Greetings,
So my wife and I are talking about in five to ten years getting a lease on a place for a year or two as a home base in Europe. Considering cost of living, amenities and transportation access, where would you reside to travel throughout Europe?
Tele
Probably in the country where it would be the easiest to obtain the necessary visas. Not all countries have the same requirements assuming your are US citizens. After that I would consider France or Germany because of location and train system.
What Frank said. France or Germany are probably the most central and both have good transportation. Factors that I'd consider are which country would be most favourable in terms of language, cost of housing, cost of living, costs for services like medical and dental coverage, utilities, etc.
Cheers!
I just gotta say that who knows what things will be like in 5 to 10 years? Having said that, I'm sure you will get lots of input from people who live in Europe right now.
For some input from a couple who have lived "on the road" for almost 3 years, go to Home Free Adventures: http://homefreeadventures.com/. Thoroughly explore the Martin's path and click on every link possible. Although they haven't lived a long time in most places, they have lived in many different countries and have the advantage of being able to compare them. And somehow, they have managed to get special visas to overcome the Schengen rules. Be sure to click on their itineraries for 2013 and 2014 under Where are the Martins? and on Five Rules for Choosing a Vacation Rental (bottom right of opening page). You might find that changing locations would be easier and preferable to staying in one place.
Not knowing anything about the logistics or costs of doing what you want to do, I'd pick France, especially the south, over just about anywhere else. My husband would say that because of the food alone. It's like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, everywhere else is "too" something for me. Too hot, too cold, too rigid, too anarchic, but France is just right.
We don't know what the world and Europe will be in 5 to 10 years (at least I don't know) therefore I will base my advice on situation as it is now. To make it easier for yourself choose the country which language you speak. If you speak no other than English then Great Britain or Ireland. Disadvantage: you won't be centrally located and the living there is relatively expensive. If you expect to travel around eastern Europe, too, a look at the map would tell you that central location would be Germany, Austria, Czech Republic. Most expensive to live in out of these three is: Germany then Austria with Czech R. being the cheapest. As a foreigner you would probably prefer to live in bigger city. In Germany you can choose many, my personal preference would be Munich and Nurnberg for its location and attractivity. In Austria: Vienna and Salzburg, in C.R. Prague and Brno. If you don't mind to be little bit out of center of Europe then your choices are practically endless, for example: Budapest, Ljubljana (very cute small capital of Slovenia), etc. There is enormous amount of information on google. Google expats in Vienna, Prague, Munich etc. and you will see your future cities through the eyes of other Americans.
Scandinavian countries, Netherlands and Switzerland are the easiest (not necessarily easy, just easier than elsewhere) places to live without mastering the local language.
I would vote for southern Germany. That's where my college based a two term study program because you could get all over Europe so easily. We were students and traveling by train. We favored night trains and I went for super long weekends from Stuttgart to Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam. We also went skiing in Austria, traveled to Italy, and the UK and had a week in Berlin, visited Heidelberg, Strasbourg, Innsbruck, Zurich and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. On our "long" trips we went to Greece, Napes, Spain, Morocco, Scandinavia, and Scotland. At least one group went to Normandy and saw more of France. :) In those days you didn't go east. Today, you would easily get to Prague and Budapest. I think Poland would go into the long trip category. There was also a group who did the Rhine on one of their longer trips.
Of course, as I mentiioned we were young and very tolerant of night trains. But I still think that the location is outstanding. And it's beautiful. We were south of Stuttgart in a small town. I wonder if Ulm would be nice? We took the train from Reutlingen to Stuttgart.
Pam
I'm for Bavaria, south of Munich, or Western Austria. The area's in the center of so many great cities and countries that are easily reached by train or by road.
First, you've got the visa to contend with.
As Frank says, Germany has the most extensive rail system in Europe - almost 42,000 km of track, 42% more than France, in a little more than half the area.
Of the 10 major countries on the western continent, Switzerland as the greatest rail density (km of track per sq km), Germany is 2nd, only 1% behind. Then come Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, and Italy. France is 8th out of 10. Spain is last.
According to this website:
http://w3.unece.org/pxweb/quickstatistics/readtable.asp?qs_id=47 Czech Republic is the first in railway density per 1000 km2. It's probably true because nowhere there you are farther than just few kilometres from the nearest train station.
We did it. I am not going to say we made the best choice for everyone, but after several years I still believe we made the best choice for us. The world is changing, it is becoming more homogenized and more that of the generations behind us; so we looked for something that had a culture closer to my generation and something that still didn't reek of box stores, and franchises; we chose Central Europe .... Budapest to be exact. Very close to the center of Europe and with fairly good connections to many interesting places. We don't speak Hungarian but that hasn't been a particular problem.
We didn't lease, we purchased. The advantage of the lease would be that it is easy to walk away. The advantage of the purchase it permits the opportunity for one to possibly create a business out of the real estate. Then one might be able to take advantage of things like depreciation and business trips to maintain the business. We spend a lot of time in Budapest and Central Europe now and will ramp that up to half a year in the next 5 to 10 years. The other half we will spend in the states. We researched the residency requirements and know it’s possible if we want to go beyond half a year.
That which interests us is within a 4 hour train ride or a 3 hour non-stop flight which on a major airline or a discount airline generally runs about $250 on a return trip ticket. Croatia, Istanbul, Moscow, Israel, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, London, Rome and our favorites; Bulgaria and Romania. The last time I checked the cost of living index with NYC being 100, Budapest was 80 while my home town in Texas was an 86 (testing my memory a bit here). BUT when I put a pencil to the numbers Budapest is a lot cheaper because there is no need for a car.
Everyone will find a comfort level in a different location so what works for me may not work for you or anyone else. But after nearly a decade of travel to Budapest and the surrounding cities, towns and countries I am still more than happy with my decision. A couple of interesting places to look might be Frankfurt which is a major hub for just about everything in the EU these days and London which has discount airline connections to every corner of Europe. Vienna also has a lot of good connections.
We made a lot of mistakes learning the process so good luck!!!
