Moving to the Netherlands, pt. 1

If you've found me through leaflet or recently started to follow me, lemme do a brief introduction (as brief as my AuDHD will allow me lol).

Hi 👋🏻

I'm a 40-something faery specimen disguised as a human, married for almost 19 years, and have a currently-12 year old son (in the throes of puberty). I was a gifted child who was, like many other women, diagnosed with Autism and ADHD late in life. I'm incredibly bubbly, direct, and loyal until you give me a reason to burn everything to the ground. I'm also very open - ask me anything!

In June 2026, I uprooted my family from our home in the US to move closer to my colleagues at the @openhomefoundation.org in Europe. I'm incredibly lucky in that the foundation is sponsoring my Highly Skilled Worker visa, and even luckier that my role, Community Manager, is considered a highly skilled one. Who knew that shitposting would become a lucrative career. 😆

My husband and I have yearned to leave the US for at least 14 years - we've never felt like we belonged, but the perfect opportunity also never came up. Money was a problem (which only got worse as things moved along), and attempting to move then meant we needed to ensure we secured employment to sponsor one of our worker's visas (something that is fairly difficult to obtain as an American relocating to Europe). At an after party while at GitHub Universe 2024, I made an off hand comment about moving to Europe and the president of the board for the foundation looked dead ass at me and asked, "You want us to sponsor your visa?"

We were drinking. 😅 It wasn't the time to talk about that. But those talks (and the bumpy ride that comes with relocating) continued for over a year before plans were solidified.

There are some things that I expected when moving here, and some things were a surprise. I wanted to blog about those surprises because they aren't things that I found in the expat blogs we used for research. I'd also like to share the expected, because as an American a lot of Europeans tried to warn me of things that I knew of or actually desired in a move to Europe.

In an effort to keep these posts digestible, let's start with the expected. Several of these items also have very unexpected aspects to them, too, so you'll see them listed again in part two.

The Expected

The Dutch "cold shoulder"

When reading expat blogs about their experience, you'll find a lot of people talk about how the Dutch are "cold" to foreigners. I've worked with Dutch people for a very long time and learned that this isn't exactly true - they are direct, dislike small talk, and can get annoyed by foreigners who choose to remain ignorant. But same??? I seem to fit easily into this aspect - and being an American it often surprises Europeans how well I adapt to their culture.

If you choose to remain in the habits of your native country, you will be seen as an outsider here. Simply try to adapt, remember that this isn't the culture you were raised in, and be respectful.

aka - Don't be a dick.

Bikes

Bikes being Dutch life was expected but the scope of it really wasn't expressed, I feel. I knew every day life included bikes for most Dutch people, what was unexpected was the amount of bikes that I'd see. They're literally everywhere.

I also knew we'd get some resistance from my son on learning how to ride a bike because he's extremely risk averse. We'll get past this, though.

Because of bikes being such a large part of Dutch culture, the roads are significantly safer for them here. You should also factor in that the country is flat - like FLAT flat. Flat like the plains of the US. And the vibe here is very much that no one is in a rush. The effort you need to put into being safe on the road, move fast, or to simply get up a hill just isn't required here.

Groceries / food access

Access to food was expected to change. The US is oddly privileged in food access (outside of food deserts). The amount and variety of foods Americans can access year round is largely unique (though not solely specific to them).

While there is a lot of food still imported here, access to that food does end up being a bit more seasonal than you see in the US.

The country size

The US is a massive land mass. Europeans do not really understand its scale. The Netherlands, in contrast, is smaller than most states in the US. This is a wild thing to experience - just Monday I went from one side of the country to the other side as a day trip. If I traveled the amount that I did on Monday in Washington state, I wouldn't have left the state in any direction (well, except maybe hitting the ocean, which technically isn't leaving the state...).

The housing market

Much like a bunch of other countries, the housing market here is aggressive. I had to learn early on to be extra aggressive in my outreach to the companies offering rentals.

(With great success, we've secured our permanent housing in Enschede.)

It's also wildly expensive to live near the Randstad. Even with my decent salary from the foundation, it's really hard to live on a single income in the main metro area and get a decent sized place.

I think that's it...

I could be forgetting things here. I'll add more to the list in future posts if I remember them. 😆

Part 2 will talk more about the unexpected, and I think that one in particular will help out other expat parents who may run into the same things I did. 😌