In the autumn of 2024, Annie was ready for something new. She was living in the southern United States when her husband received an unexpected job offer that would move them to a town just outside London. They were in their twenties with no kids. “We wanted to take a risk,” she says.
While researching their new destination on Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram, Annie found Americans eager to explain how enchanting life in the British suburbs could be—all the benefits of a small town, just a short train ride away from one of the biggest cities in the world. The more she read, the sunnier her expectations about the UK’s health care system, social culture, and European transportation systems became.
They moved before the end of the year. But the reality of life in the UK was dramatically different to what she’d imagined. “There are huge misconceptions about access to quality health care, standard of living … the quality of life is significantly lower than in the US,” she says, citing the challenges she experienced with the National Health Service’s maternity care—having moved while pregnant with her first child—as well as the lack of disposable income in Britain, thanks to lower salaries. “Things in the UK that are considered luxury items are very common” in America, like a dishwasher and dryer, she adds.
Annie says she experienced a high amount of anti-American sentiment straight away. “I found it particularly surprising how people feel so comfortable mocking my accent and culture, even in a workplace environment,” she says. “The UK is very much a place of ‘it is what it is,’ but as Americans we are taught to always improve and strive for better things.” Annie and her husband now have an exit plan for summer next year, the earliest their employers would allow them to relocate back home.
They’re not alone. Thousands of Americans have, like Annie, relocated to Europe in the last few years. Some left seeking adventure; others, the promise of a “slower” lifestyle outside the American grind. But, for many, these reasons were just bonuses to another kind of escape: political refuge in the wake of Trump’s second term.
Annie is not her real name—in fact, she chose not to share any of the specifics of her work background, her husband’s industry, or the precise places they had lived when we spoke about her desperation to get back to America. Like several other Americans WIRED spoke to about their decision to leave and subsequent regret, Annie wanted to remain anonymous because she is concerned about the professional risks of publicly criticizing life abroad. Others cited recent online backlash when other Americans said they missed home, or, in one case, a realization that the political climate of Trump’s America was not something they could escape by heading to Europe.