In the fall of 2024, Annie, then in her twenties and childless, was looking for a fresh start. While living in the southern United States, her husband received an unexpected job offer that would relocate them to a town just outside London. “We wanted to take a risk,” she says.
Before moving, Annie scoured Reddit, TikTok and Instagram for advice about life in British suburbs. The posts she read painted a picture of charming small‑town living, easy train access to a world‑class city, excellent health care, a relaxed social scene and efficient European transport. The more she read, the brighter her expectations of the UK’s National Health Service, lifestyle and cost of living became.
They arrived before the year ended, but the reality fell far short of the ideal. “There are huge misconceptions about access to quality health care, standard of living … the quality of life is significantly lower than in the US,” she explains, noting the difficulties she faced with NHS maternity services while pregnant with her first child and the squeeze on disposable income caused by lower wages. She adds that items considered luxuries in America, such as dishwashers and dryers, are commonplace in the UK.
Annie also encountered a noticeable anti‑American sentiment from the start. “I found it particularly surprising how people feel so comfortable mocking my accent and culture, even in a workplace environment,” she says. “The UK is very much a place of ‘it is what it is,’ but as Americans we are taught to always improve and strive for better things.”
The couple now have a plan to leave by next summer, the earliest their employers will permit a return to the United States.
Annie’s experience is not unique. Thousands of Americans have moved to Europe in recent years, drawn by the promise of adventure, a slower pace or, for many on the left, a political escape from the prospect of a second Trump term. Annie chose to remain anonymous, withholding details about her job, her husband’s industry and the exact locations they lived, because she feared professional repercussions for speaking openly about life abroad. Other interviewees also asked to stay unnamed after facing online backlash for expressing homesickness, or after realizing that leaving America did not shield them from the political climate they feared.
For left‑leaning Americans, Europe was marketed as a lifeboat: a place that could offer gentler, freer and morally lighter living. Public figures such as Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi and Rosie O’Donnell have left the United States for political reasons, and Courtney Love announced in early 2025 that she was applying for UK citizenship, calling the U.S. political environment “frightening.” The rollout of digital‑nomad visas in Spain, Greece and Portugal after the pandemic has further eased the logistical hurdles of relocation.
Migration data support the trend. U.S. emigration doubled in the first quarter of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier. Spain recorded a “record high” number of American residents in 2026, according to its National Statistics Institute. The Financial Times reported in April that applications by Americans to Ireland’s Foreign Births Register rose 63 percent between 2024 and 2025. The UK Home Office said residency applications from the United States for January‑March 2025 were the highest on record since 2004.
A survey by expatriate services firm Expats, released earlier this year, found that 71 percent of 58,000 respondents cited the U.S. political climate as a reason for wanting to move abroad. Yet as Trump’s return has confirmed many of their worst fears, online discussions reveal a growing number of expatriates quietly, sometimes apologetically, planning a return home.
Sarah Wood González, a journalist and consultant, recently moved back to New York after three years in Spain and Edinburgh. She says she arrived in Scotland with modest expectations and was “surprised and delighted” by the country’s educated, intellectually curious population. However, she found the slower pace of work a drawback. “Something I had taken for granted is the American outgoingness and default to action, where the question is ‘how can we collaborate?’” she explains. “Generally speaking, I also found that the American work style, for better or for worse, moves much faster and can get to a yes or no in less time.”
Josh, another American who asked to stay unnamed out of fear of backlash, moved to Berlin in 2023. He had anticipated the outcome of the 2024 election and felt his life had stalled after the pandemic. Though he spoke German and had friends in the city, his career expectations did not match reality. “Finding work was so hard, and the endless bureaucracy had grown worse since I’d left,” he tells WIRED. “I missed the friendlier people, freedom of speech, and ease of daily life in the US.” He adds, “If you aren’t born and raised there, and don’t look German, you’ll never be fully accepted.”
These stories illustrate a growing sense of disappointment among American expatriates who left hoping for a better life abroad, only to discover that the challenges of adaptation and lingering political concerns are prompting many to consider, or already to enact, a return to the United States.