Around half a million people left the UK to live elsewhere last year, and it’s not just retirees. A survey of more than 3,000 young people by the British Council showed that 72 per cent of 18- to 30-year-olds would consider living and working abroad, with destinations in Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, and South East Asia proving popular.
Many expats are seeking a better quality of life, and cite varying factors – cold weather, high cost of living, extortionate childcare, stagnant wages, dwindling opportunity, lack of work-life balance, and even poor romantic prospects – among their motivations for leaving the UK. The i Paper’s Expat Files follows Brits who have taken the leap and settled elsewhere, detailing the ups and downs of their journey.
It’s a wet, windy weekday and I’m waiting at a bus stop outside a Sixties block of flats in an Amsterdam residential suburb. “Dankje,” I say to the driver when the No 38 to Buiksloterham arrives, and we set off on my six-stop journey to a roundabout near a park.
This isn’t my usual milieu. My home is in Balham in south London. I’ve lived there for almost four decades, and though I travel a lot, I love my neighbourhood and the terraced house where my husband and I raised our children. I wasn’t looking to relocate, and I’d never considered living in Amsterdam: but 2025 turned my life around, and brought me here.
It was around a year ago when the idea dawned. My eldest daughter, who moved here ten years ago, gave birth to a son – my first grandchild – in the summer of 2024, and a year ago she and her Dutch partner, with said small baby, moved into a house in north Amsterdam which needed a total renovation. It was the sort of thing they’ll look back on in years to come and wonder how they got through it; and without any support (my son-in-law’s family are in England) I worried how it would all work out. For a while I rented an airbnb so I could be close by, but it was unaffordable to do that long term – and I wanted to find a way to support them over the months to come.
And then something extraordinary happened. A chance conversation at a meeting revealed someone I knew owned a small apartment not far from my daughter’s new house; and he was looking for someone to look after it while he wasn’t there. This, plus the fact that I have an Irish passport, and so am not restricted by Brexit on the amount of time I can spend in Europe, all seemed to point to an exciting but daunting idea: I could move to Amsterdam, be an extra pair of hands for my daughter and son in law, and get to spend lots of time with my grandson.
There were various reasons why it seemed mad. For one thing, daughter number two was planning her wedding, scheduled for June in the Cotswolds. Having a mother abroad wasn’t exactly going to help in the run-up. For another, it meant my husband and I wouldn’t see much of one another. A third factor is that I have two other daughters, and going to Amsterdam would mean I wouldn’t get to spend much time with either of them. And finally, and perhaps most important of all, I have an 87-year-old mother who isn’t in brilliant health, and who lives in Yorkshire – and my sister lives in Australia.
In the event, my mother was one of my biggest cheerleaders. She herself, by a strange quirk of fate, has a grandson who’s only slightly older than my own grandson, so she knows more than most how precious early time with grandchildren can be. I booked my Eurostar ticket, hauled my case to my new friend’s apartment – which is on the very edge of the city, where the buildings run out and the fields roll – and my life as a Dutch oma (grandmother) began.
I looked after my grandson four half-days a week initially, and then as he got older we moved on to two full days. Looking after a small child isn’t an easy task, but doing it in a city where you don’t have a network and inside track knowledge is even more of a challenge. Flitting between London and Amsterdam – on an increasingly regular basis, as my mother’s health dipped and the wedding beckoned – was often exhausting, and always expensive. And my friend’s apartment is lovely, but slightly in the middle of nowhere: I’ve spent a lot of time with my daughter and her family and friends, which has been delightful, but I’ve missed friends my own age, and it’s sometimes felt lonely.
But I wouldn’t have missed the last few months in Holland for anything. Getting to know my little grandson has been one of the joys of my life: he’s delightful, characterful, determined and energetic.
There’s a kind of delicious synchrony between a 60-something and a one-year-old. Because just as the media and prevailing youth-focused culture consign you to a kind of oldies’ backwater, along comes a smart, happening little kid of tomorrow who knows you’re the bee’s knees. Sol couldn’t care less whether I’ve got a few wrinkles, or if I’m a bit fatter than I was a few years ago, or if I’m not a yoga queen when it comes to getting up off the floor. He might only be one year old, but being with him is a constant reminder of all that truly matters in life: love; connection; trust; and finding the fun.
My experience of living in Holland has been mixed: in some ways it’s very similar to the UK, and in other ways very different. The famous laid-back lifestyle is there, it’s true (the smell of weed everywhere; a relaxed attitude to work) but this is a country where making money is first and centre, and I have wondered whether the relaxation in drug use, for example, is primarily because it brings in revenue. And while the Amsterdam of the Nine Streets, with its twinkly canals and its sweet waterside cafes, is beautiful, there’s also the Amsterdam of stag and hen parties, with drunken gangs crowding the pavements.
Most of the time I’ve been here has been the summer, and that’s been delightful, with gorgeous weather. I’ve swum in the canals, soaked up the sun in the Vondelpark, enjoyed seeing some of the other lovely Netherlands cities. I’ve met plenty of Dutch people, and enjoyed their company; but I only know a few words of Dutch, and although the people here are famous for speaking perfect English, that’s not always the case away from the centre of town.
The cost of living is high, but similar to London – though wine is cheaper. And though there are some excellent restaurants, on the whole it’s difficult to get a good meal at a reasonable price (very different from, say, Italy).
The quality of life in The Netherlands, especially for young families like my daughter’s, is wonderful: as I watch them cycle little Sol, now 15 months, around in his bakfiets (bike with a kids’ box in front), I’m excited for their life ahead. They love Holland: Rosie moved here for a job a decade ago and has never looked back.
Some of my friends think I’ve been putting my life on hold, spending so much time in a place where I have few friends, and no infrastructure. But it’s been an adventure: I’ve taken myself out of my comfort zone, and I’ve taken a (calculated) risk. My Amsterdam sojourn has certainly brought its hurdles: rainy days, a buggy that’s tough to operate, day trips when I forgot the change bag, a small child who wants something desperately and I can’t for the life of me work out what it is. But hurdles are how we live, and overcoming them are how we learn; and relationships are at the heart of everything.
Sol is at nursery now, and the house is nearing completion: my heavy-duty life in Amsterdam is drawing to a close. It’s probably true to say it’s been tougher than I’d have imagined it would be – I ended up juggling my mother having a long spell in hospital, as well as the wedding. But my mum recovered, the wedding was wonderful – and I’ve had days with a little Dutchman that I’ll treasure forever.
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