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Albania – Why I Moved There

By Christopher A. Berggren

Why I Chose Europe and Albania

On July 4, 2024, I left America to live in Europe, something I’d been dreaming about doing for years. I’ve always marveled at the charming, walkable nature of the cities and towns, the importance of social and leisure time, and the short distances to many neighboring countries that are compelling travel destinations. Most importantly, my interest in filming and writing about sustainable cities, those with less car dependency and more active transportation infrastructure, would be best served by living in Europe, where the world’s highest number of such places are situated.

Initially, I planned to live in Albania for a year or two before settling in Western Europe. Albania is located on the northern border of Greece, just 50 miles off the coast of the Italian boot heel, and offers visa-free travel for Americans for 365 days. In that amount of time, I knew I could get settled into European living and apply for a residency visa either in Albania if I liked it enough to stay or in another country on the continent.

Several years ago, I closed my house-painting business because of the never-ending difficulty of finding good painters and my reluctance to continue scaling ladders after 55, the age of which I reached in 2016. I ended up driving for Lyft for five years and, during that time, saw my driver pay and quality of life decline substantially.

I then embarked on a nine-month program of study to gain my Google Data Analytics certification and be qualified for a good job that would be a good fit for my writing topics concerning sustainable cities. In the end, however, I found it difficult to adjust to a job regime centered around a plethora of digital platforms which were all completely new to me and each involving separate learning curves. It was frustrating that the months of diligent study and practice in the mechanics of data analysis could very well amount to nothing, even though I did get the certificate.

In stages, it occurred to me that I would be better off claiming social security benefits at a much earlier age than 70, although it would mean receiving smaller checks each month. I concluded that a steady income would be more valuable to me now than waiting quite a few more years in order to receive larger checks. Especially if the amount I would receive now would be enough to live comfortably somewhere else, which I calculated it would.

Preparing for the Overseas Move

Gradually, during the week after my 63rd birthday, I decided to claim Social Security right away – only one year after becoming eligible to do so. Within days of that decision, I filed for the benefits and, since my first check would be arriving the following month, began making definite plans to move to Albania. I set a goal of departing the U.S. by July 10, a propitious time for moves since it allows for settling in before the encroachment of Fall. Since I’d never been to Albania, I wasn’t sure of which city I’d want to live in, though I had narrowed the prospective field to just two choices based on months of research via articles and YouTube videos.

Once I knew I would be moving, I planned to purchase a plane ticket and check off the boxes on a lengthy list of things to do in preparation for the overseas relocation. One of those things was important – the packing of all the belongings I would later ship to Europe. This would entail going through all my stuff and organizing each box with similar items while attempting to use all medium-sized boxes and keeping the weight of each box to 30 or 35 pounds. The shipping company I had chosen had a size and weight limit for each crate – roughly 4 x 4 x 7 feet and 1000 pounds – so I had to weigh each box and record the weight so that I would know the total weight of all my stuff. It turned out that the total weight was 950 pounds, which shocked me as I had thought it would be much less! At least it was just enough below the limit of 1000 pounds to allow for a “buffer”, albeit a mere 50 pounds below the limit.

The process of packing took MUCH longer than I had anticipated, so it was a good thing I had started almost two months before the departure date. Even though I wasn’t shipping my things right away, I needed my belongings completely ready to go when the time came to call the shipping company. Most days during those weeks of packing, I spent an hour or two, sometimes more, working on this important task, and let me tell you, it was exhausting. Each possession has a memory attached to it, and it is draining to spend much time on any given day.

The motivation to keep the packing project going as fast as I could while still working and attending to other checklist items was helped by purchasing the airline ticket. It wasn’t easy to click the “pay now” button on the airline’s website since what I was doing was committing myself to a major life change. So on the night I booked and paid for my flight, I did so with a determined yet detached state of mind – as though I was temporarily out-of-body and watching myself book the ticket. Since I had already decided to move during a fairly specific time frame, I was as sure as I could be that I was doing the right thing, though I nevertheless felt a bit uneasy.

Life in Albania for an American Expatriate

Fast forward to today: I’ve now been in Albania for over a year and am living in a 2-bedroom terrace apartment in Sarande that is fully furnished and has a spectacular sea view, all for $500 a month. That compares to the $8,000 a month I would pay for a similarly sized apartment with a comparable view in my hometown of San Francisco. In fact, I had not lived in an apartment in San Francisco with a beautiful view, but in a 2-star hotel near downtown, which was comfortable for the short-term but definitely not for the long-term.

Even if I had landed a well-paid job as a data analyst, I would not have had a lifestyle conducive to the fulfillment of my professional and personal goals since I would be expending most of my energy working to pay the high prices associated with living in California and not saving any money. Because I have traveled the world and lived in foreign countries as well as eight American states, my perspective of my hometown and California has, over the decades, evolved to that of an outsider. And San Francisco, being what it is, a city of dreams that began with the Gold Rush of 1849, is a welcoming city – at least to those of us who grew up there and/or are enamored of it. However, since every coin has two sides, I will say that the other side of this coin and story is that in recent years, I had not felt particularly welcome in San Francisco.

I was in denial about it no longer being my home, so I soldiered on despite knowing somewhere inside that I needed to relocate to a place where I would be treated well. Since being in Albania, I have been treated well, starting at the top - the national government has been welcoming Americans practically with open arms since 1919, when President Woodrow Wilson defended Albania in the Paris Peace talks and prevented the nation from getting parceled out to other European countries. Since Albania unshackled itself from a half-century of communism in the early 1990s, the U.S.A. has been aiding Albania with financial and other assistance. Both the national government and some of its citizens seem thankful to Americans, and it shows in the warmth of the people and policies.

Families are very important in Albania, and it is a national custom for families to go for a walk after dinner on warm evenings, going to the local square, boulevard, or promenade for a stroll and to soak up the lovely summer air. In this country, you see many active elderly people out and about, as well as a great number of children of all ages with their parents, grandparents, or both. This is not a high-income country, and families are the glue that helps a substantial majority of people to maintain comfortable lifestyles. Women, children, and the elderly can walk anywhere well after dark safely, and, because families are very important in Albania, there’s a general sense of security even for those of us who are unmarried and have no family here.

Reflections on Leaving the U.S.

I believe more people should do what I did and follow their hearts when they are not treated well in their native lands. Just because it is their native country, there is no reason to continue to live there, especially if they hear the call of another land, as I did. In my case, “the call” was coming from Europe rather than a specific country like France or Albania, so I just went for the simplest and straightforward country, Albania, to start, knowing I could always apply for a residency visa in another European country later if I wanted. In the meantime, since I am less than 500 miles from at least 12 countries I’ve never visited, I intend to make this my base for travel to those places and enjoy living in Eastern Europe for the foreseeable future.