I moved from the US to Germany and the UK. I love Europe, but it's not the utopia Americans think it is.
- Helene Sula moved to Europe in 2016 after monetizing her travel blog.
- Sula's blog, Helene In Between, enabled her and her husband to relocate to Heidelberg, Germany.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Helene Sula, a travel blogger and author of "Two O'Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain: A Search for an Unconventional Life Abroad."
It has been edited for length and clarity.
I grew up in Dallas, and every year my family spent time in London because my parents taught a study-abroad program there.
They loved their jobs; they were making a difference, and their schedule was flexible. I remember thinking, "Is there a job out there like this for me?"
I graduated from college in 2009 during the financial crisis. I was unsure about what to do with my life, so I took the first job that would have me — at Dave and Buster's.
During this time, my husband and I would take momentous 10-day trips across Europe, and we wouldn't sleep because we were trying to see as much as possible.
We thought the best way to keep traveling around Europe was to move there, but we didn't know how. Europe always had a pull on me — it was always in the back of my mind.
In 2011, I started a travel blog called Helene In Between.
I wondered if I could ever make money from it, but at that time nobody was making money online.
I kept hacking away. I tried and failed at many different avenues with the blog and eventually figured out a way to monetize it.
The blog gave my husband and me the freedom to move abroad, and in 2016, we moved to Heidelberg, Germany, without ever having set foot in the country.
Moving to Europe was no utopia
We spent a year researching where to move before we landed in Germany.
All of our previous travel was to bigger cities, but this time, we were going to a smaller city and seeing something we'd never seen before.
It felt like a completely different world—like when Harry Potter went to the wizarding world for the first time.
We were charged with excitement. And then, of course, reality set in. Everything's different. It's a different language.
There are pros and cons to absolutely every place on the planet. I often see things online, like: "If I were to move to Europe, my life would be better."
Living any life like that — saying, "If this happens, then I'll be happy" — is a recipe for disaster. Because wherever you go, there you are. You're still going to have issues and problems that arise. Having an open mind and seeing what you can learn is really beneficial.
We often consider Europe a utopia because of its healthcare system or because workers get more time off. There's definitely something to be said about those things.
But making a blanket statement about Europe is misguided. Life can be tough, no matter where you are.
Life in the UK
After three years in Germany, we returned to the US.
We bought an RV and traveled across America, splitting our time between that and spending time with family in Dallas.
Four years later, we moved to Oxford, England.
It's been so wonderful because Oxford, in my opinion, is very similar to Heidelberg. They are both university towns — Heidelberg has the oldest university in Germany, and Oxford has the oldest university in all of the English-speaking world.
It's also close to London and the airport. It was the perfect pick.
The plan is to stay in England for two years, then return to the US and really start exploring. We've never been to Australia, New Zealand, or South America, and we want to take some longer trips to other places.
There are always more places to explore.
What's been so interesting about living abroad is the ebbs and flows. There are super high highs and low lows. You miss your friends and family back home. You often feel lost, whether that's lost in translation, lost while driving, or in the different rules.
But it has always been worth it.