152: 15 reasons why your life would be better in Europe
If you have been thinking about moving abroad, here is an honest look at what life in Europe is actually like from someone who has lived there for almost seven years.
Let me start with the obvious disclaimer. I am American. I grew up in the US. There is a lot about the US that I love. But after living in Europe for the past seven years, there are certain things about life in Europe that I genuinely prefer. And this is not intended to be a Europe is perfect and America is terrible conversation. What I want to talk about is what you might actually enjoy about everyday life in Europe as an American considering moving abroad. Because some of these are not the things most people think about when they imagine making the move.
1. You Will Feel Safer in Everyday Life
One of the biggest differences I have noticed living in Europe is how much less I think about personal safety in my everyday life. Walking around cities at night, using public transportation, moving through busy areas — there is just a different feeling of ease that builds over time.
The data backs this up. According to worldpopulationreview.com, the US is ranked 47th as the safest country in the world. The top five safest countries in the world are Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Denmark. All five are in Europe. And according to the Happier Lives Institute, there are 16 European countries ranked as happier than the US before America even appears on the list.
Something else worth naming honestly is the absence of the same level of gun-related anxiety that many Americans carry without even fully realizing it. I grew up in Texas where guns are a normal part of life. But living in Europe, where guns are essentially not part of everyday culture, I noticed a quiet shift in how I moved through the world. You might not know how much that low-level anxiety costs you until it is simply not there anymore.
2. The Quality of Everyday Food Is Higher
The baseline quality of everyday food in Europe is genuinely higher. And not because every European food product is magically healthier, but because fresh, local, and minimally processed food is much more integrated into everyday life across Europe.
Walk into an average grocery store anywhere in Europe and look at the ingredients on ordinary products. There are fewer random additives and chemicals compared to what you find on the shelves in the US. The EU has stricter food regulations, including maximum residue levels for pesticides, and imported food must comply with the same EU standards as food produced within Europe. According to the European Commission, in 2022 over 51 percent of more than 110,000 food samples tested had no quantifiable pesticide residues at all, while another 47 percent contained residues below the maximum permitted levels.
Beyond the regulations, you have fresh produce markets, incredible bakeries, regional specialties, high-quality bread and cheese and meat from smaller local producers, and a culture that genuinely values the quality of what goes into food. If you have ever visited Europe and noticed that your body just felt better, that your stomach was calmer after meals, this is likely a big part of why.
3. Dining Culture Is a Completely Different Experience
The dining culture in Europe is one of the things I miss the most whenever I go back to visit the US. And it comes down to a few key things that collectively change the whole feeling of eating out.
No Pressure Around Tipping
In much of Europe, the price on the menu is much closer to the price you actually pay. You are not constantly doing mental math calculating 20 percent on top of a pre-tax total while wondering whether you have been generous enough. Tipping in Europe is discretionary and appreciated but not expected. That alone removes a surprising amount of low-level stress from the experience.
You Are Not Being Rushed Out
In the US, the moment you finish eating, the bill tends to appear. The unspoken message is clear: we need this table for the next customer. In European restaurants, dinner is an evening rather than a transaction. You finish eating, you order another glass of wine, you sit and talk for as long as you like. Nobody is hovering. Nobody is waiting. You leave when you are ready. That shift in pace changes the entire experience of going out to eat.
Eating Is a Social Activity Here
Long lunches, late dinners, cafe culture, sitting outside and watching people walk past. Europe has a stronger culture around genuinely enjoying food rather than simply consuming it. Eating out is not an errand. It is an event. And that matters more than most people expect before they move.
4. International Travel Becomes Part of Normal Life
When I lived in the US, going to another country was a trip. It required planning months in advance, significant budget, and usually at least a week off work to make it feel worthwhile. Living in Europe, going to another country can be a long weekend.
You can go from London to Paris, London to Amsterdam, London to Barcelona, London to Lisbon, or London to Rome on a budget airline for a surprisingly low cost. You can take the Eurostar. You can hop on a short flight or an overnight train. And when you get there, you are not just in a different city. You are in a different culture, with different food, different history, different architecture, and a completely different atmosphere.
That kind of access to variety and newness becomes a normal part of your life in a way that is genuinely hard to explain until you are living it. What used to feel like a once-a-year extraordinary adventure starts to feel like something you do on a whim on a long weekend. And that changes you.
5. Everyday Life Is Just Beautiful
This one is harder to quantify but it is one of the things I feel most deeply. One of the things I did not realize I would miss about Europe when I am away is how beautiful ordinary life can be.
You walk to the grocery store and pass a church that was built in the 12th century. Your flat has crown molding and high ceilings with actual character. The cafe on the corner has a gorgeous shopfront. The train station looks like a piece of art. Town squares are designed to be places where people actually want to spend time.
Compare that to walking past strip malls, parking lots, and chain restaurant signs and the difference is striking. Europe is built around people rather than purely around cars and efficiency. And being surrounded by beauty in ordinary daily life does something to you over time. It lifts the baseline quality of your everyday experience in a way that is quiet but real.
6. Culture Is Everywhere and Accessible
Museums, art galleries, theaters, music venues, architecture, history, festivals, Christmas markets, castles, opera, ballet, and local traditions that have been going on for centuries. All of this is not something you have to plan a vacation around. You are simply surrounded by it.
You can wander into a world-class museum on a Tuesday afternoon. You can stumble onto a centuries-old festival in a village square on a Saturday. You can take a train to a castle and be home in time for dinner. Culture in Europe is not a destination. It is the backdrop of everyday life. And that access shapes how you see the world, what you think about, and the kinds of conversations you end up having.
7. You Can Live Without a Car
In Europe, not owning a car is not a limitation. It is just how many people live, and often it is genuinely freeing.
You walk to dinner. You take the Tube or the metro. You hop on a train for a weekend away. You cycle to work. You walk to the grocery store. You get on a bus. None of this feels like a sacrifice. In fact it often feels like gaining something rather than giving something up.
You spend less of your life in a car, which means more walking, more time outside, more spontaneous interactions with your neighborhood, and less money spent on fuel, parking, insurance, and maintenance. There is also a bigger philosophical shift that happens. When getting from A to B involves walking through your city rather than sitting in traffic, you experience where you live in a completely different way.
8. Work Is Less Likely to Consume Your Entire Identity
Work in Europe tends to be something you do rather than the thing your entire life revolves around. This varies by company, by industry, and by manager. But on average the cultural expectation is different.
People take their full holiday allowance. In the UK, 25 days minimum is standard across companies. In many other European countries it is even more. People take their lunch breaks. People leave work on time. People are not answering emails at 10pm or apologizing for being unreachable during a vacation. The OECD has found that full-time workers in European countries generally have more time for leisure and personal care than workers in most other parts of the world.
In the US there can be this constant underlying pressure to do more, be more productive, prove your dedication through availability. In Europe the cultural script is quieter on that front. Work is part of life. It is not the whole thing.
9. You Gain a Broader Perspective on How to Live
One of the most transformative things about living in Europe is realizing that the way you grew up is not the default way humans live. It is just one way.
Moving abroad exposes you to completely different ideas about work, family, money, housing, success, socializing, and how to spend your time. You meet people who have made completely different choices and who are genuinely happy with them. Some things you encounter abroad you will adopt. Others will make you appreciate things about American culture you had never consciously valued before. Either way you come out the other side with a more nuanced and considered sense of what you actually want from your life.
10. Physical and Psychological Distance From American Politics
This one deserves a careful framing. This is not about European politics being better. It is about something more personal and more specific.
One unexpected benefit of living abroad is having some physical and psychological distance from the political environment you grew up in. You still have opinions. You still follow what is happening. But you are not waking up every morning feeling personally immersed in the conversation in the same way. You have some geographic distance from the news cycle and the cultural debates that can make everyday life in the US feel exhausting.
For a lot of people who are considering moving abroad, this is quietly one of the bigger reasons. And having that breathing room changes things.
11. Hustle Culture Is Not a Thing
In the US there can be a relentless pressure to always be doing more. A better job, a higher salary, a side hustle, a bigger house, a more impressive personal brand. There is nothing wrong with ambition. But the cultural temperature around it can make you feel like you are never doing enough regardless of what you achieve.
In many parts of Europe there is a different understanding. You do your work. You do it well. And then you go live your life. People seem genuinely less concerned with impressing each other through job titles, salaries, or possessions. Going to dinner with friends, taking a long holiday, or spending a Sunday afternoon doing nothing particularly productive is considered a perfectly reasonable way to spend your time.
Living somewhere with that cultural baseline does something to you. It gives you permission to stop measuring your life against a productivity metric. Your life is not supposed to be one giant optimization project. And it is surprisingly powerful to live somewhere where the people around you actually believe that too.
12. Public Spaces Feel Like Part of Your Life
Parks, town squares, cafes, pedestrian streets, waterfronts, markets, and gardens. In Europe these places are genuinely integrated into everyday life rather than being destinations you have to drive to.
You do not necessarily need money or a plan to spend time somewhere beautiful. You can walk around a gorgeous neighborhood, sit in a well-maintained park, wander through a market, or find a cafe table outside and simply watch the world go by. Cities across Europe are built to be walked through and experienced, and that design choice shapes the texture of daily life in ways that are easy to underestimate until you live it.
13. Healthcare Does Not Carry the Same Financial Anxiety
I am not going to claim that European healthcare is perfect. There are waiting lists. There are inefficiencies. Every system has its problems.
But what is genuinely different is the financial anxiety that surrounds healthcare in the US. The fear of going to the doctor because of what it might cost. The frustration of insurance not covering something you genuinely need. The possibility that an unexpected health event could be financially catastrophic.
In Europe, I do not have to think about whether going to the doctor is financially devastating. That is not a small thing. It is a constant background stress that millions of Americans carry and that simply does not exist in the same way once you live somewhere with more public healthcare options.
14. Europe Gives You Variety Without Requiring a Huge Trip
America has extraordinary geographic diversity. But crossing the country requires a long flight, a car rental, and usually significant time and money to make it feel worthwhile.
In Europe, you can experience radically different cultures, climates, cuisines, and environments within a few hours of each other. You can go from London to the Alps to the Mediterranean to a Scandinavian city to the Italian countryside without ever leaving the continent. Each experience is genuinely different from the last. And you can do it on a long weekend rather than needing to save up for months.
That access to variety without needing to commit to a major trip changes how you think about your leisure time, your weekends, and what is actually possible in an ordinary year.
15. Life Can Feel More Human and Less Optimized
This is the culmination of everything above. In Europe there are more opportunities to build your day around actually living rather than organizing everything around work and efficiency.
Walk somewhere. Sit at a cafe. Have a two-hour dinner. Take the train and read a book. Go to a market on a Saturday morning. Spend a Sunday afternoon in a park with no particular agenda. These things are not luxuries in Europe. They are just how people live.
And when that is the culture around you, when the people in your neighborhood and your city are all moving at that pace, something shifts. You stop optimizing every moment and you start actually inhabiting your life. That might sound abstract until you experience it. But it is one of the things that keeps people in Europe long after they thought they would only stay for a year or two.
So Is Europe Actually Better?
It depends entirely on what you value.
If walkability, travel access, public transportation, historic cities, longer holidays, cultural variety, better food quality, public spaces, a different pace of life, and freedom from financial healthcare anxiety matter to you then Europe might genuinely be the better fit.
If higher earning potential, larger homes, certain career opportunities, closeness to family, or the scale and convenience of the US matter more then you might feel differently. And both of those answers are valid.
Moving abroad is not about finding a place that is objectively better. It is about finding a place that is better for the specific life you want to build. And the only way to find out which one that is for you is to be honest with yourself about what actually matters.
If you are still trying to figure out which European city might be the right fit for your lifestyle and priorities, take the free quiz at jordangiberson.com/quiz
Grab the free guide, the 5 Exact Steps to Move Abroad, at jordangiberson.com/guide
And if you want to go deeper on the money question, go back and listen to Episode 147: Do You Really Have to Take a Pay Cut to Move to Europe?
