Well, just don't move to Florda if you're still working.
My husband has been at a place for 10 years and gets 10 vacation days and 6 holidays, and that's the maximum anyone can get at his company! He's 66 year old now, and is darn tired.

We moved here from another state 24 years ago, when the plant of a large company he worked for closed down. At that time, he had 6 weeks off a year.

We love Florida and can't imagine moving back to a colder climate, but boy do we pay through the nose to live here. Lower wages and less time off than the national average, but hey, we don't have to put up with winter. The downside is, we have to work forever!

And yes, sometimes I think I'd move to Europe in a nano-second if I didn't have children and grandchildren, weather or not. I'm anti-guns, and pro some sort of health care system that one could buy into, that isn't tied into one's employment (and I'm a health care worker!) I'm also a big fan of public transportation, i.e. trains and subways, none of which we have here. If we can't drive here, we may as well be dead.

I really hate our antiquated wild wild west mentality, but I seem to be in the minority.

What we really have that most other countries don't is fabulous appliances, and those WOULD be hard to live without. I love my big fridge, my washer and dryer, my dishwasher, my dual-fuel stove/oven, my microwave, my a/c. Not to mention space to move about in my house.

Hmmmm......maybe I don't want to move after all!

Yes that is the problem with message boards/email, subtle humor is hard to express.
I'm aware Stephen Colbert is a humorist and not a right-wing talk show host, just trying to make a bit of joke.

" My only hope is that they do not base their perception on other countries by what they saw on t.v., but more importantly, what they experienced first hand. .."

A lovely thought but no one can experience everything first hand.

We receive information from t.v.,books, statistics, films, newspapers , short or longer visits etc.

Sometimes that information
gives people in other countries a view of America much different than the view Americans have from their porches.

Same applies for any other part of the world.

<<My old company started you at 4 weeks, and I was at 5 when I left after 2 years. And most of my friends get similar vacation allowances.>>

The legal minimum here in the UK is 4.8 weeks, next year it goes up to 5.6 weeks. BTW I assume we are talking paid leave. And yes employers can give more if they want.

I'm a teacher so my next day at work is August 29th, then I'll have to work until October! Such a hard life.

To those who feel that this is a "Sad Thread" and that the US is being attacked, I don't think so - the question was "If you could move Why or Why not?".

It is not, as far as I can see, tell us why you wouldn't so we can tell you that you are wrong not to want to.
(I am thankful that misconceptions are cleared up).

The main reason I would not wish to move is that despite its many faults, I am very fond of where I live now.

<i>The legal minimum here in the UK is 4.8 weeks, next year it goes up to 5.6 weeks. BTW I assume we are talking paid leave. And yes employers can give more if they want.</i>

But my point is that I don't need the government to tell me how much vacation I need. I prefer having the choice to work or to have time off and can balance my desire for a bigger paycheck with my desire for free time. If you value time off, you can certainly find a way to get it in the US.

<i>I'm a teacher so my next day at work is August 29th, then I'll have to work until October! Such a hard life.</i>

The typical teacher in the US is off from mid-June until, at least, mid-August. They also usually get at least one week at Christmas, as well as one week in the Spring, and (often) one week in February. If you value long stretches of time off, I would think being a teacher is a pretty good job, whether you live in the US or Europe. There are downsides, as well, but from a time off perspective, it would seem tough to match.

I think it would be nice to live (and work!) for a year, or two, or longer in the US.
Many regions would suit my taste: Upstate NY (preferably in the Adirondacks), SE Arizona, Western Colorado, or Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, jobs are not always found where you would like to live in each country, but more often in metropolitan areas. So it would be a bit like trading one urban lifestyle for another big city life. Not THAT much of a difference nowadays.
But if you moved from an apartment on th 40th floor in a Manhattan skyscraper to a little farmhouse in Provence, the major difference would not be in changing countries but in lifestyles.

I think you will travel with too much luggage to enjoy the different concepts of society which exist when you start comparing the availabilty of refrigerators, groceries, religious preferences, and so on.
Or become one of the sad ex-pats which hang out with other ex-pats whining about why this sucks in Paris, or that sucks in Boston, how green the grass was back home, where to find imported goods from the Old Country, and so on.

I am always amazed at how so many ex-pats tend to cluster together, even in the &quot;friendly&quot; countries where they could easily mix with the locals.

And it's true that it is usually a complaint club.

If someone else was paying (ie an overseas posting of some kind) then I'd quite like to spend a couple of years in New York or Boston (neither of which I've visited) or San Fran (which I have) or Chicago (but could I stand the winters?).

Permanently? No way. There is just too much that I am uncomfortable with about the way society and government are organised over there.

I don't find this thread sad. I think it's enlightening to hear what others think of your country, no matter what country we're discussing.

I tend to be a harsh critic of the US, because there is much to be critical of. There is also much good here. I think that's true of most places in the world.

&quot;Dissent is the highest form of patriotism&quot; - Howard Zinn

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
The legal minimum here in the UK is 4.8 weeks, next year it goes up to 5.6 weeks. BTW I assume we are talking paid leave.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

keep in mind that the quoted figures do include bank/public holidays. i believe the minimum now is 24 days which includes the 8 bank holidays. so for comparative purposes, the minimum by law is just over 3 weeks 'vacation' plus the 8 public holidays. we had dragged our feet on this and changes are driven by the eu. uk had tried to include public hols in the eu minimum (meaning a min of only 12 'vacation' days) but this will no longer be allowed and 20 days excluding the 8 public/bank hols will be the min in the future. i believe the us has 10 public hols.

<i>i believe the us has 10 public hols.</i>

But there is no legal obligation about time off in the US. If your company decides that President's Day is a workday, then it is a workday.

For the most part, the &quot;sacred&quot; holidays would be Memorial Day, Labor Day, Christmas, New Year's, July 4th, and Thanksgiving. Virtually every company would count these as holidays. Most would also give the day after Thanksgiving. But, again, there is no legal requirement.

Beyond that, many companies give some assortment of other holidays, with MLK day and Presidents Day being pretty popular. Columbus Day has fallen out of favor, but is still relatively widespread. And there are regional holidays, with Massachusetts companies, for instance, usually observing Patriot's Day, and many in Rhode Island observing V-J Day. There has also been a trend toward floating holidays, to be used at the employee's discretion, rather than observing some of the minor holidays.

All in all, I would say that the average company provides between 9 and 12 paid holidays each year.

1,266,000 people from around the globe voluntarily obtained legal residence status in the US in 2006. Life must be a whole lot better here than in most other places.

Life must be a whole lot better here than in most other places.&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

Of course, compared with most of the world the USA is a great deal better, but not everywhere...

I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy for most employees in the US to dictate how much time they'll get off... especially if there's competition for their position. Go and tell your prospective boss you'll take the job but want 4 weeks off, and you're likely to be told &quot;Thanks but no thanks, we have plenty of others willing to do it with only 2 weeks off.&quot;

I spent a couple of years there in the late sixties and really enjoyed it.

However, although I had a green card, I returned to the UK.
The main reason was that I wanted children and I didn't want them to be foreign. I thought that the UK was a better environment, morally, educationally and physically.
The US is great if you are young, healthy and affluent.
It is a harsh unforgiving place if you need a safety net.
I lived in New England and so the guns and religious bigotry weren't a problem.
Basically it comes down to &quot;East, West, Home's Best&quot; and where you are coming from is important.
If you were fleeing a pogrom or a famine, then of course it would be an earthly paradise.

I think vacation depends on your occupation. It's been my experience that a lot of professional jobs (i.e. requiring 4 year degrees) have better vacation allotments and are more flexible - if you're a good employee they're not going to fire you / not hire you over requesting 2 weeks of additional vacation.

&quot;Basically it comes down to &quot;East, West, Home's Best&quot; and where you are coming from is important.&quot;

Exactly. And most contributors here come from some pretty enviable positions in life. This question - asked of an elite group of world travelers, many of whom are affluent ex-pats who can zoom here and zoom there at will - is inevitably going to prompt some less-than-positive comments about the US.

But I think that you'd get a much more resounding &quot;yes&quot; to this question from the average world citizen.

&quot;But I think that you'd get a much more resounding &quot;yes&quot; to this question from the average world citizen.&quot;

Absolutely right.
Posters here don't live in Honduras, Kosovo, Sudan, Afhganistan and similar.

For many people around the globe moving to US, Australia, Canada, Europe, or just a peaceful place
where their children will have a future is an unattainable dream.

As we compare our health plans, vacation time, hotels in Paris and
restaurants in Rome, we all must know how fortunate we are .

Unfortunately these threads inevitably start to descend to &quot;Everybody wants to live in the USA, and anybody who says otherwise is anti-American&quot;.

I think it may be part of a youngsters upbringing to be taught that the US is the greatest place to live - and it may be true, but it not a given to many of us in other countries with a good standard of living.

Of course people in 3rd world countries want a better life, and the US is an obviously desirable place to live, but so are other countries.

&lt;&lt;Well, just don't move to Florda if you're still working.
My husband has been at a place for 10 years and gets 10 vacation days and 6 holidays, and that's the maximum anyone can get at his company!&gt;&gt;

Yup. That's my state and I have never heard of anyone being able to &quot;negotiate&quot; more time off than other employees. I live in a university town and umemployeed graduates pour out every year and are happy to take a starting job with few benefits to get a pay check until they find something better elsewhere.

There's no way I could have negotiated more time off than my boss had. The only person in the company that I worked for who got more time off was the president.

Nolenomad has it right: &lt;&lt;I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy for most employees in the US to dictate how much time they'll get off... especially if there's competition for their position.&gt;&gt;

Bill Bryson has returned &quot;home&quot; and has really gone native.
He is now the President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England

I have thought about this for a while.
Probably not.

Why:
There are places in the U.S. that appeal to me BUT I am not sure I would be entirely comfortable in a country that does not have a good social safety net and universal healthcare. Things are not perfect here in Canada but having once had to use the social safety net (long story) and having had to use the healthcare system on a number of occasions, I am not sure I would have the same level of security that I do here. It comforts me to know that if my husband lost or changed his job tommorrow, it would not impact on the healthcare I could receive (I have some serious, chronic, potentially life threatening medical issues).

Also I am simply not terribly comfortable with societies where militarism seems so much on display (at least to an outsider). Things related to the military appear to an outside to dominate the U.S. landscape. Also and I guess I find this the most disturbing - militarism and patriotism seem so closely intertwined in the U.S. (The &quot;Support our troops by not disagreeing with government policies&quot; mentality is just plain scary to me).

Please don't confuse this with any hostility to the U.S. I like most Americans I have met and I enjoyed any trips I took to the U.S. I don't like aspects of the U.S. foreign policy (but then I don't like aspects of Canada's foreign policy).

Consequently although I can think of many parts of the U.S. where I would like to live from a physical standpoint (nice weather, appealing scenery, little crime, good ammenities) I am afraid for the above two reasons a permanent move would probably never happen for me.

I have no plans to move to US, or any other place.

<i>I could be wrong, but I don't think it's that easy for most employees in the US to dictate how much time they'll get off... especially if there's competition for their position.</i>

Which is why it is important to hone your skills and make sure you are a significantly better candidate than the crowd. If you are highly-skilled and well-respected, you have the leverage. If you are just another Joe, then you have to take what you can get. It isn't easy, but it is possible. I guess I am saying that, if you are a sought-after talent, then the US can be a great place to live.

&quot;If you are just another Joe, then you have to take what you can get..


it would seem that most people in the US and in Europe are &quot;just another Joe &quot;..
What they &quot;have to take&quot; may be different.

<i>What they &quot;have to take&quot; may be different.</i>

And I would say it is far, far less different than many here presume it to be.

Isn't it wonderful that we don't all want to live in the same place? Going to a new place that is different than the one in which we live, is fun and educational. Home is where the heart is certainly is true and while I love traveling and living in different areas of the world, I always want to come back home and get in MY BED!!! That does not mean I have to &quot;put down&quot; other places, I am too secure within my own self to need to do that but there is no place like home!!!!

USA - definitely not. No interest whatsoever.
Europe - definitely yes.

Nver been to the US so this is only based on general impressions:

For a few years? Yes. Absolutely. Such an interesting and diverse continent to explore. I'm more interested in experiencing small town life and some of the more remote areas than the big cities (which don't strike me as being THAT different to European ones).

Forever? No.
I couldn't move anywhere so far from home and my roots.
I think I'd miss too much from the UK, in a way that I wouldn't miss it in, say, Australia, as that has a more 'British' culture. Cups of tea to cure-all. Talking non-stop about the weather.
I'd really miss 'banter'. I live with a non-British man and I don't get enough banter in my life as it is!
Also, for the US specifically, the gun laws /religion (come on, what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that? I wouldn't want to be around when those ignorant kids have grown up and are running the place. What other rubbish have they been taught? That's not a quality approach to education)/healthcare/worldview would mar staying there permanently.

<i>what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that?</i>

I would suggest that, if such issues are important to you, that you become a bit better informed about the reality. There was a brief scare about this when some overzealous board of education members tried this in Kansas. They were promptly voted out and all is back to normal. Moreover, to call their actions a ban is not really accurate. What they did was remove the requirement to teach it from the state-wide curriculum mandates. Individual school districts remained free to require it.

I would say the risk of a large-scale &quot;ban&quot; being introduced and actually sticking is exceedingly low.

<i>I wouldn't want to be around when those ignorant kids have grown up and are running the place. What other rubbish have they been taught? That's not a quality approach to education</i>

As somebody who studied at the university level in the UK, and who currently lives in Denmark, I would say that you are pretty wide of the mark. The US educational system actually places much more emphasis on breadth of knowledge than the UK and Danish systems (I'll never forget having to explain to several of my British hall-mates what the Magna Carta was). And I had no trouble, whatsoever, scoring a first during my year in the UK.

Indeed, I found the curriculum far less rigorous than my university education in the US, particularly in a lack of mathematical and scientific rigor being applied to the social sciences, which seemed, at times, to be something of a glorified history class. A good friend of mine found the same true at Oxford. He praised the minds of the faculty (he studied for a year as an undergraduate and again on a Rhodes Scholarship), but felt that the undergraduate students were not consistently at the level of a top university in the US (at the upper end, they certainly had their share of brilliant minds), and that it was easier to coast by if you wanted and avoid the hard work.

Not every product of the US educational is a genius, but I don't think you have to worry about a generation of imbeciles running the world.

And this shouldn't be taken as too much of an indictment of the British system. One of the smartest people I know is an Oxford grad, and he is widely read and we converse on a broad range of topics. But, I suspect his brilliance would not have been dimmed had he gone through the US system.

This is a pretty civilised thread, but I must come in about evolution.

An American friend is at her wit's end because her ten year old son is being bullied at school.
It seems that the trouble is that his father, an academic, teaches &quot;Evil lution&quot; and has spoken out strongly at public meetings.

<i>An American friend is at her wit's end because her ten year old son is being bullied at school.</i>

I suspect the bullying has little to do with his father's stand on evolution. In my experience, bullies tend to pick their targets first and come up with reasons later. And the bullied kids and their parents often look for their own reasons as well. As you might expect, they tend to blame it on some virtuous trait of the kid or the family - they are smart, or they are kind, etc. In reality, the kid is usually just different or smaller or shy or whatever.

That evolution can be easily turned into &quot;evil lution&quot; means little more than when they twist a kids name in an attempt to make fun of them (i.e. don't name your son Gabriel).

And, FWIW, Denmark has a bullying problem prominent enough that it is the Crown Princess's pet cause. And her &quot;solution&quot; (something about teddy bears) was lifted from a similar program in her native Australia. It would seem (without excusing it) that bullying is pretty universal.

&gt;&gt;Individual school districts remained free to require it (teaching of evolution).&lt;&lt;

Not where I live. And I live in a state where the landmark case was held.

Interesting debate. I am a Oxford graduate and found the Rhodes Scholars pretty dim though very people skilled. I guess there must have been some but not in my year.

The Magna Carta thing is interesting as it is seen within the US as far more signigicant than it is in the UK. Despite that I fully agree the ability of individuals to retain any information in their brain is pitiful. Magna Carta is as De-fenestration is to a Czech or Hoover is to an American. I have met natives of each country who know nothing of all such issues

&quot;Also, for the US specifically, the gun laws /religion (come on, what other country is there where schools ban teaching evolution? Aren't you all embarrassed by that?&quot;

Not sure whether I'm embarrassed, but I am amazed and saddened. As this is something happening in places about as remote from me as I am from Europe, I have no vote. If such a thing were to happen where I live, I would not be sending my kids to that school and I'd be working hard to get a new school committee voted in. But it never will, as people with a point of view that would make that a possibility are a tiny minority in my neck of the woods and I believe in most of the US.

As far as guns, yes, I take any opportunity to add my voice to those seeking to restrict them. While the gun lobby is incredibly powerful politically, that does not mean that the average American has their opinions. Nor does it mean that the average American has any contact with gun wielding people other than law enforcement personnel. Gun crime is not present to any noticeable degree in most places in the US.

As far as religion, I can only echo what has been said here by many Americans: that I do not notice the intrusiveness of religious views in the vast majority of the people with whom I have contact. For most people, religion is a personal choice with no bearing on anybody else. As for the minority who do wish to impose their religious views on others, they are extremely visible in the press (which I imagine is intentional on their part in order to spread their message widely) and presumably that is why so many Europeans posting on this board believe they represent a substantial percentage of the population. In any setting in which I have ever lived, worked, or spent time, they do not.

I believe it is the very diversity of people in the US as well as the widespread tolerance of minority viewpoints that in some ways is responsible for the misconceptions held by people living abroad about life in the US. Anybody with any agenda has a voice, and those with very big agendas have very big voices. If those are the only voices one hears from abroad, however, one has to look more closely for the opinions that are less exciting in the headlines and the many voices that are engaging in the discourse of a vast and complex society.

I see it here on Fodors; no matter how many well-reasoned, balanced presentations there are of the several sides of an issue, there are those who hear only the most strident voices or the most simplistic viewpoints and then extrapolate that they are representative of the whole.

&quot;As far as religion, I can only echo what has been said here by many Americans: that I do not notice the intrusiveness of religious views in the vast majority of the people with whom I have contact.&quot;

1/3 of my friends in the US have strong religious views and can be very judgemental as a result. I love them anyway but we tread lightly when it comes to religious and political views.

Have you forgotten Magna Carta?
Did she die in vain?

<i>Not where I live. And I live in a state where the landmark case was held.</i>

Then you must not live in the US. There are no states where teaching the theory of evolution is &quot;banned&quot;. If you believe differently, then I would ask that you explain how they manage this, in light of Epperson v Arkansas.

Nikki, Your post was exceptionally well articulated.

It will, of course, fall mostly on deaf ears particularly those who have a friend or family member who meets the negative stereotype and immediately becomes emblematic of an entire nation.