Stories from Americans abroad
First-person accounts and features from around the web, ordered by country.
Argentina Citizenship After 2 Years — Is It Realistically Achievable?
Thread where residents describe the 2-year naturalization route in practice: about six months of paperwork after the two years, with no trips abroad allowed. (link checked via search results only)
I became one of the first 5 Americans to get Brazil’s startup investor residency
An American’s account of getting Brazilian residency through the startup-investor route. (link checked via search results only)
A boomer couple who retired early to Colombia explains their exit strategy
A California couple on retiring early to Colombia, their monthly costs and why they rent before buying.
We retired abroad to Cuenca, Ecuador, once the US got too expensive
A Las Vegas couple who moved to Cuenca after the Great Recession and still love it 14 years later.
They left the US for Ecuador for a better life. Then the country was plunged into a state of emergency
A US couple on Ecuador’s Professional Visa describes settling in Cuenca and living through the 2024 state of emergency.
Did you say you’d leave the country if Trump were elected?
An American who moved to Los Cabos: residency cards took months and three in-person interviews, finished with a lawyer.
I’m American and moved to Peru for love. I still travel to the US for medical appointments
A retired American on getting Peru’s Rentista visa (“stressful, expensive and exhausting”) and healthcare in Iquitos.
I’m an American who got citizenship in 2 European countries without setting foot in either one
An American who got Portuguese citizenship through the now-closed Sephardic descent law; it took nearly three years.
Four-year update on living in Portugal as American expats
A US family four years into life in Lisbon, planning to apply for permanent residency and citizenship at year five.
Spain Non-Lucrative Visa: my application at the Washington DC consulate
A first-person walk-through of applying for Spain’s non-lucrative visa at the DC consulate in 2024.
I reinvented myself by losing 300 pounds and moving to Spain
An American who moved from North Carolina to Valencia in 2024 on a non-lucrative visa.
‘We love it here’: Why this American couple swapped New York for Uruguay
A New York couple who moved to Montevideo in 2023 and became permanent residents two years later.
These are third-party stories we link to for real-world context. We don’t endorse them, and they may describe rules that have since changed. Check each country guide for the current rules.
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