now Lady Liberty is more often in the rearview mirror. For the first time in years the United States is experiencing negative net migration. The Brookings Institute estimates the number of people moving out exceeded the number moving in by between 10 to 295,000 people last year. People began to think more about what they do in their future. More Americans became interested in moving abroad right after COVID according to Doris Spear. She's the president of the Association of Americans Overseas. After COVID because also people were working from home there were people starting to become what we call digital nomads and people realized they had more flexibility in life. They began to see is it possible. The first wave headed overseas was often in search of a better quality of life. Things like less expensive health care, a lower crime rate, or a new adventure after being quarantined. This latest surge of interest is being tied in part to the current political climate and in particular President Trump. A Gallup poll last November found one in five Americans said they'd like to permanently leave the United States. Only 11% said that was their wish back in 2008. When people feel hopeful and optimistic about the U.S. then business goes down a little bit and then when he invades other countries or when people are being shot in the street then demand goes way up. Jana Sanchez and Bethany Quinn run GTFO tours from the Netherlands where they now live. They consult with Americans who want to move abroad providing a roadmap on how to do it. I will say unless people are literally in the top one percent no one in the United States feels like they have enough money and usually after a conversation with us they figured out how to make the money work and how to make the move work. I was born in Hyannis and grew up in Reading and graduated from North Andover High School. Today Jean Marie Jacoby calls Portugal home. We always knew that we wanted to retire young and in Portugal we have to have private health care to meet the requirements for our visa and it is $2,200 a year. Jacoby who moved in 2024 loves her new life but says it was a huge transition. You have to pack up your whole life. We sold everything, everything. And getting used to a new country as a resident and not as a tourist is also a big change. First it's about getting the right visa. Then it's your next hurdle. You gotta get a Portuguese driver's license and that is a lot too just because everything is in person, everything is paper. As for anti-American sentiment, Jacoby says some Europeans do express their unhappiness with U.S. foreign policy. First thing they ask us is if we voted for Trump because there's a real anti-Trump sentiment among certain groups, especially the UK. For Americans dreaming of getting away from political divisiveness, Doris Spear reinforces that a decision like this needs to be carefully thought out. People don't just move overseas for one reason. So when people say, oh I'm just fed up, I want to move, I want to do what you're doing, I say, oh gosh, let me give you a three-page list of all this to think about and then you tell me if you're really going to do it. Here's another interesting part of that Gallup poll. There's a gender gap. 40% of women between the ages of 15 and 44 said they'd like to leave the United States permanently compared to 17% who answered that way in 2008. Those numbers are bigger than those for men.