Why we stopped looking for the perfect country

We thought we’d already found it

I’m André, and in 2022 my wife, Nicoli, and I left São Paulo with a simple plan: move to Ireland, study English and build a better future there. We weren’t trying to collect countries or test different versions of European life. We believed Ireland would become our permanent home.

Like many couples moving abroad, we’d turned a country into an answer before arriving. It represented opportunity, stability and the chance to become the people we imagined once language was no longer a barrier. We left Brazil together with great faith in our plan.

Ireland gave Nicoli and me what we had hoped for. We learned English, found jobs quickly, secured accommodation and lived close to work and school. These things may sound ordinary, but anyone who has started again abroad knows how significant they feel. A job proved we could function in an unfamiliar place; a home gave us our first piece of security. Our life together became comfortable, and our memories of Ireland remain overwhelmingly positive. It welcomed us when we needed welcoming and showed us that, as a couple, we could build a life far from everything familiar.

Nothing dramatic happened to change that. Our questions arrived quietly. Ireland is an island, and we soon realised that almost every trip beyond it had to begin with an airport. Housing was extremely expensive, and the wider housing crisis made it difficult to imagine our next stage with certainty. We had friends, but admitted that we had not built the close personal community we wanted. We were doing well, yet wondered whether doing well was the same as belonging. It’s a difficult distinction when nothing is obviously wrong. Sometimes a life can be good and still leave you curious about another one.

Better doesn’t always mean happier

Our first move to Portugal was not an attempt to answer that question. It was strategic. I needed Portuguese documents to continue the citizenship process through my marriage to Nicoli. We chose Figueira da Foz because it was affordable and offered a good quality of life. After a week in an Airbnb, we found a place through Facebook quite easily. Compared with the tension surrounding accommodation in Ireland, the simplicity was a relief. The language and rhythms of daily life also felt reassuring, even though we knew the move might be temporary.

The difficulty was work. Nicoli found a job, but I couldn’t work because my documentation was incomplete. Suddenly, affordability was only part of the calculation. A lower cost of living does not solve much if a couple can’t earn enough.

We realized then that Portugal was not right for us. The operative words being “then” and “for us”. But we didn’t understand that yet, we just knew we needed to leave.

We returned to Ireland, and it welcomed us back as if we had never gone. We even returned to our previous jobs. There was comfort in stepping back into a life we understood and knowing our first choice had not disappeared because we questioned it. But the questions remained. We were happy, yet still believed another country might offer a better balance: somewhere we could save more, find manageable housing and travel without turning every journey into a flight.

The move that changed our perspective

When we heard about jobs in France that included accommodation, that became a neat solution. We already had friends there. We would be on mainland Europe. Housing would be included. And perhaps we could finally save. On paper, it made sense. In reality, it lasted one month.

The salary was not significantly better, the village was extremely small and the work was not what we expected. The language barrier was harder than we imagined, almost nobody spoke English.

We don’t view that month as a mistake. Calling it one would ignore what it taught us. Countries are not packages of advantages arranged from best to worst. We had chosen France by focusing on one benefit – accommodation. But that couldn’t make the work suitable, the location less isolating or communication easier.

France did not fail us. It showed us the limits of the question we had been asking.

Every country solved one problem, and created another

After France, we moved to Belgium so we could remain on mainland Europe. We had bought a car, and enjoyed the freedom to cross borders without flying. Belgium offered jobs in English, particularly in logistics and warehouse work. Temporary serviced apartments made our arrival easier, giving us time to understand our surroundings before finding a permanent home. Belgium solved practical problems that had affected us elsewhere. Salaries were higher, the location was central and the quality of life was good.

Despite all the positives, many jobs were still temporary, English could get us into the workplace, but Dutch or French mattered for integration and a long-term career. Belgium gave us financial security while reminding us that earning a living and creating a life are not the same project. In Belgium, we found much of what we wanted, only to notice that our priorities were changing.

We started looking for something different

Later, we moved to Portugal a second time. Belgium had not failed, Nicoli and I had changed. Our online business was growing. Our priority was no longer finding the best possible job, we wanted time to create something that belonged to us.

Portugal’s lower living costs gave us that time and allowed us to focus on the business instead of working for someone else.

Our business showed promise but that didn’t equate to stability. We needed a reliable financial base while the business developed, which brought us back to Belgium. We returned with different needs, more knowledge and a clearer reason for being here.

The perfect country was never the answer

Looking back, the most important decision was never geographical. First, we wanted to learn English. Then we wanted to save more and travel freely. Later, we wanted enough time and financial space to build a business together. Each goal led us to a different destination.

People often ask us which country is the best place to live, and I get it, we once asked the same question. Having lived in multiple countries, my answer is that the right place is one where the advantages match the life you are building at a particular moment.

The biggest lesson of our years abroad was not how to find perfection, it was how to recognize a good fit for the life we were building then, and not expecting it to stay the same forever.

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