We ended up choosing them for a few reasons: the price, the timeframe, the method of shipping and the logistics around the move.

Instead of requiring us to use a traditional shipping container, they offered a smaller wooden crate option that fit what we actually needed. They would send a team to pack our goods into the crate, secure it with a security band and store it until it was ready to be trucked to the shipping port. From there, they handled the process from pickup to delivery with door-to-door service.

That was a big part of why we felt comfortable moving forward. The communication was clear from the beginning, and we did not feel pressured or sold to. Doug explained the entire process, answered our questions and helped us understand what to expect. He did not pressure us to book on the phone. He also didn’t send endless follow-up emails or add us to a marketing list which is super important to me.

What the Process Looked Like

The process was fairly simple:

1. We received an initial quote.

2. We packed our goods.

3. The pickup team came to collect everything.

4. Our shipment was weighed.

5. We received the final price based on the actual weight.

Both pickup and delivery were smooth. Each one took about an hour, and the teams they hired were professional, efficient and easy to work with.

The Timeline

The estimated shipping timeline was about three months door to door. Our actual experience was closer to three and a half months.

The longest wait was at the port. Once our crate was loaded onto the ship, things moved much faster. The ship itself took roughly three weeks, and then the final week included customs and delivery to our home.

As soon as the ship left the port in the U.S., we were notified that it was on the way. The local delivery team was also given our information so they could arrange the delivery date once it arrived.

Our expectations matched reality because Doug set them properly from the beginning.

What It Cost

When we moved to the Netherlands, we paid $4,500, including insurance, to ship our household goods.

For the move back to the U.S., we are paying $6,100, including insurance.

The increase in price is due to a few factors: higher fuel costs, ongoing inflation and the fact that we are shipping about 300 pounds more than we did the first time.

The cost is determined by the crate and the weight. On the way to the Netherlands, our crate weighed 1,160 pounds. On the way back, it is about 300 pounds heavier.

It was not cheap, but it also was not the most expensive quote we received. One company quoted us upward of $16,000 because they only used traditional shipping containers that had to be craned on and off a truck.

What Went Well

Honestly, the entire process went well.

A big reason for that was communication. Doug walked us through the process, set clear expectations and answered every question we had. Communication was excellent. If we had needed something day or night, I genuinely believe he would have answered.

The pickup and delivery teams were also great. They were professional, quick and knew what they were doing.

Why We Chose Them Again

We chose Laser International Moving again because the first experience was so seamless.

The cost was more affordable than other options, the communication was excellent and the door-to-door pickup and delivery made the process much easier. They also offer insurance, which was important to us.

When you are trusting a company with your household goods across an ocean, clear communication matters. We already knew they could handle the process, so using them again felt like the obvious choice.

Who This Company Is Best For

Laser International Moving seems best for people who are moving internationally and want a door-to-door service without having to manage every logistical detail themselves.

They handle different types of moves, but our shipment was relatively small. Our crate was 8x8x4, which I believe is the smallest container option they offer. The weight limit for the base price was 1,200 pounds. If your shipment goes over that weight, the price increases.

They also offer larger containers for bigger moves.

Because “international” is in the name, I believe they focus on international moves, and from what I understand, they can ship goods around the world.

Final Thoughts

Moving abroad is stressful no matter what. A shipping company cannot remove all of that stress, but the right one can make the process feel much more manageable.

For us, Laser International Moving was clear, professional and reliable. We used them to move our household goods to the Netherlands, and we are using them again to ship our things home to Tucson. That probably says the most.

A lot of people are making international moves and this company is at the top of my list to recommend.

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If I had known this experience would last around fifteen months, I probably would have made different choices. Honestly, I kind of wish we had stored everything for a year and then decided later what was actually worth shipping. That is hindsight for you, if you wish to use it.

What was worth bringing in our suitcases

We knew whatever we brought in our suitcases had to carry us through those first few months. We packed four checked bags, four carry-ons, and four backpacks, which let each of us bring what we needed for the first stretch after arriving.

We packed mostly spring and summer clothes, but we did not expect the weather in the Netherlands to feel as cool as it did. I wish I had brought a couple of sweatshirts. I also brought shoes I barely wore, which feels like a lesson in itself. If you are trying to decide what shoes to bring, go through your pile and then go through it again. I wore boots, sneakers, and Birkenstocks the entire time.

As for the kids, our oldest used pretty much everything she brought, though we still bought her some new clothes and shoes after we arrived. Our youngest was much harder to predict. She didn’t want to part with any of her clothes before the move, so I packed them, only for her to wear very little of it once we got here. In hindsight, I should have seen that coming. She is such a creature of habit.

We also brought our laptops and tablets, which was absolutely the right call. Those were not just nice to have. They made work, school, and everyday life possible right away.

What was not worth bringing in our suitcases

There are a few things I would leave behind if I had to do this again.

I wish I had left my nail polish at home. At the time, I packed as if we were leaving for much longer, not just fifteen months, so I brought more personal care items than I ended up using. If I could redo that part, I would swap some of those things for more American over-the-counter medicines. If you know, you know.

I also wish I had been more ruthless about what came with us for our youngest. If I am being honest, I probably should have donated most of her wardrobe and started over after we arrived.

What was worth shipping

Some things really were worth sending.

Our winter gear absolutely was. We used it.

Our computers, monitors, and accessories were worth it too. Those things helped us recreate some version of our normal work life, which matters more than you realize when everything else feels new.

And while this may sound silly to some people, our PS5 ended up being worth shipping because it was what we actually used for entertainment on the TV the whole time we were here and at home.

What was not worth shipping

This is where hindsight really kicks in.

If I had known this would be a relatively short stay, I would not have shipped all of our dishes and kitchen things. I do not regret having them because our All-Clad pans and Fiesta dishes were absolutely better than what we could have bought off an Ikea shelf, but knowing what I know now, I am not sure they were worth the cost and effort of moving them.

I also would not have shipped the mountain bikes. Our oldest used mine for a while, but overall both of us hated riding it here. The bikes that made sense in our old life did not really fit the one we built in the Netherlands.

The skis, camping gear, and maybe even some of the hiking gear also fall into this category. These were the kinds of things that made sense on paper, or maybe represented the life we thought we would have here, but in reality they barely got used.

The extra game consoles definitely were not worth shipping. We hardly touched the Xbox or the PS4. Same for the board games.

And then there were the toys. Our youngest shipped two crates worth of toys and stuffed animals, and she barely touched them once we got here. I fought that battle and lost it, but if I had to do it over, I would push harder. The same goes for a lot of the tools. We used a drill here and there, but overall they were not worth the shipping cost.

Books are a maybe for me. Our oldest shipped about fifteen of her favorite books, and I can understand why. Those kinds of things are not always practical, but they can matter in a different way.

What we bought after we arrived

I do not regret most of what we bought once we got here because these were the things that made everyday life work.

Beds, bedding, desks, chairs, a laundry basket, a toaster, a small fan, a coffee machine, little home decor pieces, a Christmas tree. None of it was especially exciting, but all of it helped turn an apartment into a home.

The coffee machine is the one thing I would absolutely bring back with me if I could. I would ship it home in a heartbeat if it made sense with the voltage situation. Instead, I will sell this one and buy another later, which feels a little tragic, honestly.

What this year taught me

More than anything, this process taught me that moving abroad forces you to separate the life you had from the life you are actually going to live.

Some of what we brought helped us feel like ourselves right away. Some of what we shipped belonged more to our old routines than our new ones. And a lot of what ended up mattering most were the small, ordinary things we bought after we arrived, once reality set in.

In the end, the things that mattered most were not always the things I thought would matter before we left. Moving abroad has a way of exposing the difference between what feels important in theory and what actually supports your life day to day. If I had it to do over again, I would bring less, ship more selectively, and trust that we could build a life with fewer things than I thought we needed. Especially given we are headed back after 15 months.

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We had arrived in the Netherlands, but our bodies, routines, home life, and sense of stability had not caught up yet. Two nights earlier, I had been scrubbing out my refrigerator with a toothbrush. Now we were stepping off a plane into a cold May morning in Amsterdam with four people, twelve suitcases, and no real sense yet of what daily life here would require of us.

The plane landed around 8 am local time on May 15th. We had been traveling for nearly 24 hours at this point but we still had to get from Amsterdam to Den Haag with 4 people and 12 suitcases.

We departed the plane and breezed right through to get our passports stamped and on to get our bags from baggage claim. We followed the signs through the airport and into the dreary cold to wait for our taxi we had preordered.

We waited for roughly a half hour in clouds of cigarette smoke until he arrived and we crammed our bags and ourselves into his van.

He zoomed us through the city and onto the highway through countryside and small towns. As we came into Den Haag the taxi driver whisked us through densely tree lined streets, enormous playgrounds for kids and embassy after embassy. Eventually diverging from the outskirts into the urban streets of housing and businesses.

We arrived at the new apartment, paid the taxi driver and waited a few minutes until my friend arrived with our keys. Once inside we dropped our bags and immediately left for food and coffee. Little did we know hardly anything would be open at this early hour of the day.

We managed to find one cafe open and decided to only get hot drinks and stopped into the Albert Heijn on the way back to our apartment grabbing only essentials. I did manage to remember my shopping bags on the way out of the door.

Back in the apartment we were fighting for our lives from jet lag. Having just leaped 9 hours ahead we should have all been fast asleep at this early hour. We made lunch at home and once again started dozing off.

None of us made it until 6 pm which was our goal. We all ended up sleeping midday and then not falling back asleep until the wee hours of the morning.

The First Week

That first week was the roughest week of my life, of our lives. We only had one bed and it’s about the equivalent to an American full sized mattress. It’s not suitable for 2 grown adults to sleep together unless you plan to spoon the entire night.

We quickly ordered mattresses and bedding so we could start to sleep better. The jet lag had me forgetting the delivery of our order and we had to wait another 2 days for it to arrive.

Our circadian rhythms were so messed up from the daylight until 10 pm. My cycle was thrown off for months because of it and that was one thing I never expected to happen.

Working to Become Functional

Upon arrival, we had to officially apply for our visas. Our attorney needed inked signatures, so we had to go out and buy a printer and paper in order to sign the documents and send them back to him.

We had barely left the hurry-up-and-wait phase of leaving the U.S. before entering a new hurry-up-and-wait phase in Den Haag. Now we were waiting for our home goods to arrive so that some of our comforts from home could catch up with us. In the meantime, we explored the city and planned our summer cross-country European vacation.

What Month One Taught Us

What we learned right away might help someone else, especially when it comes to shopping.

The stores in the Netherlands were confusing at first. You are going to need things like spices, trash bags, printer paper, and random household basics, and if you are American, you are not always going to know what you are buying or where to find it.

One of the biggest differences was the lack of big box stores like we were used to in the U.S. Instead, there were smaller pharmacies and retail shops on nearly every shopping street, along with neighborhood produce stands, fish stands, cafes, and restaurants.

There was no single place that seemed to have everything, which meant learning through repetition. We had to go into each shop, start making mental notes, and slowly figure out what to buy where. The good news is that people were friendly, and asking for assistance usually helped.

Month one was defined by arrival lag. We had arrived in the Netherlands, but nothing else had caught up with us yet. Not our sleep, our routines, our paperwork, and definitely not our sense of home. It felt like we were living in an AirBnB. We were learning neighborhood shops and online ordering while still feeling like we were living somewhere in between. Everything about that first month felt slightly off, as if life had moved faster than our ability to settle into it.

A few things month one taught us: go with the flow, keep Google Translate close, resist the jet-lag nap, and expect to spend more than you think you will. More than anything, though, that first month required patience, endurance, and flexibility. We had to keep making decisions while our bodies and minds were still trying to catch up with the fact that we lived here now.

Until next time,

Heather

You cannot go to a KPN or something similar with a passport and setup a phone plan. So what does that leave you with getting a SIM when you arrive in the Netherlands?

Easy, a SIM only plan that you prepaid plans.

LYCAMobile had the easiest option for us. We wandered over to a phone shop on the first week we arrived and got a SIM only for €10 per month for 10 gb per month. They always gave me 15 gb per month because of bonus offers.

When we took our trip through Europe in June we simply purchased an international plan and that worked out just fine for us.

My only advice is to setup your reloads to automatic so you don’t lose coverage while you’re out and about. You can stop these anytime you want and it’s easy to do on their website.

Now depending on your phone and your situation you may need to use a physical SIM or an eSIM.

Here’s what we did. Remember all situations can be different.

We ordered Tello SIMs and ported our numbers from Mint Mobile to Tello after we arrived in the Netherlands.

I had my Tello SIMs sent to my friend and she simply sent me pictures of each one.

I converted those US physical SIMs to eSIMs via Tello after my numbers ported from Mint. This process actually took longer than I expected to fully work so make sure to give yourself time. Porting took hours but converting the Tello number to our numbers from Mint took longer for their system to do. Ours took weeks unfortunately. It probably would have been less time had I been more proactive about it.

I pay for the no data + 100 minutes plan for $5 per month to keep my US phone number.

Now back to Lyca Mobile. When you finally get your residence permit you can go to KPN and get an actual phone plan that will be more reliable. The Lyca network is not that reliable to be honest.

We took our Lyca SIMs to KPN and they ported our Dutch numbers over immediately and set us up with a plan. I ended up paying way too much for a plan that was too much for our family needs. We were oversold to be honest but just know if you’re anything like me and don’t like commitment you can go with a pay by month plan where you’re not tied in. It does cost a little more but that’s worth it for my flexibility needs.

I think we ended up spending around €79 per month for 3 plans which was too much data. I work in marketing so I know unlimited is really only a sales psychology tactic to get you to spend more money. I went on the website after month 2 and downgraded the plan to around €55 per month which is more suitable for us.

We ended up with physical SIMs for KPN and eSIMs for Tello and all of our phones (iPhone 11s and a 12) allow for dual SIMs.

This is what worked for us and if you’re in need of having both maybe this solution will work for you too.

Until next time,

Heather

Utilities.

We rented our place starting April 15th and moved in May 15th. That meant we had to have our utilities in our name on the start of the rental contract. Our real estate agent told us to use a company called Easy Nuts because they do the work of securing your accounts without you having a residence permit in place. That’s what I understood form this arrangement at least.

You still have logins and accounts directly with the companies but Easy Nuts is the intermediary that gets those setup.

On Easy Nuts you input your meter readings and choose a company that works for you. We went with a company called GreenChoice and we chose to not be on a fixed plan. That meant costs could vary but we were willing to risk it given we had no idea how long this experiment would last.

This program is essentially budget billing. Budget billing is essentially a set rate paid monthly and the cost you bank during summer months will offset the higher energy usage in the winter months. For example, we only averaged €80 in the summer but €700 in the winter. They bill you for the difference at the end of your year. Needless to say we have a large annual bill coming in May.

Right now with GreenChoice I pay €243 per month. That is subject to change. I’ll update this when we get our yearly bill to pay the difference of what we actually owe.

Easy Nuts also helped us secure our water through Dunea.

When I first arrived within a month I got a bill from Dunea for €55.92. That bill was for April to the September then they went to the standard amount we have paid since of €39.11.

Once you register with the municipality you’ll get a tax bill for water. I paid €132 in November for August-December water tax. They base this off when you are registered with the city from my understanding. Since appointments to register were a months long wait it saved us some money.

They send you this tax bill in January with a due date of March 31st so you have time to budget for it if you weren’t expecting a bill this large to come.

This one comes from Regionale Belasting Groep.

So yes, you will be responsible for 2 water bills. One is for the water itself and the other is for the delivery, treatment and disposal of the water.

I should have gotten a tax bill for trash but the landlord paid that for all of last years trash tax so I assume they didn’t send one because it wasn’t due.

Here’s this years trash bill. This one comes from where you are registered, for us that is Den Haag.

Other things you may need to consider but we didn’t are phones, internet and cable. Our rental already had internet and cable included and we got our own SIMs when we arrived for our phones.

Overall using Easy Nuts was truly the easy way to go and the rest is delivered after you register with your municipality. Trust… the bills will find you.

I hope this is helpful for anyone making a move to the Netherlands. Things are always subject to change but this is what happened for us.

Until next time,

Heather

When we tell people we’re moving back to Tucson, I know many will assume why. That living abroad didn’t work out. That somehow the plan didn’t fall into place. While some of that feels true, it’s not really the story.

Rewind to last summer when I started writing here and sharing more about our move, our decision to do so and my feelings at the time — I couldn’t know that by the New Year I would be calling my property manager in Tucson to break the news.

When we moved to the Netherlands, the plan was never certainty, but curiosity.

We moved here because it seemed to meet many of the values on our list, but at the end of the day it was also one of the easier visas to obtain, which made the decision feel more manageable.

We wanted to experience what life might look like somewhere completely different from the place we had just been. After all, it wasn’t the first time and certainly won’t be the last. Every place comes with different rhythms and priorities. Different assumptions about what a good life looks like. The Netherlands certainly values work and life balance which I have great respect for. Moving here was never meant to prove anything to anyone other than ourselves. I actually think it was really to answer a question.

Could we potentially build a life somewhere that aligned with the values we strived to live? For a time that felt true, but then it started to fade as the shine wore off.

Not every place that is beautiful from the outside will become home, and not every lifestyle that works for some people is the life you ultimately want for yourself. This is especially true if you’re trying to compare yourself with the local population. The same way they may not adapt well in Tucson, we ultimately didn’t adapt well here.

Even after making a few expat friends, there was still a loneliness that never quite went away. Building community takes time anywhere, but when language, culture, and social rhythms are different, that process moves more slowly than we expected. This is also true with building friendships with other expats considering they are also dealing with major life transitions.

The school situation was difficult from the start and in ways we didn’t fully anticipate. I don’t think you can truly anticipate what is largely unknown. I wrote about my skepticism of the schools here last year and that has not eased. Friends of ours have had an even worse experience than we have so I do feel some comfort knowing it could have been worse.

One of the biggest surprises was that the cost of living. I don’t know that I expected it to be lower but I certainly didn’t expect €700 gas/electric bills. In some areas it was higher, especially once we factored in housing and the realities of running a business abroad.

(Converting dollars to euros is one of those situations that never gets easier. You just hold your nose and pretend you didn’t just lose 20% of your earnings. I know people always tell me I didn’t lose anything, but that isn’t how it feels in the moment.)

Running a business here added layers of complexity that I hadn’t really anticipated. Taxes, systems, and bureaucracy look very different here than in the US, and I knew this coming in. I won’t get into the business difficulties here because they aren’t something most people will probably ever experience.

Then there is the one thing we were warned about but just never knew how much it would impact us.... the climate. Month and months of gray skies change how you feel in ways I underestimated. My French friend Alex tells me I moved abroad during possibly the worst winter in a while and that may be true but it doesn’t fully ease the dread that comes with waking up to gray skies day after day.

Eventually we had to admit something simple: the life we were building here required sacrifices that we weren’t interested in making long-term. The realization I had was every place offers a different version of life. The question is whether the tradeoffs match the life you want. For us, they didn’t.

While The Netherlands offers a lot… walkable cities, safe bike paths, beautiful architecture, cultural experiences, international perspective it didn’t grow on us in the way that it grows on many.

I think that ultimately comes down to the tradeoffs you’re willing to live with. For us, there were more than we anticipated and we wouldn’t have known without first trying it out. We have no regrets really because our girls continue to experience life and learn from the world in ways we never could have given then had we stayed in the Missouri in 2019.

If you’re reading this because you’re considering a move abroad think more about what you’re truly willing to trade. Oftentimes it’s what you least expect… like living in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Sometimes I wish we would have been able to give this a test drive but we weren’t dealt that hand.

For now, home looks like our desert house in Tucson. We leave in June, so I still have some time to explore, absorb, and feel deeply humbled by the Dutch.

Not in a poetic way. In a practical, end-of-day, the-room-needs-light way. I don’t want to turn on the rude overhead lighting at 6:30 am.

I looked at the obvious places first. Hema. IKEA. BOL, Google search results. All fine, all cheap. All exactly what you expect. None of them felt right. They worked, but they didn’t belong in this new vision we are crafting for our home and our lives.

So we went vintage shopping instead.

We found a small shop tucked into a side street, the kind that sells mismatched glasses and heavy wooden chairs and things that clearly lived a life before you found them. There was a stone lamp base sitting on a low shelf. Solid, cool to the touch. €30.

That was just the beginning.

It needed rewiring. We needed an outlet splitter. Then we needed a lampshade. None of the vintage shops had one that fit. So we threw in the towel hoping to find something on the internet that would work. On the way home, we passed a shop that makes custom stained glass. The kicker? The shop was closed until Monday so we went back. Inside, tucked among the windows, was a shade. €98. The harp kit was €7.50.

Then I decided I wanted a switch on the cord. And a bulb that didn’t feel too harsh. That was another stop and €15.

It took days, multiple stops, time waiting between errands.

€150 and many small decisions later, the lamp was finished.

It sits on our new coffee bar now. Slightly imperfect, full of character and completely ours. Every morning, when I shuffle in to make an espresso, it will greet me first.

In the U.S., this would have been a single transaction. A few clicks, a delivery window and a box on the porch.

Here, everything requires more of me.

I can order things online, but I have to be home when they arrive because I have yet to figure out those delivery lockers.

You can make appointments, but not quickly. You can get answers, but not all at once. Progress happens in pieces, spaced out over days and weeks.

Living in the Netherlands is work for us.

Not hard work. Not even unpleasant work. Just… effort.

The kind that asks you to participate instead of consume.

We have been talking a lot about being more intentional with what we collect and how we spend our hard-earned money, especially since the USD to EURO conversion is painful. Not to mention the environmental impact of the shit we all buy.

My husband used to describe something from his military service as “hurry up and wait.” You do everything you’re supposed to do, as quickly and correctly as possible, and then you wait. The waiting isn’t optional. Complaining doesn’t change the system. You just learn to live inside it.

That’s what this move has felt like.

The bureaucracy.

The paperwork.

The systems that don’t bend to urgency or preference.

You prepare, you show up, and then you wait again. We’re still waiting on our letter to tell us to schedule an appointment to go pickup our drivers licenses.

At first, it feels inefficient and frustrating. Almost unnecessary.

And then something shifts.

Because when things take effort, you notice them more.

You remember where you found the lamp base. You remember the shop with the stained glass. You remember the conversations, the wrong turns, the pauses in between. The object holds the memory of the work it required.

I’ll never forget the couple at the glass shop who told me to “have fun with my lamp.” Their English was broken, but I knew exactly what they meant.

I still remember shopping with my Grandmother when I was young and she would have to go to multiple stores to find the things she wanted. Then after a long day of shopping, bags in the trunk she went home and curled up to read a book and watch Survivor because all of that effort was slightly exhausting.

The same is true of this life.

When nothing is immediate, you stop rushing toward the next thing. You start paying attention to the moment you’re in. The waiting isn’t empty, it’s formative. I keep reminding myself that I was born and bred in convenience culture and I have to unlearn that over here.

I didn’t just end up with a lamp. I ended up more present, more aware, more attached to the life we’re building because I’m actively helping build it.

Sometimes I miss how easy things were. I could run to Lowe’s and get everything I needed and be home with my favorite tea as a bonus stop (u-turns included).

But then I turn on the lamp. The one that took time and lots of required effort. The one I can’t imagine replacing.

And I understand why this life feels heavier in my hands.

It’s the reason the life feels real and is not actually a reel.

Anyway, here’s my beautiful lamp and the lesson that lives with it now.

It was 2017 and my husband was deployed to the Middle East. I had just started a new yoga routine, and the YouTube channel I was watching mentioned selling off their household goods and buying a van to travel. I mentioned the idea to Nate, and we both had this aha moment where we realized the potential of the world around us.

He returned in 2018, and that year we started the process of selling our belongings and eventually our home.

We bought a motorhome and began traveling in it in 2018 to get a feel for what this lifestyle might look like for us as a family. We loved it, and that only made us more excited to try it full-time.

Fast forward to March 2019, when my husband left the military after ten years of active duty… we hit the road.

Living this lifestyle wasn’t everything we expected. I didn’t really get a full sense of it during our part-time travels in 2018.

The reality didn’t set in until we’d been on the road for several months, once the honeymoon period wore off. I wrote recently about the stages of immigration, and honestly, I never made it past the “reality bites” phase.

To be clear this year on the road was the best year of Nate’s life. He can tell his version of this if he ever feels up to it.

After a year on the road, Covid happened, and we ended up settling down again and buying a house. The last thing we wanted was to be in our RV in a gravel lot during quarantine.

My Experience as a Digital Nomad

Living on the road is so romanticized. Most content creators only show the good parts. They need to fund their lifestyles, so they show the places they go, the things they use, the highlight reel. Complaining isn’t really an option.

We once filmed a video sharing some very warranted complaints, and it reached the wrong audience. They tore us to shreds for daring to express anything negative.

The first signs that this lifestyle might not be what I personally imagined…

• Moving constantly and never knowing what our schedule would look like was putting me into a tailspin

• Skipping activities with my family to stay in the RV and work was not what we had planned

• I realized the stability of a home was a safety blanket —familiar grocery stores, the house, steady income, healthcare — all of it was necessary for me to thrive

You never really know how you’ll react to completely changing your lifestyle. You just don’t know until you’ve done it. Lodging a few complaints shouldn’t have started a firing squad either and people on the internet are just assholes at times. They feel safety of being semi-anonymous and it makes them feel empowered to be mean.

Seeing so many places we’d never seen before was a privilege. Experiencing them with our girls was life-changing. We saw more in that year than many people see in their lives.

This lifestyle opened our eyes to the world around us and shattered the traditional concept of the American Dream.

At the same time, the unknowns of freelancing were wearing on me. I was losing clients and income, building debt, and it became too much. My brain was used to having a safety net and suddenly I didn’t have one.

I started experiencing panic attacks for the first time. One night in particular stands out. We were at a state park in New Jersey. That afternoon, we’d taken a beautiful hike through the woods, the trees still holding onto their fall colors. But the entire hike, all I could think about was this sinking feeling that I was failing. Later, I sat wide awake on the couch in the RV—everyone else asleep—covered in sweat, heart racing from panic.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to start trusting my own instincts in running my business. Up to that point, I had taken everyone’s advice from the internet and it had gotten me only so far. I was stuck and not progressing.

I was still new to freelancing, but I had a couple of years of Pinterest marketing experience and I had solutions to problems people were actually having.

Side note: It was in that moment I decided to start my YouTube channel, launch products and begin teaching. That channel now has over 22,000 subscribers and has brought in more than a million in revenue.

But in that moment, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

I knew I didn’t want to live in the Midwest anymore, but I also didn’t know if RV life would work long-term the way I was experiencing it.

We’d talked about RV life for two years and then buying a property somewhere we felt drawn to—maybe Montana, Wyoming, or Florida. We even discussed buying land and building a pad for our RV and Jeep, then building a home later.

But constantly moving—while amazing—was financially stretching me to the point of regular panic attacks.

So what did we do? Honestly, we didn’t have to think too hard, because Covid hit while we were in Tucson. We didn’t want to be in the RV during quarantine, and we needed money. Nate joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves and got a civilian job in the same role he had at Whiteman AFB. Pure chance—but it worked out. We were able to purchase a home again. So we shifted quickly, bought the house, and parked the RV.

Settling again was tough at first, adjusting back to a sticks-and-bricks lifestyle, but it was a balm to my nervous system.

We knew it was temporary because of everything we’d experienced while traveling. As challenging as the lifestyle was, it was also eye-opening in terms of what was possible.

We always suspected Tucson would be temporary. We bought the house in 2020, and by 2022 we were dreaming again—this time, about Europe.

In that time, I had built a business on a much more stable foundation. I was following my own business instincts and the degree I’d spent four and a half years earning. I felt more prepared to take a leap, knowing we wouldn’t be trying to do it as nomads.

Lessons Learned as a Digital Nomad & Freelancer

I learned a few important lessons while traveling full-time and digging into a freelance career.

• I had to trust myself and my instincts and tune out the internet noise.

• I learned the cost of trying to do too many things at once instead of focusing on one thing, getting good at it, and scaling from there. That’s what I focused on from 2020–2022 as we dreamed again.

• I learned I do want stability—but that we can still choose adventure whenever we want to.

• I learned I love having an RV or camper, but I don’t want to live in one full-time

• Sometimes when shit is bad you make de

I recently saw a video where someone joked, “If you never fuck around, you’ll never find out,” and honestly, I cannot stress this enough if you want to experience life differently.

We may or may not stay in the Netherlands long-term, but we will experience a new way of living that we never would have known if we hadn’t taken this leap.

Until next time,

Heather

P.S. This post was inspired by two other writers here on Substack that I follow.

First a piece by Jen Cook at Poco a Poco, “The Thing You’re Not Supposed to Say About Life Abroad.” Second, a post by Kaila Krayewski titled, “The Digital Nomad Lie.”

I found both pieces to be moving and really sparked a fire in me to write this post entirely by hand. Then it took me a month to type it out and fully bring this small piece of my life to life. I was scared to share this because years ago I had a feeling like I had failed at nomad living when in reality my therapist helped me to realize there are no true failures, only lessons.

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America was built on a contradiction. The early colonists depended on one another to survive — to build homes, plant crops, and care for each other in a wilderness that didn’t care whether they made it or not. Yet out of that cooperation grew a story that prized the individual above all else. By the time the Revolution rolled around, freedom had shifted from a shared goal to a personal possession — something to defend, something to own.

You see it now in the news — delivery drivers threatened at gunpoint, people shot for knocking on the wrong door. Everyone’s scared on the inside, but they call it freedom.

The Declaration of Independence promised liberty, but it also quietly rewired the American imagination. It told us that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness belonged to you. But what about us? That idea carried through the frontier, through the Industrial Revolution, through the myth of the cowboy — until community became something you had to buy your way back into.

Even in small towns, the system is built so you stand alone. Healthcare, education, childcare — everything that should exist for the collective good is treated like a personal problem you’re expected to solve yourself. That’s the quiet cost of rugged individualism: we all build our fences higher and wonder why we feel so disconnected.

There are still good people in the States, still pockets of community — but I haven’t felt part of one since my twenties.

That’s what started eating at us. The quiet realization that everything in America is built to make you stand alone. You can work hard, earn well, live in a neighborhood full of people and still feel like you’re carrying everything by yourself. Every problem is framed as a personal failure; every solution as a product you can buy.

After a while, it felt like the whole system was whispering, you’re on your own.

One medical emergency, and you could lose everything.

Looking at the U.S. from the outside now, I can see what I was starting to see before — the country is operating as intended.

Take the latest shutdown debate over healthcare subsidies. Whether or not we should extend them has become a political football, even though without them, some Americans could pay upwards of $30,000 a year for coverage. The premium tax credits are expiring, costs keep rising, and the average family is being crushed in the middle.

It’s not an accident. The system was built this way.

We’ve allowed corporations to dictate the markets, middlemen to wedge themselves between providers and patients, and politicians to protect the profits that keep it all moving.

Then we wonder why Americans aren’t doing better. We aren’t doing better because the system isn’t broken — it’s functioning exactly as it was designed to.

Healthcare is only one example. Once you start looking, the pattern is everywhere.

Corporations shouldn’t be the biggest beneficiaries of tax cuts while their workers get shafted cashing their checks. Companies make billions and earn billions on their billions — it’s a dirty business, but it’s the system working exactly as intended for those in power.

With the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Chevron Doctrine, it’s clear where this is headed. Regulation will fade, corporations will tighten their grip, and Americans will be left holding the bill.

As we reach middle-age and our kids reach adulthood we want to be in a place that will be more likely to care for us. We don’t want our kids drowning in college debt like I am either. Especially when there are better options available.

We didn’t move to the Netherlands to escape America. We moved to live somewhere that still believes in the idea of us. A place where community isn’t something you have to manufacture, where you can feel the weight of shared responsibility in small, ordinary things — biking to school, public parks that actually belong to the public, conversations with neighbors that aren’t just polite small talk.

Just today, I read a newspaper story about a neighborhood vote — 674 residents, ages twelve and up, deciding how to spend €25,000 on improvements. Over the summer, neighborhoods across the city held their annual block parties.

We wanted to know what it would feel like to live in a place where systems are designed to hold people together, not let them quietly sink behind the walls of their homes blaming them if they suffered a loss or failure.

American individualism got me far. I will never fully shed that part of my identity but allowing a collective to care about my family, myself — I’m okay with that too.

Until next time,

Heather

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Nate and I started researching moving to a European country in early 2022. We were planning a European vacation, and after spending weeks outlining our dream trip, we realized we wouldn’t be able to do it more than once.

We didn’t want to be an American family who visited Europe once and maybe, if we were lucky, be able to go again when we were older.

We wanted to travel more in Europe. We had already traveled the U.S. for a year in our RV with the kids, exploring national parks, small towns, and stretches of open road. But Europe had a different kind of charm… one we couldn’t shake. Through our research, we realized it could offer us so much more: a slower pace, deeper history, affordable healthcare as we age, affordable school for the girls and a chance to live differently.

Nate traveled more than I did as a child, I didn’t leave the U.S. until 2021. He’s given me so many firsts in my life, and visiting Europe was one of them.

We started researching what it could look like to move to Europe—where we’d go, how, and when. What would it take from us to make that happen?

We were in the process of getting our documents apostilled when Russia invaded Ukraine. In the months that followed, we got a little spooked. This was summer 2022, and we decided to put our plans on hold.

Then the election happened, and we asked ourselves what we were waiting for.

We wanted to travel more in Europe.

We wanted our kids to have a better education than what they were getting or could get in the U.S.

We wanted to live our values more closely to what we had in mind.

So we did it. I contacted the attorney I had previously engaged and started the process again.

We had no idea what it was going to be like once we landed, but in the years between our initial decision and booking our plane tickets, we consumed a ton of videos about the Netherlands. We found people who had done the same thing and did our best to read between the lines of what they were saying.

Some people online are inherently negative. Others are overly positive. So when consuming content about this kind of move, we tried to read down the middle.

We knew things wouldn’t be all roses and sunshine because we had hired professionals to help us—to give us the good and the bad.

I was recently reading a post from Clare O’Dea about the stages of immigration to a new country, and I couldn’t help but see myself in them.

The Honeymoon Phase

When we arrived, it was a rainy morning, and we were freezing. Having just come from a desert warming into summer, it was a shock to the system. It was early, and we were starving after a 13-hour journey, surviving mostly on airplane food and what snacks we could fit into our bags before takeoff.

Everything looked so different. Unlike visiting another American city where the same businesses line every street—the same big-box stores, the same signs, the same strip malls—The Hague looked and felt different.

We went from sand and things that wanted to kill you, to what felt like a small forest in the middle of a city. The greenery here is lovely. I’ve written about it before, but I still love how Dutch cities prioritize planting trees and laying grass-lined tram tracks. It makes the city feel softer, cooler, more alive.

Everything just felt novel, despite having watched hundreds of hours of walking videos of Dutch cities.

The U.S. is an infant compared to Europe, and the architecture here was something I was really looking forward to living amongst. The U.S. has its beauty, but the only places I found true beauty were the oldest cities—Philadelphia, New York, Boston, D.C. as well as the wild spaces and parks. Most towns in the U.S. are ugly, plastered with cheap strip malls and ads on anything you can put them on.

The honeymoon phase was bliss in many ways. We kept asking each other, “Did we really move to the Netherlands, having never been here before?”

The walkability, the bike lanes, the strawberries so fresh and sweet it’s hard to believe we’d been eating anything else. It all felt like the reward for every risk we’d taken.

The First Wobble

The first ripple appeared the minute we stepped into our new apartment. Built in the early 1900s, with no ventilation and having been closed for months, we were greeted by the smell of mold.

The landlord, while phenomenal, hadn’t had the place professionally cleaned before we arrived, and it wasn’t clean to a standard I’d ever accept.

The smell was odious, but the black mold under the sink was concerning.

We only had one bed, and it was too small for Nate and me to share comfortably. The girls slept on the couch for about ten days because we missed our IKEA delivery.

Top that off with the cold we picked up from travel and the jet lag—we were utterly miserable.

We pay $1,000 more in rent here than our mortgage in Tucson, and we had a bit of a “What have we done?” moment.

I knew the apartment was temporary. I could clean the mold, clean the place to my standards, but it was hard to watch the kids fall into sadness as they realized they wouldn’t see friends or family for a while. That wobble still shows up for me every day. We’ve gotten better, but it lingers.

Reality Bites

We booked a vacation for June, leaving almost a month to the day after arriving in the Netherlands. We hadn’t taken a vacation in two years, and the last one hadn’t ended well. We needed a break especially after the months of selling off our life again and moving across an ocean.

I worked my tail off getting everything ready for June and July so we could leave and disconnect.

But when we came home, reality hit hard — especially for me.

Nate enrolled in summer classes. The girls disappeared into Roblox, and I threw myself into work.

The bitter side of reality came when I started moving my business affairs over to my Dutch company.

The accountant I hired had an assistant who kept sending me VAT invoices for €450 a month—for nil filings. I may be American, and we may annoy some people, but no one in their right mind should pay that. I broke at that point. For two weeks in July, I barely slept. Panic set in and stayed for a while.

Between banking changes, bureaucracy, visas, and healthcare, it was overwhelming.

I threw myself into work while trying to balance everything else.

As a family, we started exploring The Hague more with beach trips, exploring new bike paths, joining a gym.

It took a while, but we found a rhythm.

Frustration

This is where we have been and may still be. It’s not all frustration and honestly, most of the news from the States only makes me more grateful we’re here.

Most of my frustration is about VAT (yes, still) and learning the language.

I get frustrated when I can’t find an item, or when it’s across town and takes half a day to track down because stores stock it but are out of stock. The big-box culture is still in my bones. It’s going to take years to unlearn.

Dare I Label This Next Phase Transition?

Once the kids started school in September, things began to shift toward routine. Nate and I both need that to feel grounded.

We’ve also met new friends and started cultivating those relationships.

People often say the hardest part of moving is the lack of community, and I can see why. We know making Dutch friends will take time, but we’ve met one kind couple whose kids are in our youngest daughter’s class. They’ve lived abroad too, so their children don’t yet speak Dutch either.

Tonight, I group-texted the women in my new friend group, inviting them out for drinks in a few weeks—just us, no kids, no husbands.

This feels like the start of the transition phase, even though Clare describes it differently. Maybe that’s the thing about these stages—they aren’t clean, or linear, or black and white.

So for now, we’re somewhere between frustration and transition headed eventually to comfort zone. Definitely not there yet, but closer.

Moving across a city is hard.
Moving across a state is hard.
Moving across a continent is hard.
Moving across an ocean? Not for the faint of heart.

I’m going to make tea and keep planning that night out with my girlfriends. You have no idea how happy it makes me to say that.

Until next time,
Heather

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When I decided to make my U.S. business fully legal in the Netherlands, I thought it would be a few forms, a bank appointment, and some digital signatures. It’s been… much more than that.

This post isn’t a complaint… it’s a reality check for anyone coming here with an existing U.S. LLC and thinking, “I’ll just register it.” I’m also not giving financial or legal advice. You’ll need to find that elsewhere. Let me know if you want referrals.

If you’re moving to the Netherlands under the DAFT visa, your U.S. business is technically seen as a foreign entity. That means you’ll need to start a Dutch B.V. — their version of a limited liability company.

The process sounds straightforward on paper, but in reality it involves moving every system, payment processor, and income stream into an entirely new company structure. It’s a slow burn, not a one-and-done.

1. Your LLC doesn’t transfer — it becomes “foreign.”

My U.S. LLC couldn’t just “convert” into a Dutch entity. It’s seen as foreign, which is why you create a B.V. The setup itself isn’t difficult, but moving every piece of your business infrastructure—banking, taxes, client contracts—takes more time than anyone tells you.

The process starts with getting your B.V. established. I rushed through this part, and honestly, I’m glad I did because if I hadn’t, I’d probably still be stuck in the early setup phase. You need to have a signed employment contract before you get on the plane if you plan to use the 30% ruling.

Once your B.V. is in place, focus on getting your employment contract, BSN, and KVK number. I actually had all of these before I even arrived in the Netherlands—I just didn’t realize it at the time.

After that, you can start opening accounts. Stripe, PayPal, and Wise are the easiest since everything can be done online. The local Dutch bank account is a bit more complicated, you’ll need to go in person if, for example, you choose to open one with ING.

2. You must employ yourself.

To run your B.V., you have to be on payroll with an employment contract. My salary is set at €6,000/month. Because my client income is still in USD, I have to convert even more than that monthly to meet payroll and taxes. It’s a big nasty tasting pill to swallow which includes more stress to ensure the income is high enough to cover the conversion from USD to EUR and to cover payroll.

3. The 30% ruling takes time.

I’m using both a lawyer and an accountant, and neither would start my 30% ruling application until my first payroll ran. So if you’re planning to apply for it, expect to wait until after you officially “start” being employed by your B.V. I officially started September 1st and paid my first payroll in October. Payroll taxes are paid one month behind. So September payroll is due by October 31st.

4. You can’t file your own VAT (yet).

Until I’m verified third-party entity, I can’t self-file VAT returns as a B.V. — even if though I’m comfortable doing your own bookkeeping. It’s a layer of compliance I just have to wait out. For example, this quarter I shouldn’t owe more than a few hundred euros in VAT so it doesn’t make financial sense for me to pay 450 euros to my accountant each month to do this task. So I want to get verified as quickly as possible. This costs money to do of course and when I get it done it will last for a period of 3 years then I’ll need to renew.

5. Banking in two worlds.

Most of my tools, expenses, and income are still in USD. To avoid losing revenue to conversion fees, I opened a Wise USD business account for my B.V. and switched all my income stream payouts there first. I also use the Wise account as my USD expenses account. Banking in the Netherlands is not the same as the U.S. since they don’t deal in routing and account numbers or 16 digit debit card numbers. That’s where Wise comes in for me.

From there, I convert to EUR when needed for Dutch payroll and taxes. It’s not elegant, but it works and I only end up converting what I need to convert to Euros. Everything else in the Dutch company is done in USD.

6. Accounting in two currencies.

My accountant said we could keep accounting records in USD, but probably not for the first year. So for now, I’m bookkeeping in both currencies and I’m exploring Xero for this.

7. Verifications take longer than you think.

Setting up new Dutch Stripe, PayPal, and bank accounts takes time and so do the platform verifications. Once those are approved, you can move your income streams over. Just expect the process to take weeks, not days. My PayPal account got frozen because they needed documents to verify I was legitimate.

I’m a get it done and move on kind of person, and this process has tested every bit of that.

Nothing about it happens in a straight line. You do one thing… then wait for three others. The best advice I can give?

Have an accountant who can explain things in plain English (or Dutch) and keep you calm while you wait. Be prepared to explain yourself and your questions several times and if possible do not do any of this over email.

No offense to the Dutch but they are terrible at answering their emails in a timely manner.

If you’re planning to “move” your business to the Netherlands, here’s the realistic order of operations:

1. Open the B.V. & get the employment contract signed

2. Move here

3. Get your residence/DAFT permit

4. Open your business bank accounts

5. Set up Dutch Stripe, PayPal, and Wise

6. Verify all accounts before swapping your revenue

7. Hire an accountant early — seriously

Expect it to take time, and don’t panic if it’s not all seamless right away.

I’m at the end of this process, but already learning that “going fully legal” abroad isn’t just paperwork — it’s patience training in disguise.

Schools in the Netherlands are so different than in the U.S. There are schools around every corner and you may not even realize it until you see kids coming and going daily. We have several in our neighborhood that are in walking distance serving kids of all age groups. Our girls walk or bike to school everyday.

When you move here as a US citizen and put your kids into school you’ll need to find an ISK or Newcomers course because inevitably they won’t speak Dutch.

They will spend 1-2 years in this class depending on how long it takes them to pick up the language.

You might be wondering what the difference is in the two types of classes.

Newcomers is for children 6-12 years old. ISK is for kids 12 and older.

They are both Dutch immersion courses for the kids to bridge their language learning so they can go into a regular classroom when they complete it.

One of our friend’s kids went into the ISK course and learned the language in 8 months and went onto regular school this year.

I wish we had chosen this option for our oldest but we really didn’t know and even after talking to an education consultant I feel like we made the wrong decision and we are pushing off the inevitable.

Then there are the Dutch funded international schools as well as the private international schools.

Dutch funded schools are meant for kids who aren’t going to be here for long but need an education that will be recognized no matter where they go. The private international schools are the same. The cost is just vastly different. Dutch funded international schools receive funding from the government whereas the private ones do not.

A lot of people working at the embassies would put their kids in international schools like these because they speak English as the primary language in classes and they will issue an IB which is like a high school diploma in the US. It’s recognized by universities where your child can go on to attend.

Tuition will range from 10,000-30,000 euros per year depending on the type of school you want your kid to attend. The American School of The Hague would be €27,760 / year for our oldest kid.

Depending on the type of school you want to put your kid into will give you a path of tasks to complete.

ISK & Newcomers? Find the municipality website where they detail these courses and fill out the interest form. They will contact you and start the process of finding a school for your child closest to your home and then the school will reach out.

We did this in March of 2025 for our youngest despite not arriving until May and her not starting until September with everyone else. It’s free - just fill out the forms, take your kids for testing if required and show up on the first day of school. They’ll place you in a class as close to your home as possible given they have space.

International schools? You’ll need to apply and fork out a bunch of money of course.

The Hague ISK & Newcomers registration form is here. It was a little hard for me to find at first because I didn’t know what I was looking for so I’m linking it find easily if you’re moving to The Hague.

If you’re not moving to The Hague then you might find these links useful.

Language Classes in Other Cities

Amsterdam has a lot of information available.

Here is what I found that could be useful.

https://www.amsterdam.nl/en/education/language-help/

https://schoolwijzer.amsterdam.nl/en/secondary-education-for-newcomers/#start

https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/live-work-study/living/education-family/newcomers-classes-for-primary-school-children

Haarlem

https://www.itkhaarlem.nl/en/

Rotterdam

https://www.rotterdam.nl/en/just-arrived-in-the-netherlands-and-off-to-school

Utrecht is a bit harder to nail down but it seems like this could be the school for primary education up to 12 for non-Dutch speaking students.

https://taalschoolutrecht.nl/

Of course if you want to send your kid to an International school you will need to find out what is available in the area you want to move to. There is a site here you can browse.

A month in — how are our girls doing?

The oldest hates a few of her classes because they aren’t her thing. She’s overall pleased with the school and the offerings there - especially lunches. In the U.S. school lunches are a joke.

What do mom and dad think? Well half a year in communicating with this school and a month in of her attending? It seems to be a great education but the staff are not communicating well with us, they dis-enrolled her and refunded our money at one point and then proceeded to take the entire month of September to fix it. You call them and they ask you to email and then they never and I mean never email you back. Overall I would not choose this school if I were to do it again. I’ll let you know how I feel as the year progresses.

Our youngest has always hated school and some days she says she’s had a good day and others she’s complaining about it. I think that is just normal for all kids but school was my escape as a child so I never felt that way personally making it hard to relate. They are learning Dutch through games, reading, play, music and art. It’s a very practical way to learn the language so I will also report back throughout the year.

If you’re reading this and moving to the Netherlands let me know if the comments what you want to know more about. I’m happy to share whatever I can to make your life easier. Being an immigrant is hard so we can band together and do our best to support each other where we can.

Chat soon,

Heather

There’s this fundamental desire need in the US to have convenience at every turn. It’s in your grocery shopping routines, your pharmacies, big box stores, and food.

Healthcare in the US is offering convenience in the form of Telehealth and urgent cares.

Financial sectors offer convenience with buy now pay later schemes.

Grocery convenience offers the ability to order groceries on an app or food services that ship meal boxes straight to your house. I have personally used all of the above.

Honestly, I got to where I would punish myself by going grocery shopping alone until the last 18 months to 2 years of living in Tucson when Nate started going with me. Before that, I’d spend half my Saturday making a meal plan, writing my list, cleaning the kitchen, and heading to the store. Drive across town, walk the giant parking lot, wander through a 20,000 square foot store, then haul it all back to the car. And it didn’t end there, you still had to drive it home and pray you didn’t need to make any more stops on the way.

I got to a point where I knew the location of all my usual stops and planned my route based on not making u-turns. That way, if I had more than one stop, I wouldn’t need to double back down the road.

I hated fighting traffic, stopping at endless red lights, and circling for parking that didn’t risk my car getting dinged. Car dependence made doing basic necessary tasks into a chore.

Meanwhile, cars just keep getting bigger, with 20+ cup holders and built-in vacuums. No need to drag out the shop vac or head to the carwash, honey. Just overspend on this massive vehicle instead. They come equipped with charging ports for every personal device. And those cup holders? Even bigger to fit the ever-increasing drink sizes.

Tech convenience offers you the ability to have a smart home while those companies are scraping your data to sell off for big bucks. Another diatribe for another day.

Now there’s “teen Uber,” where teenagers can call rides so their already overworked parents don’t have to shuttle them. I’m not sure who is using that service, but my teens will never be in an Uber without me or their dad.

Big box stores like Walmart have become “supercenters,” one-stop shops where people roam aisles of cheap products, then push carts back to their cars only to abandon them in the lot instead of the corral. The irony of leaving your cart anywhere other than the corral feels uniquely American.

Over the decades, middlemen have popped up everywhere, selling convenience by connecting people to goods and services. DoorDash, for example, links drivers with restaurants. But to get visibility in their marketplace, businesses pay steep fees—sometimes 30% of sales. My friend in Tampa owns a food truck and has to raise prices just to keep margins healthy.

Then the apps tack on extra fees to customers unless they want to pay for a membership to not pay the fees, all in the name of convenience. On top of it all you’re supposed to tip your drivers because they’re not being paid by the business to deliver.

Unless it’s an emergency, I’d rather drive to the restaurant than pay more for the same food and risk wasted food on an incorrect order. Having food allergies in our home really complicates things a lot.

That’s not convenient. I can’t count how many wrong deliveries I got from InstantCart. One guy showed up nine hours late with a trunk of spoiled groceries, hookah smoke pouring out of every door. His hookah was permanently rigged on his dash. Funny in hindsight… but not convenient.

Signing up for services like trash pickup online takes 5 minutes but you have to call the company and tell them why you’re cancelling and the whole process takes 45 minutes. Don’t get me started on subscriptions that hold you prisoner.

Before we moved out of our home in Missouri to travel full-time in our RV I called to cancel our Dish Network. The employee on the other line asked me what we were going to do with our kids if they didn’t have TV to watch. I was flabbergasted. Nate and I talk about this interaction at least 2-3x a year.

Recently I was calling to cancel and port my US number from Mint Mobile to Tello and the loyalty department tried to sell me a plan that would cost double per year to keep my number with them. I had to tell him 4-5x no that I just wanted to get the account details and that I was using expensive international minutes at that moment for him to continue to sell to me.

I don’t know about you but being sold to constantly doesn’t feel very convenient.

The truth is, car-centric American society dressed up as “convenience” is a lie. It felt like being funneled around like cattle. Sure, I loved Cane’s drive-thru tea, but there was nothing convenient about it.

Convenience is packaged up beautifully in marketing messaging that makes Americans feel good about selling out their communities for independence. You don’t need to rely on anyone, just pay for this service.

The trade off is more siloed families leaving people lonelier than ever. I didn’t even mention the environmental cost of all of this. I’ll leave that to Nate to explain - he’s the environmental science major after all.

Americans make excuses to justify convenience while losing the social support they actually want. Americans aren’t gaining convenience, they’re losing time, money, and community.

Truth be told, I don’t think Americans know what convenience really is. Convenience to me is walking five minutes to the store to grab burger buns I forgot, making it back before the meat is off the grill. It’s the ability to hop on my bike to go grab tampons and toilet paper on my bicycle never having to wonder where I’ll park. It’s the ability to ride to the park with a picnic without a lot of planning involved.

In the US, I thought convenience meant a drive-thrus, a giant SUV, or an app that planned all my meals for me. But those things came with hidden costs; time, money, frustration, and a constant dependence on the car because I personally opted out of delivery as much as I could.

Here in the Netherlands, convenience looks different. If we forget burger buns, I can walk five minutes and be back before the meat is off the grill. The girls bike or walk to school instead of me sitting in traffic. Small shops are tucked into neighborhoods, and errands feel like part of daily life, not a whole Saturday lost to highways and parking lots.

That’s the difference. In the US, convenience was something I had to buy. Here, it’s something built into the rhythm of our days.

Arriving in The Hague, I felt wide-eyed in every sense of the word. My first impressions were both grounding and disorienting. Public transit was everywhere, efficient, and obviously built into daily life, yet I found myself confused just figuring out which line to take and how to pay. I personally don’t read a lot of forums or Reddit threads to find answers to things because I find them demeaning and most of out of date. So finding websites with real answers that were legitimate was so time consuming. We ended up just giving up and asking a store clerk.

Recycling was similar: complicated at first, but once I learned the system, it became second nature. We even started using a company called Droppie for nearly everything except paper and glass. You download their app and scan your QR code and they pay you to recycle.

Don’t get me started on advertising in the US. The lack of it here was one of the first things I noticed. No giant billboards screaming at you, no medical ads trying to sell you on the newest pill. I can’t tell you how refreshing it felt not to be constantly marketed to.

We should also talk about an obvious detail to everyone but until you experience it… it’s truly eye-opening and that is walkability. Take a look at these 2 photos. One in California I snapped back in March while walking to a Starbucks while my car charged and the other while I walked to a cafe in The Hague.

Driving into The Hague didn’t feel real. The route took us through forested areas, and even inside the city, the sheer number of trees stunned me. When our driver dropped us on our street, I stood there blinking at all the greenery. We’ve been in nearly every major U.S. city outside the Northwest, and I’ve never seen this kind of greenery woven so naturally into an urban space.

Weeks after being here when we had bikes we were cycling home from the beach and the smells of the greenery brought a sense of nostalgia of growing up at my grandparents… the smell of trees, flowers and the feeling in the air during summer. It just felt familiar. I never expected to experience that in a place so urban.

To be honest I could write an entire post about how much I missed non-threatening deciduous trees living in Tucson.

The city itself felt odd because it wasn’t something we had ever experienced. No matter how many YouTube videos I watched nothing prepared me for it. So many of the buildings looked similar in style, but each had a kind of character I rarely saw in the U.S. where strip malls and cookie-cutter neighborhoods dominate the landscape. In the US no matter what city you visit there are always the same set of ugly, cheaply built offerings. It’s so predictable and boring.

Then came the surprises… the smaller, daily-life details that no amount of research prepares you for. Like kids shopping alone in the grocery store, list in hand and money ready to pay. Oh and the gates at the grocery store that you have to scan your receipt to open.

Sometimes it was for their own lunch, sometimes for their parents and it just seemed so normal here. Then of course, the bicycles. We expected them, sure, but nothing prepared us for the sheer volume of bikes or the massive garages packed full of them. Seeing it firsthand is an entirely different experience.

There were other adjustments too.

Stores closing around 5 p.m. still throws me off, even though grocery stores stay open later.

Despite the biking culture, there are still a lot of cars, a surprising number all fighting for limited parking. Not something I expected to see here honestly.

Should I mention that cities aren’t loud when there is a lack of cars? Honestly that was something I have heard over and over on urban planning style channels on YouTube like Not Just Bikes, Strong Towns, City Beautiful and City Nerd but couldn’t believe it was actually true until I experienced it myself.

The closeness of shops is a gift I never realized I’d love so much. Forget an ingredient while cooking? No problem, I can walk to the store, grab what I need, and be back at the stove in ten minutes. That kind of convenience was never possible in the U.S. neighborhoods we lived in.

Some things were more challenging. Over-the-counter medicine options are slim, and coated pills are prescription-only apparently. For someone like me, with an autoimmune disease that narrows my throat, swallowing uncoated pills is nearly impossible and allowing them to melt in my mouth is a thing of nightmares. I’ll need to persuade my doctor to provide a script for coated medication apparently.

Another challenge is the sheer amount of smoking here. As someone who goes out of my way to avoid smoke, it is frustrating to see how common it is in public spaces, right in front of doorways, outside cafes, and even in outdoor eating areas. I genuinely hate it. The US worked hard to push smoking out of shared spaces, and I do miss that shift. Honestly, I am shocked at how high the smoking rates are here given how long and healthy Dutch people tend to live. I respect personal choice, but not everyone around you wants to be breathing it in.

Finding favorite personal care items is always a challenge. I don’t necessarily want to waste money on products I will end up hating but it’s something you really just have to do to find things you will like. I was truly shocked by the floss culture here though. I’ve never seen so many options for tiny little straw cleaner looking floss sticks and like 1-2 options for actual floss on a roll. I did finally find a large roll of Reach floss at Etos. It’s not coated but it also doesn’t fall apart between my teeth.

Did I mention the sheer amount of libraries here? There are 3 within a mile of our apartment and a 4th we visit frequently when we are in the city center. I do love a library and when you’re new here and you register with the municipality they send you a booklet that contains a coupon for your first year of membership for free. Score!

All of these details are shaping our daily life here in the Netherlands. I don’t know when The Hague will start to feel like home, but I can already feel the edges of that belonging taking shape. I think it’s just a matter of finding your flow and we are starting to get there.

We had just spent nine nonstop months on the road in our RV, never really pausing long enough to breathe, and Tucson was on the radar but only for the winter. Then the pandemic hit, my income all but disappeared, and suddenly we needed a place to land. Tucson felt like it chose us more than we chose it. We bought a house, settled in for five years, and fell in love with the desert life.

The mountains became our getaway when summer heat felt oppressive, and every spring the cactus blooms filled the air with a sweetness I’ll never forget. Quail darted across the streets like little crazed lunatics, lizards sunned themselves on the walls (we named every single one of them), and outdoor adventures were always waiting just beyond our front door. For all its surprises, Tucson became home.

But eventually it was time to move on, this time with intention. We wanted to choose where to live, not just stumble into it. And instead of another U.S. city, our eyes moved across the ocean. We didn’t want to live in the suburbs, especially since we didn’t speak the language, so we narrowed our search to larger cities. That’s how we found ourselves watching every walking tour video of The Hague.

Here are the reasons we chose this city.

Language Classes

Schools were the biggest factor in choosing The Hague. We needed a place where the girls could learn Dutch, and The Hague offers more of these programs than most other cities. By chance, our rental ended up right across the street from the language class our youngest can walk to every day.

International Community

The Hague’s large international community was another draw. With so many diplomatic embassies here, the city naturally offers diverse restaurants and specialty grocery stores. I recently started teaching myself how to cook ramen, which led me into the Amazing Oriental store. The first time, I was so overwhelmed I walked right back out. On my second visit, I ventured back into the aisles with screenshots in hand and finally found what I needed.

Number of Rentals

Being a larger city, The Hague has more rental options than most Dutch towns. Of course, that comes with higher prices, but the wider availability gave us room to find something that worked.

Dense Dutch Living

We wanted to experience the dense, urban Dutch lifestyle, walkable streets, cycle-friendly neighborhoods, and everything close at hand. After years of living in apartments, duplexes, single-family homes, and even the suburbs, we were curious to try something new. I’ve already started recognizing people in our neighborhood shops. Nate dreams of living on a boat someday, and I’d love a cabin in the woods. For now, we’re tucked into a compact neighborhood with sidewalks and bikes at our front door. How else can you know what you love unless you try?

No Need for a Car

After years of car dependency in Tucson, we were ready for a break. In The Hague, the network of trams, buses, trains, and bike paths makes it easy to live without one. Car-sharing programs exist here, but reviews are mixed. If we ever need a car, we’ll likely buy one with cash when the time comes.

Kid Friendly

We also wanted a kid-friendly environment and in the Netherlands, that feels like everywhere. Children here walk and cycle to school on their own, flood the grocery stores at lunch for bread and cheese, and fish along the canals after class. In the city center, you see groups of kids exploring without parents hovering nearby. It’s simply part of Dutch life. Be home when the streetlights are on, right? We’re trying to build the kids confidence so they feel comfortable wandering out without us.

The Beach

One of the biggest bonuses: the beach. We had never lived near the ocean before, and this move gave us the chance. The North Sea might be freezing for my American blood, but it hasn’t kept us from spending hours in the sand and waves. This summer alone, we’ve made plenty of memories by the shore.

A Little More About The Hague

The Hague is known as the international city of peace and justice, home to the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and even the Permanent Court of Arbitration (which I only learned about recently).

Haagse Bos, one of the city’s many parks, was once used to launch rockets at Allied Forces during WWII. Today, it’s just one of the green spaces we’ve enjoyed exploring.

The Royal Family calls The Hague home, and the city itself is full of parks, dunes, and even Highland cows and goats. With over 50 museums, there’s no shortage of culture either.

We’re still learning every day, so if you know something we should add to our “new home” list, I’d love to hear it.

Have you ever been on vacation, pulled up Zillow, and daydreamed about living there? That was us. Except we weren’t on vacation, and we weren’t just dreaming. We had never set foot in the Netherlands, so our only window into our future home was the listings we scrolled through each morning. My husband and I would wake up, coffee in hand, trading links back and forth. We would swipe through photos, hit Google Translate to understand the descriptions, and imagine what life might look like in those rooms. It was exciting but also nerve wracking. In a market this tight, even waiting an extra minute to act felt like the difference between landing a home and watching it vanish to someone else.

Hiring a Realtor

I’ll be honest: I despise needing a realtor. Maybe that’s my American tendencies showing, but the whole system feels like paying middlemen to open doors you could walk through yourself. Still, this was one of those times where having someone on our side mattered.

We hired our realtor in February on a small subscription plan just to hold our place on his roster. By March, he was touring homes on our behalf, filming walk-throughs, and sending us updates. When he walked us through one place on video, I found myself pausing and rewinding, trying to picture where desks might fit or whether the kids’ beds would squeeze into the tiny bedrooms. It felt surreal to imagine a new life in spaces I had only seen through his shaky iPhone lens.

The first property he toured for us was a dream: three bedrooms, two bathrooms, modern and bright. But we lost it. The owners went with another applicant, probably because of the income-to-rent ratio. That stung. Still, the same day, I sent him he to another option, and this time we got it.

Types of Housing Options

Dutch listings can be confusing. “Unfurnished” doesn’t just mean no furniture. It often means no flooring, no blinds, and sometimes even cabinets. The idea of uninstalling and reinstalling flooring every time you move is a cultural difference I did not expect and still cannot wrap my head around. How will you even know the flooring will fit another house?

“Upholstered” is the next step up: flooring and window coverings specifically are usually included. Finally, there are fully furnished rentals, which is what we opted for in year one. After landing in a foreign country, the last thing we wanted was to walk into an empty house and drop thousands on furniture.

Our rental came with everything we needed, except we bought two beds and mattresses for the kids. Internet and cable were also included, which was one less headache to manage.

Competition and Timing

The rental market here is fierce. Our apartment had 14 showings in one day. We were chosen out of 13 other applicants, something we had never experienced in the U.S. Timing mattered. We sent our realtor a property on March 13, and by March 27 we had signed the lease.

Deposit and Payments

Here is where the costs sting: we paid two months’ rent as a security deposit, plus half a month of rent before our lease even started. By May, we had already lost a full month’s rent on a place we had not moved into yet. One friend had to pay six months upfront. That is just the reality of securing safe housing from abroad.

Utilities

Utilities usually are not included. You will need to set them up yourself, and without a Dutch ID you often have to use an expat-friendly service. Our realtor helped us with this. On move-in day, he photographed the meters so we could send them to the utility provider.

Not everything is predictable, though. Our neighbor casually mentioned their winter heating bills ran about €700, thanks to the age of the building. In Tucson, we paid around $360 for solar, $200 for gas, and $120 for water. By comparison, we are still in a decent spot, but I will admit when I heard that number I had a mini panic attack.

Registration at the Address

Registering at your address is non-negotiable. Without it, you cannot get a BSN, which you need for things like health insurance, banking, and taxes. Online, you will read that you need to register within five days of arriving, but in reality it took us months to even get an appointment. I was not allowed to register until I had paperwork from the immigration office confirming my visa application. It is one of those things you cannot fully prepare for until you are here.

Language Barriers

Your lease will be in Dutch. Most landlords provide an English translation, but legally, the Dutch contract rules. Having a Dutch speaking realtor gave me peace of mind that what I signed was what I agreed to.

Expectations vs. Reality

I tried not to have high expectations before we arrived. As a marketer, I know “expectations vs. reality” makes for clickable headlines, but I did not want to set myself up for disappointment. Still, the first time we walked in, the apartment smelled like old lady perfume and mildew. The rooms were smaller than I imagined, and the layout made no sense.

But then we stepped outside. The neighborhood was charming, with cafés and shops within walking distance. That saved me. The apartment might not have been perfect, but the community around it made the transition so much easier.

The Family’s Perspective

The kids did not see mildew or cramped bedrooms. They saw a blank slate. They ran through the empty rooms, brainstorming how they would decorate and play. What lit them up most was not the house but the location: a fifteen-minute bike ride to the beach and a park right down the street. I know once school starts, they will find even more reasons to love this place.

Reflection

This whole process has been one long learning curve. But honestly, I would not have done much differently. From another country, your choices are limited. You do the best you can with the information you have, knowing most decisions are not permanent.

So what if the apartment is smaller than we would like? So what if it smells faintly of someone else’s perfume? For now, it is home. And for this first year, home is enough.

The process of wrapping up our lives in the U.S. was stressful enough before moving to The Hague. We were getting up early to take the kids to school, running normal errands like grocery shopping and closing out mailboxes, and then coming home to work. Waking up and walking into a kitchen with paint buckets and rollers wrapped in Walmart sacks immediately spiked my anxiety.

The last four and a half months in the States felt like pure chaos. We woke up at 6 a.m. and got going immediately, taking breaks only to eat or rest. I was still working 8–10 hour days, so it was up to Nate to manage most of the house repairs, while we split the bulk of the selling tasks.

Most nights we didn’t get to bed until late. The weight of packing up and selling off your entire life in one place is heavy, and the emotional toll of saying goodbye to certain things for the girls was another feat entirely. We couldn’t mentally process another big task until the one in front of us was finished.

We repainted the entire kitchen because the walls had aged beyond color matching. Then came the pool repairs. Going to pool store after pool store and spending hundreds of dollars on supplies and chemicals to kill off black mold that had taken up residence in our pool over the winter was enough to put Nate in an early grave.

The list was vast, and each night we laid down in bed with a sigh of relief, quickly replaced by dread for the next day’s tasks.

At the time we made the decision to move across the ocean, I was at a high point in my business. I was booked and busy. Nate was also overwhelmed with college classes. We were so busy that we had no time to simply sit and exist, which left us in a state of constant anxiety and, dare I say, burnout.

When we arrived, I was at such a low point with jet lag that I was forced to slow down and just exist.

Being forced to slow down was a gift in disguise. I’m not the type of person who slows down willingly. Growing up, my grandfather retired from one career and immediately started another. Then he retired again and began a side hustle with a garden and roadside produce stand. It’s baked into the fibers of my American identity. Honestly, I think most Americans are wired this way.

Little did I know I’d need that time to rest, because hard days lay ahead with the bureaucratic mess I had to face. If there’s one thing that triggers my anxiety and panic, it’s financial stress.

During the first few weeks after arriving, I didn’t yet feel the culture shocks that would hit me later.

Dutch libraries are very different in one small way compared to the States. Adults pay for a library card, but kids up to 18 get theirs for free. Depending on the level you choose, you get more perks. Of course, all libraries are free to enter if you just want to sit at a table to read or work, which I’ve done many times since arriving. The buildings themselves are much like any other, clean and modern with the delightful smell of books waiting for someone to adventure into the pages.

Many libraries here also have coffee machines, and some even have full cafés with a proper coffee and tea menu and baked goods to enjoy. I feel like getting a library card is a bit of a rite of passage as a child, and since Dutch kids roam the streets freely from a young age, paired with the fact that we have several branches within a stone’s throw of our apartment, it was only natural to get our cards.

Grocery stores in the Netherlands are much the same as in the States, but also different in so many ways. Not knowing the language meant I spent far more time in the aisles than I was used to. One of my first tasks in any new store was to mentally map it out so I knew exactly where everything was and could make an efficient route. In and out with no wasted time. Such an American sentiment.

The carts are strange, and I have to admit I don’t like them. All four wheels swivel, which makes it feel like the cart is fighting me at every turn. Some stores, like Jumbo, even have cart escalators to move between floors, which felt surreal the first time I used one.

The selection is also different. There’s a bigger mayo and ketchup aisle than the cereal aisle, easily double the options I was used to. Yet the thing I adore most is the bakery. Every store bakes fresh bread and pastries daily, free of preservatives, and the smell alone is worth the trip.

I was constantly caught between confusion and delight. Confusion over labels (what was the word for garlic powder again?) and delight at the new selections and rotating sale items. Little by little, I learned which stores carried my favorites, how much I could carry home without a car, and that most people here shop for only a day or two at a time. In contrast, Americans often shop for weeks in one trip, a difference that still fascinates me.

Living here has felt great most days, but something inside of me hasn’t felt settled since we arrived. It wasn’t until I talked it through with a friend that it started to make sense. I feel like I’m living in an Airbnb. I don’t feel at home, and I don’t feel like I can make it my home. Someone else is living in my house now, and I’m here. I miss my space, yet at the same time there’s a lot, and I mean a lot, I don’t miss.

This is the first time since 2013 that I’ve rented, and that probably explains why the feeling is so strong. There were things we needed, laundry baskets, a toaster, hangers to finally get our clothing out of suitcases, but we had arrived with only what we carried on the plane. Our shipping crate was still making its way across the ocean, which meant buying only the bare minimum to get by. Every purchase felt temporary, like a placeholder until our real life caught up with us.

Our adventures those first few weeks were mostly on foot, especially when we needed to buy bigger items like the fan. We hadn’t yet built the confidence to carry bulky things the way the Dutch so effortlessly balance them on their bikes. The stores here are tucked into neighborhoods, and I was shocked at first to see that each little area had its own collection of shops, salons, cafés, and even sidewalk vendors. People here seem to buy what they need in person far more often than ordering online.

Discovering the cobblestone streets felt like a treat, a sharp contrast to Tucson where this way of life just isn’t possible. Here, the stones aren’t just for character. They’re chosen intentionally to slow traffic, making walking or biking to buy a toaster not only normal, but safe.

These errands weren’t just errands. They were the first steps toward feeling like this place could actually be home. As creatures of habit, both Nate and I need routine in our days. Waking up and making coffee, having breakfast, getting the girls up and ready, all of it depends on having the “things” that support those rhythms. It’s the scaffolding of our new life here. With every trip to Hema, the hardware store, or Etos, I learned how to navigate, how to ask questions, and how to provide for my family in a country that still feels strange. Piece by piece, we are stitching together the beginnings of belonging.

We applied for the Dutch American Friendship Treaty in the Netherlands and got approved within 8 weeks of our application. The trick is you can’t apply until you arrive.

There have been many Americans who have gone before us and left breadcrumbs on the internet of this process but I have yet to find a single person who has documented much of their process or steps they needed to take before and after arriving. This is my attempt at doing so in order to help anyone else who might want to do the same.

Let’s breakdown our circumstances so you can understand if our situation is similar to yours.

Our Circumstances for the DAFT

• Heather is self-employed with a fully operational business in the United States. Her business has an income level to afford to pay her on payroll.

• Nathan is a full-time student at the University of Arizona, completely online.

• The girls are in school.

• None of us know Dutch.

Given these circumstances the DAFT was an easy visa for us to apply for and get approved for because of my business.

Our Approach to the DAFT

• Start a business

• Apply for the 30% ruling

Applying for the DAFT comes with a variety of options to satisfy the requirements. We went the route of starting a business in the Netherlands where I just basically moved my existing business over.

I started a B.V. where I put myself back on payroll. This allows us to apply for the 30% ruling which also comes with a few perks like swapping our drivers license without having to go through the regular process which can cost thousands of euros.

You won’t qualify for the 30% ruling in the Netherlands if you just move here, you have to be recruited so you want to start your business and recruit yourself before arriving. Recruiting yourself means getting an employment contract signed between you and your new employer (you) in place and signed before you arrive.

Let’s breakdown the application requirements for the B.V. So you know where you should start if you want to go this route.

• I hired a notary firm to help me with starting a B.V. in the Netherlands before our arrival

• I hired an immigration attorney

• I transferred the required money for the visa to the notary to hold for me until I had my own bank account for the business opened

• I paid for a temporary business address for the BV

Required payments

• Pay the Chamber €82.25 for registering my company

• Pay the notary to file my BV paperwork with the Chamber - €1300 euros

• Pay for the mailbox - €70 euros per month

• Pay the immigration attorney to file applications and create employment contract

Once my business paperwork was created, signed and filed I then gave it to my immigration attorney to create my employment contract that recruits me to the Netherlands to my newly established business.

This application triggered the government to issue a BSN for me before I arrived in the Netherlands. This BSN was used later to register with the municipality and get a bank account setup. The BSN is the equivalent to a SSN in the US.

After Arriving in the Netherlands

• Apply for the DAFT

• Open a bank account for personal

• Open a bank account for the business

• Establish services with an accountant

• Go to IND for temporary sticker

• Go to IND for biometrics

• Apply for DIGId

• Register with the municipality

• Get a Dutch phone number

• Get a bicycle

• Get an OV chipkaart

• Apply for 30% ruling

• Swap our drivers licenses

• Obtain health insurance

After arriving in the Netherlands we had a lot to do and it wasn’t super clear what order to do these in. Let’s take it in order.

Apply for the Visa

Apply for the DAFT. I used my attorney to do this on my behalf but I did have to print and sign the paperwork then scan it back to him so the application could be mailed.

The attorney submitted my visa application upon my arrival. I waited about 6 weeks to hear from the IND office to go in and pickup my temporary sticker for my passport. This sticker allows you to stay in the country until a decision has been made on your application.

Once you get notification that you can go get your temporary sticker you’ll make an appointment with IND online and they’ll do your biometrics the same day. The whole process only takes about an hour. Once you get approved you’ll do the same thing and book an appointment online to go in and pickup your residence permit.

Arrange Transportation

Within days of being here we went to Swapfiets and rented 3 bicycles and visited a bike store to buy a bike for our youngest child.

We also went to Albert Heijn and bought 4 OV chipkaarts so we could use them for public transport. You charge your chipkaarts on the trams or at train stations and you use them to check in and out of the trains, trams and busses.

Register with Municipality

I waited until I had my temporary sticker to register myself with the municipality. Once I had my sticker I called and made an appointment and ended up being able to go the same day.

Once my family had their stickers we also visited the municipality and registered them.

Apply for DigiD

Once I had registered with the municipality and had my BSN as well as my new residence permit I applied for the DIGId which is a digital identification app.

Get a Dutch phone number

The easiest way to do this is to get a prepaid SIM with a company like Lyca mobile.

I also ported my US number to a Tello eSIM so I could have 2 numbers on my phone. This allowed me to get texts for verification purposes to my US number.

Open bank accounts

I waited to open a Dutch bank account when I didn’t need to because I wasn’t aware the BSN issued to me prior to my arrival was actually for me and not my business. I could have opened an account immediately. Keep this in mind because there are a number of places that won’t take foreign cards. You don’t want to do the walk of shame to get cash.

Establish services with an accountant

I found an accountant to help me with taxes and payroll services.

We still have a few things we need to work on at the time of writing this article.

We still need to obtain health insurance, get payroll going in the Netherlands, apply for the 30% ruling which we can’t do until payroll starts from my understanding, and we need to swap our drivers licenses which we can’t do until we apply for the 30% ruling.

As we work through our process I will update our articles. Read this article if you want to see what our costs were for the moving process.

Wheeling to Dream is a travel blog we established years ago when we started traveling in our RV. Since we moved to the Netherlands I have been sharing our travels inside of the Netherlands and across Europe.

WTD is really meant to be a place to find long-form travel style journals that I will eventually be able to monetize with display ads and affiliate links. Chronicles from the Netherlands is more of a more of a place where I can share the behind the scenes of life. These are more personal narratives from behind the lens of daily life.

I will probably share snippets of posts from my travel blog, because this is meant to compliment that as I document our lives on a new continent.

If you’re curious not just about how to move abroad, but what it really feels like to live it day to day, you’re in the right place. From culture shocks we were expecting to what it’s like living life without a car, I plan to share what we are up to.

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