American moves to Europe—finally discovers true meaning of freedom
An American who moved to Europe a decade ago says the experience has fundamentally reshaped how he understands the concept of “freedom.”
Joe Baur, who relocated to Germany with his wife in 2016, reflected on how life abroad has altered his perspective on work, mobility, and security, as more Americans consider leaving the United States in search of a higher quality of life. His story comes amid growing interest in emigration as Americans reassess what the American Dream looks like today.
Baur recently shared his thoughts in a post on his Threads account @baurjoe, which has amassed more than 74,000 views since it was posted on March 2.
In the caption of the post, Baur wrote: “Americans are moving abroad in record numbers. 10 years ago, I was one of them. And it’s changed how I view ‘freedom.’”
Baur expanded on that idea in a video posted to his YouTube channel, @BaurJoe, which has received 201,000 views since it was shared a month earlier. Baur moved to Germany about a month after he was hit by a car while riding his bike.
In both posts, Baur reflects on his decision to leave the U.S. and how living in Europe reshaped his understanding of what freedom means in daily life.
Speaking to Newsweek, Baur said he and his wife moved to Düsseldorf, in 2016 before relocating to Berlin in late 2019, where they have lived ever since. Before leaving the U.S., the couple lived in the Ohio City neighborhood of Cleveland and previously spent time in Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica.
“My goal had always been dual citizenship,” Baur told Newsweek. “So, once we established residency in Germany, it made sense to stay.”
Baur said his decision to move abroad was not driven by U.S. politics, despite assumptions that the timing of the move was linked to the 2016 election.
“My reasoning wasn’t explicitly political, like most assume, given that we left in 2016, just before Trump,” he said. “I’d been interested in living somewhere in Europe since I was in college, even before I had visited the continent, because I simply thought it’d be cool to live somewhere where you could travel by train and not need a car.”
He added that his interest in living abroad grew after studying in India and earning a master’s degree in Costa Rica. Other commonly cited benefits of European life, such as more vacation time and lower gun violence, were the “icing on the proverbial cake,” he noted.
While life in Germany largely met his expectations, Baur acknowledged that the country’s bureaucracy posed challenges.
“I didn’t anticipate the difficult bureaucracy or what it’d be like to be an immigrant, because you don’t know what you don’t know,” he said. “Of course, Germany isn’t perfect—no place is—but I’ve generally found the grass to be greener here and elsewhere around Europe based on how I like to live.”
That lifestyle, Baur explained, includes “no reliance on car ownership, widely available public transport, walkable cities and communities, more urban parks, and easily accessible national parks by rail.”
He recalled an early encounter with German immigration officials that highlighted those bureaucratic hurdles, including being told by a consulate worker in Chicago that the couple’s marriage certificate was not “fancy enough,” an issue that was later resolved.
Despite those challenges, Baur said the experience was not entirely unexpected. “I wouldn’t say the bureaucracy was surprising, but it was certainly challenging and stressful,” he said.
Baur said much of the response to his Threads post has focused on the idea that Americans experience “freedom to,” while Europeans experience “freedom from.”
“A lot of people have commented on that post saying that in the U.S., you have the ‘freedom to’ and in Europe, you have ‘freedom from,’ and I think that just about sums it up,” Baur told Newsweek.
He contrasted freedoms such as gun ownership and car travel in the U.S. with what he described as freedom from “the stress of worrying about a medical issue bankrupting us,” as well as isolation and job-related stress in Germany, he noted.
“Because of the much stronger social safety nets here, I feel freedom from that sense of corporate paralysis,” he explained, “where you keep a job you hate with terrible vacation time just for the health insurance. Here I can pursue my passions for work.”
“Freedom is in the eye of the beholder,” Baur added. “Some people might prefer the U.S. style. And that’s great.”
Baur’s story comes amid a broader trend of Americans reconsidering life abroad. According to a report published last week by The Wall Street Journal, more people moved out of the U.S. than moved into it in 2025, a shift not seen since the Great Depression.
A Harris Poll report published in February last year found that just over half of Americans believe they could live a higher quality of life abroad, with lower costs and affordability cited as key motivations. The poll also found that Canada, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia, ranked among the most desirable destinations for Americans considering a move overseas.
For Baur, the decision ultimately came down to redefining what the American Dream looks like.
“As more people travel abroad and see that the U.S. way of living isn’t the de facto lifestyle,” he said. “Many people aren’t happy with the typical trajectory of life in the U.S. So, that’s why they leave, in search of their ‘American Dream’ someplace else.”
A screenshot from a YouTube video featuring Joe Baur, an American who moved to Germany 10 years ago.
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