Personally my love is for Eastern & Central Europe. I am actively looking for property in Poland.  The problem is, believe it or not, it is very hard to become a Polish citizen.  And they have some strict laws about non-citizens owning land.  

IMHO the new additions to the EU will be the most exciting place to live over the next 10 years.  Their economies will prosper and the standard of living will skyrocket; much like what happened in "old Europe" in the late '50s.  Just my 0,02 USD.  

Hope that helps.

I can tell you that there is an excellent expat website for Americans in Britain you can find here which can help you answer some of those technical questions.

Emotionally it's another story.. esp in UK.  Just because they speak English doesn't mean it's not a completely foreign country, because it is! Trust me on this one.  And it's a lot more than "tea time" and "crumpets" too.

It takes about a year before you can feel "home" in a new country and there will always be things you miss, sometimes painfully so.  Me I miss collard greens sometimes so much it hurts.  Other little things crop up too, like no Thanksgiving.  And people in foreign countries do things in a foreign way, sometimes frustratingly so.

I will tell you that in Europe, both EU and future EU europe, things are quite nice here.  You should come for a long visit and see how it feels to you.  In the UK you'll get health care, safe streets, a healthy political debate and LOTS and LOTS of newspapers to read.  You'll also get community centers like pubs, which many are perfectly safe and appropriate for the entire family...

Britain can be super expensive and I know their visa regime is pretty stiff, so definitely look into getting a job before you come.  I know they have some good information on their embassy's website which you can find here.

But why not try some other European cities as well? Kids at that age can learn foreign languages very well and many advanced jobs are open to people who speak English.

I wouldn't quite recommend Romania to you and your family, but what about France or Germany or Italy? All quite lovely places to live.  Or Holland too, as Page I'm sure will tell you ;)

Pax

Night and day you can find me Flogging the Simian

but you will not be paying us taxes (you still need to file however) and you'll be contributing to a generally progressive country.

so yes, i think it's a perfect time.  and please get involved with democrats abroad if you do move overseas.

You'll have to get accustomed at being some kind of "attraction" because you are an exotic foreign; but (French and Londoners apart) most people will react very well to it  and will enthusiastically ask you everything about your country. Scandinavians will be more polite than you can ever imagine.

All in all, think about what your life might realistically be over here, especially job-wise.

My favorite: Are you aware that you will have to pay several hundred Euros for a TV license? That's just the beginning...

There are lots of relocation sites on the web, like:
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_content_subchannel.asp?subchannel_id=22&name=France+Relocati on

I don't think that I would flee to the UK for political reasons.  It is the easy place to flee from as it is free of language problems (although your American English will be the but of many a joke).  If you want a liberal climate you would do better in Northern California or NYC than you would in most of Britain.  Blair is just as much of a wanker as Bush although he will probably be gone in less than two years.  And if the current agenda is any indication, British law is becoming more and more authoritarian.  In the name of traffic reduction as well as terror.

Living overseas grows wearisome with time.  The first year is the best, the second the worst (so far).  The little things really add up and get to you.  From customer service to the gentle ribbing of your friends.

There are a lot of advantages to living overseas, but if your main motivation is to go into self declared political exile I wouldn't choose the UK.  They are right behind the US on most of our worst policies, they just get less blame.  Remember Blair's Britain is of few supposedly left of centre governments which went along with Bush to Iraq.

Then again ask me again when I've had more sleep.

PS I am thinking about running a set of diaries in September, about the attempt to "go back".   If it doesn't show up that means I probably need a bit of pestering, or am still in England

PPS One really strange thing is that at the same time I forget that I am a foreigner, and revel in the status of being a foreigner.  Do others of you in Europe feel similar sensations?

The only international crime is losing a war

I also think you need to set aside the language issue for a bit and seriously consider other fundamental issues.

Eg - England is massively crowded. There are 70 million people living on a tiny island. If you are from part of the USA with big skies, the sky in england feels like it's 20 feet from your head, it always seems to be grey, and you'll never see a big sky again. As a 'big sky'  Australian who is half brit & has spent a lot of time there, I can tell you of scores of Australians who could have stayed but came back for this reason alone.

The over-crowding is a serious issue; it makes the UK very expensive, but services are certainly not equal to the price. At least in other parts of Europe you would pay similarly high prices, but receive outstanding services (eg do you want the British national health care, or somewhere in Scandinavia -'s?)

You'll get taxed more in general across Europe, but you'll get much better services. As someone with a family, I suggest you need to do some cost/benefit analyses as best you can on different countries to help you way this sort of thing up.

Climate - a major issue; don't take it for granted or you'll regret it.

Job opportunities - ditto.

Culture - the only way you're going to work out which European countries have cultures that you could 'fit' with is by going over and experiencing them, combined with research. I'll put money that if you did this, the UK would not be your first choice. There are also weird surprises - I wonder now for eg, if I would have agreed to work for a year in Switzerland, if I'd known that they took until 1971 to give women the vote!  - use your imagination as to how this played out societally in terms of gender roles and expectations. One concrete eg - all primary school children are expected to go home for lunch (at least where I lived), ie there was an in-built assumption that the little wifey would be home to pick up, feed & return the kidlets to school. Truly frightening.

Language - I lived in Switzerland for a year and travelled quite widely in Western Europe. I rarely got a chance to try out my nascent German or remember my high-school French, as everyone spoke nigh-on flawless english and always accommodated me (sometimes to my total frustration - I wanted to practise!). So I'd suggest that depending on what countries you are willing to look at, language is nowhere near the barrier your wife might think.

Also, in all seriousness, point out to her that multi-linguality uses parts of the brain and increases intelligence in fundamental ways, something that Americans and Australians routinely don't realise or value, and hence miss out on. Learning a foreign language (or 2) would be an absolute boon to your children in many ways.

Anyways, I think if you are really serious about this, you need to realise it's probably going to take a year for you and your wife to thoroughly research this, explore options, and reach a decision. I would certainly recommend against a relatively spontaneous decision - the culture shock and major adjustment difficulties your family would no doubt experience would be awful.

"This can't possibly get more disturbing!" - Willow

Keep in mind that your kids will have to perform national service, whether in the military (18 months) or civil (2 years), but as of right now, University is free and I have no complaints about my health care.

We both had dual ciotiozenship, spoke the language, were familiar with the culture and had some friends in the area so we did it under pretty ideal conditions, though uprooting ourselves after 25 years was a wrench at fist; but we haven't regretted any of it and feel much happier.

From the bottom of my heart, good luck, and to anyone passing in the vicinity of Carcassonne, let us know (through the blog) and there'll always be a bowl of soupe for you at our table.