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user-inactivated  ·  2929 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Daydreams of leaving

Ok, so you want to work out of the US. You don't have a degree, so that is going to make it tougher. "No marketable skills" is subjective and debatable but will be a barrier. This makes you goal tough, but doable.

First, get a passport. That runs $160 per person or so, more if you want to expedite.

Second, you need to assess what you own, what you owe and what you posses that you cannot live without. How can you sell your junk? How long will it take? What is it worth versus what are people willing to pay for it? Property will need to be sold, debts paid off and cash hoarded. How much do you have left? Debts are something you don't want to leave if you are moving to a country with an extradition treaty or reciprocal banking laws where your assets can be grabbed. That and being debt free is like +10 to mental health and you are going to need the lack of worry when you move.

Once you have a Passport, start contacting embassies of the countries you are interested in and see what work skills they are fast tracking for visas. Canada, when I worked regularly in Canada pre 9-11, required you either worked for a Canadian-based company, were married to a Canadian or had a "high demand" skill/degree to get a work visa. I also had to sign that I was not intending to become a Canadian national to get my Visa, promise to not use my visa to buy property and sign a waiver that marrying a Canadian national voided my work visa. That has almost certainly changed since this was 20+ years ago.

While talking to the embassy, schedule a vacation to their nation. Spend at least two weeks there, leave the tourist areas, find the expats, find the people hiring and see them in person to ask them questions. Can you as a non-national own property? What is it like renting property/homes as a non-national? What are the work requirements. What are taxes like (remember that as a US citizen you need to declare foreign income and file taxes as well).

So, you went on a vacation, you got your shit together, and are ready to leave. Sell everything that you can't fit into a POD style shipping container. Open your bank accounts in banks that give you access in the country you are looking at. Have a shipping address, a place to lay your head, and go.

The reason I say this is that you are not going to just up and move. I've a few liberal friends who threatened to bail when W got reelected then saw how hard it was, so they stayed in the US like all those people did.

    Neither my wife nor I have completed college or have what are considered any strong marketable skills, so job hunting in another country might be a bit of an issue as would potentially securing work visas or whatever you call them.

This is the hard point. Most ESL places I looked into way back in the day required a Bachelor's degree. Since you guys are young-ish, look at places in the middle of the country. Rural America is sort of like our own third world country where it is cheap to live and if you can find work you can have a great life for not a lot of money.

Sounds like you need a change of situation, and that is not a bad thing at all. Rural Arkansas, Rural Ohio, Rural Illinois, Rural Kentucky are all starting to grow again due to call centers and auto factories. And they are still cheap to live in. And you can drive through them, eat lunch at a diner and have a nice conversation with the locals all for the cost of gas and no passport needed. There are some places like this within a 4-5 hour drive of anywhere in the USA. And you don't get the complications of extra-national living, language and culture. But if you are serious, get the passport. Save to travel somewhere, and go. Come back to this question when you get back and see where your headspace is.