Moving To England

Hello, I’m Clarissa, an American expat living in the UK with my husband Andrew. In July 2015, we packed up 4 suitcases, 2 cats, and left our life in California behind for a new adventure in London. Of course, moving to the UK wasn’t as simple as booking a one-way flight. Becoming an expat is a process, and not something that happens overnight. For us, the journey started with a shared dream to someday live in Europe. It was just a thought in the back of our minds for a few years while life carried on as normal. We graduated from college, got married, and I started a master’s degree. Then Andrew was given the opportunity to change his work-base to the UK, and we didn’t think twice about pursuing it.

Andrew’s company is fairly small, not a huge corporation that relocates employees all the time (or ever), so we did our own research and planning for this move. I won’t bore you with all the details of getting ready to move. We spent MONTHS filling out paperwork, and waiting for other people to sign off on it. Things really didn’t start coming together until July 2015 when our visa applications were accepted. With that precious document in place, we were able attach actual dates to our move timeline. In mid July, we carefully packed up all our possessions into a wooden crate, and it all started to feel real.

Andrew’s company paid for us to stay in a Travelodge in East London for 1 week (that turned into 2), and our plan was to find a place to live that was available immediately, open a bank account, and set up a phone plan – all in 1 week! It might have been achievable in America, but it was overly ambitious for England. We immediately felt the weight of that 1 week deadline, but there was no going back or plan b!

Our first day in London we set out to get ish done. But what to do first? A bank account seemed like the logical place to start, so we popped in to the nearest Lloyds with our passports/visas in hand. The poor bank clerk looked at us with disbelief when we told him we’d just arrived in the country the day before, and had no address -let alone proof of an address. He didn’t say, “good luck with that one,” but might as well have. Andrew thought maybe the larger bank branches would be equipped to set up accounts for newbies like us, so we tried a few more before giving up.

The second day we tried to set up a phone plan, but without a bank account or financial history, we couldn’t do that either. Time was ticking away, and we were getting no where. By the third day we were pretty discouraged. I made a few inquiries for properties listed on Rightmove and Gumtree. Most of them were ignored.

Things didn't turn around until Andrew contacted some estate agents a bit outside of London, and we got a few encouraging responses. We took the train to Essex the next day to view two properties. I immediately felt more at home away from the crowded city. We applied for the first home we saw straight away. It was in our budget, allowed pets, and the fact that it was already vacant meant it would be move-in ready in just a few days.

Life stayed pretty weird for a few months, or a year depending on how you look at it. We mostly ate microwavable food since our shipping crate from the US wasn’t expected until October. I got a job, we did a bit of traveling, and eventually settled in. Three years later, we're still here in the same house we first moved into, and still loving it.