Americans Are Flocking Overseas for This Reason

“Given the neighborhood you’re in geographically, what’s the risk like here?” I asked the guy sitting next to me at the sushi bar. 

The woman to his right, a colleague I think, piped up. “I live outside of Tel Aviv, and I’ll put my 10-year-old on a bus into the city without any worries. ‘Just keep your phone on’ is all I say.” 

This conversation happened last July in Israel, where I spent four days in Tel Aviv at a crypto conference. One night in town, I ducked into a highly rated sushi joint and bumped into this pair. They, too, were writers—one for an Israeli newspaper, one for a marketing agency. I impolitely interrupted their conversation because A) it was in American English, and B) they were talking about newspaper stuff, and, as a former Wall Street Journal writer, I was naturally curious. 

That sets the scene for the theme of today’s dispatch: safety. 

Hours prior to this sushi dinner, I’d been reading on my phone in a taxi and happened to come across the Global Peace Index 2023 from the Institute for Economics & Peace. It’s now 2024, but at the time, this index was fresh. It had ranked Portugal, where I’ve been living for last half-year or so, seventh in the world for safest places to live. I knew the U.S. would rank poorly, so I didn’t even bother scrolling to find out where it ranked. 

But then I had that dinner conversation and it got me thinking about how the U.S. compares to overseas destinations in terms of safely living, working, and retiring. I know from my conversations at International Living conferences that safety is one of the defining issues for people who leave one country and move to another.  

There’s a Newsweek story I remember from late 2022 about a New York family that moved to Portugal, largely for safety reasons. I went and tracked down that story. Here’s what the author wrote: 

“We moved abroad for many reasons, but it was partly because things were happening around us that made us feel less safe. There was more violence and crime during the pandemic—even in our fairly safe neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn. We were getting all these alerts on an app, which was new: a stabbing on this corner, a shop-owner held up at gunpoint on this street. And these things were all happening within a very small radius around us. It felt like we really had to be aware of our surroundings when we went out. 

My daughter also started kindergarten in 2020, so I knew she would have to do the mandated active shooter drills. It was terrifying because not only do you hope that your child will never be attacked, but there is also no way to protect your child from the trauma of having to do those drills. 

I feel it’s not normal for children to have to understand that someone could break into their school and try to shoot them. “

I hear all kinds of snarky comments about Europe from some of my friends, but the stark reality—a reality some wrongly scoff at—is that Europe is the safest place in the world. I can’t explain why that is other than to surmise that Europe suffered centuries of internecine violence among tribes and nationalities and religious groups, and somewhere along the way they got the message that all this violence and death is freakin’ stupid. 

Civility emerged. Logical crime prevention laws emerged. A sense of respect emerged. That’s not to say Europe is violence-free. Of course, violence occurs on a sporadic basis. But there’s a reason Western Europe leads the world in safety while America ranks 131 on a list of 163 countries on the Global Peace Index 2023. 

That number is stunning… 131 on a list of 163. 

America currently sits two spots above Eritrea… three above Palestine… four above Lebanon… It’s 18 spots below the Republic of the Congo. 

That says something—though nothing good, of course. 

Which is why it’s not hard to understand the desire to feel safer in your own environment. 

I never once felt unsafe in Prague in the five years I lived there before moving to Portugal (the Czech Republic ranks #12 in safety globally). I’ve never once felt even remotely unsafe since moving to Portugal or traveling around my new home country. Same in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, and Italy. In Barcelona, Spain, I once had a vagabond try to steal my backpack on the beach, but that’s the worst I’ve ever dealt with across the 35 European countries I’ve visited. 

There are all kinds of reasons to consider living, working, and retiring abroad—cost of living, the opportunities, and the adventure.  

But increasingly—and sadly—for Americans, safety is now a primary concern. 

No one should have to worry about their safety simply for going to the post office, or the mall, or church. No parent should have to worry about sending kids to a school… 

There are 130 places in the world safer than America. That’s a damning indictment of what’s happening on America’s streets, and an excellent reason to consider a life abroad.