Ellie Owens, her husband, and three young children left Connecticut for Copenhagen in 2022.
They moved for work, but have stayed partly because they've found that the experience of raising young children is superior, and cheaper, in Denmark's capital.
"Daycare is astronomically cheaper here," Owens told Business Insider in October. "We were paying for my oldest to go three mornings a week to daycare in the US, and we were paying $2,600 a month. And here, I pay around $850 — maybe — for two children to get full-time care."
Owens, however, admitted that her monthly mortgage payments in the US were cheaper than rent in Copenhagen.
It's true: Large European cities are expensive. Copenhagen — along with London, Paris, Dublin, and more — ranked high on a new list of European cities with priciest rents, according to vacation-rental site Deluxe Homes.
Still, several Americans who recently moved to Europe's highest-rent cities have told BI they feel their journeys have been worth it.
In interviews conducted over the past few years, residents of Oslo, Berlin, Vienna, Helsinki, and more highlighted the many perks of life on the other side of the Atlantic, from free or subsidized childcare and shorter working hours. They also discussed some of the downsides beyond high rents, like difficulty making friends.
Read on for the cost of rent in 13 of the priciest European cities, in order from least to most expensive, as well as what locals have to say about the pros and cons of living there.
Deluxe Homes provided the apartment-size and rent data, and Business Insider converted it from square meters to square feet.