Introduction
After finally moving to Turin, Italy and being here since March 2019, I thought it was a good time to reflect and write about some of the process we went through in the planning and implementation of our move. Of course for an individual or student, such a move is much easier and although we do not want to trivialize that process, older couples looking to retire or make a very large change in their life’s journey, have much more to consider. So with that it is vitally important to understand that everything you have done in the years prior to your move will directly impact whether or not you are successful or not. Planning and research are key! Without either you may not fail but you will find the problems you encounter, especially from the States, all the more daunting.
Please note: since this is to document the steps we have taken for our move, this article may be updated from time to time as I recollect additional things we may have done in preparation. So if you are at all interested you may want to check back from time to time.
Some Background
My wife, Patricia and I, had been thinking about moving and living in Europe for some time. Not to digress, but this had been a dream of ours for some time and we finally agreed some fifteen or so years ago to make it a goal. Upon doing so we have both been doing our parts, her on the citizenship side and dealing with the Italian government, and I on the financial and logistical side. Both are essential and just knowing what the process thoroughly by reading the government websites and asking questions on forums will greatly reduce your initial stress. We actually made a timeline or calendar for the first 30-60 days we were here and what we needed to get done, including a place to live. You should think of doing something similar if you are also contemplating such a move.
Preparation – The Year Before
Your House
Sometime within a year of your move you have to make decisions regarding the disposition of your home. If you are keeping it you still have some work either preparing it for rental or closing it up. In any case, some of the things we had done to sell our house may still be of consideration.
If you have decided sell your house you probably have already spent months, or years (like we did), getting rid of stuff. There are some things to consider.
First, items that you no longer need. Anything that is broken, too old to use, clutter in your attic or basement, etc. Throw it out! Don’t get sentimental about it, its junk.
Second, items that are in pretty good condition still, sell. We found that an initial purge using the yard sale to be somewhat effective for this purpose. But, yard sales are a lot of work and you rarely get enough money back for it to be worthwhile. Only use them initially for getting rid of good stuff that is bordering on junk and keep the price low, otherwise no one will buy it.
Third, use both Craigslist and eBay for high ticket items. I prefer Craigslist over the latter since there are no charges involved. Make sure you pick a good public place that is well lit and safe for deliveries, you don’t want to spend a lot of time in your car. Bring some cash for change, but not too much and don’t go back in the car for it. Use your common sense.
Fourth, for those things you are going to keep you must consider storage. Frankly, if you are selling do not expect to bring anything with you, this will complicate your move and is very costly (unless of course you can afford it and money is of no matter to you). We ended up with only a dozen or so boxes of our own for storage and the rest we stored but we gave to our children (e.g. furniture, tools and other useful items that are expensive to replace but in excellent condition). Storage for us ran around $100/mo with insurance. Since we paid for two full years we were able to secure a fairly good discount too, so look into that.
Fifth, there will always be those items you must bring with you. For us we decided we were only going to travel with one large suitcase and one carry-on item. That meant anything else had to be shipped. So any additional clothes or other items you want enclosed in a sturdy packing box. We found the small and medium storage boxes from Lowes Home Improvement to be just fine, but any double-walled packing boxes from U-Haul or other vendors would be fine. See the following section on how-to ship this stuff prior to leaving for more details.
Lastly, selling. If you are selling you may want to consider this when timing your move. For us that meant moving in early Spring. Spring and early Summer are the hottest times for house sales. Regardless of how you sell your house the chances are it will not stay on the market as long during this time period than other times during the year. Again, consider this when timing your move. The other advantage to this is weather. We moved from the southeast United States and it does get hot during the Summer, so you may want to take weather into account too. Again, this is where a timeline will help you greatly, even if its been drawn on a napkin.
In short what we actually did was from five to one year(s) prior, we got rid of items we didn’t want. Then we one year prior we sold our house in Spring, moved last items into storage and moved into a small apartment. This forced us to downsize. From there the international move was a lot easier since our lease was written to take into account all of our travel plans. It also gave us the flexibility to do other necessary things without the worry of a house or other unnecessary American luxuries.
Important Documents and Cards
Depending on what your plans are, it would be a good idea to recheck all of your important documents. Do this well in advance, you do not want to worry about this just before leaving. The list is long but it should include your Wills (including Living Wills), financial instruments (stock accounts, IRAs etc.) and other government issued cards or documents. If you have any assets at all, it’s probably a good time to talk an accountant and/or lawyer, just to make sure everything there is in order. Make sure all Passports are up to date. If you are a dual citizen this may require you to travel within the U.S. to obtain a renewal, it did for us.
To apply for residency you will probably need a long list of documents, including Birth Certificates (w/ Apostille), Marriage Certificates (w/ Apostille), and any other supporting documentation for all parties. You must research this and make sure you understand all the requirements can be met with the documentation you will be bringing. Here, you have to bring hard-copy since documents with Apostilles on them cannot be tampered with. We used a hard plastic case file folder to keep all of our documents in order, including travel insurance, etc., so you may consider purchasing one of those.
Additionally, consider getting your credit cards re-issued. This is just to make sure the expiration date is out at least a few years. This is not such a big item to worry about, but if you have time you may want to consider it. Also make sure your spouse has a card as well, especially Debit Cards, just in case one is lost or stolen.
Electronic Documents and Devices
Even if you plan on bringing a laptop, which by the way is a very good idea, I would suggest backing up any electronic data using cloud storage with encryption. You may either purchase a complete service, there are many and some are better than others, or perform your own encryption and store things on Google cloud or some other public cloud service. Just make sure what ever you do your data is encrypted using very strong encryption technology. Even if you carry this data on your cell phone, its best to back that data up in the event you lose your phone or laptop.
It is also a great idea to encrypt your phone as well as well as lock it. I use Android and they offer complete phone encryption on their later models. So, your phone should be encrypted, your SIM card locked with a pin code, and your phone locked with a pin code as well. It will make it annoying booting the phone up from time to time but this is the safest thing to do. You may also want to turn on any phone tracking, in the event you forget your phone or its taken. It will help you recover it.
The last thing I will commend is a password locker. I have used them on and off over the years, but if you plan on traveling a lot, they are indispensable. I would suggest purchasing a good one, you don’t want advertisements cluttering your life here! I use Acebit’s Password Depot, latest version. The nice thing about this application is you can install it anywhere, phone, laptop or PC. Additionally, you can store more than just passwords and use the auto-fill capabilities. You can also use it to store your SSI, foreign social security number, insurance information and other important data and numbers you want to keep secure. Also the application automatically encrypts all the data it stores, so you do not have to worry about it getting stolen on your phone, even if you phone is. I would suggest not leaving home without one. One word of caution though, once you have created your password locker and installed it on all your devices, back the file up on the cloud (you’ve been warned). Yes, this is all a big pain in the ass, but it may save you from having a very bad experience.
Survey Trip
Sometime within 90 to 120 days of your move you are going to want to take a survey trip. This will not be a vacation and you should consider it a job with real costs and daily tasks that must be accomplished. The whole point of this trip is to get a firm idea where exactly it is you want to live. In our case we were unsure whether we wanted to live in the country, the Tuscan area or a city. We had an added twist in that our son was going to travel with us for the first year, so we had to make sure there was plenty to do.
Once you have decided the variety of places you want to see its best to plot them on a map. Then determine what mode of transportation you will be using. A car of course gives you the greatest flexibility but it has drawbacks like anything else. I would suggest choosing the mode of transportation that you intend on using once you have moved. This will give you a good idea as to its capabilities, flexibility, cost and usefulness. We decided our central location for this trip had to have excellent rail service since we were not going to own a car here. That proved to be a very good decision since we had a pretty good idea within a week what we could do, the direct costs and within a month more or less rail and metro experts.
Your central base for day trips should be just that, more or less central to your points of interest. We made ours in a town we were not necessarily interested in living in. But since it had an excellent train station (access to fast rail) it turned out to be a great choice. We even toured it as well quite rigorously to make sure we had no interest really in living there.
There is the question of travel cost. Though figures here would be quite useless since it depends greatly on what you plan to use, etc., planning can be difficult. It’s probably essential to pick your mode of transport prior to trying. However, once you have done this, do not switch, since it will be difficult later to try an estimate your travel budget later (though not impossible). Also keep in mind rural locations have fewer options than cities. We picked a city and are able to choose between metro, street car, bus, local rail and fast rail, though again not all cities may have all of these options available. Again, research is key.
Shipping Items Prior To Your Leaving
For those important items you have identified that must come with you must either travel with you or be shipped. Again, we decided to simplify our travel by just bringing what we could reasonably carry to two items each. Everything else was shipped. There are several carriers to choose from that offer these services. Of course, there are FedEx and DHL, but we found them too expensive for our needs. However, a few internet searches provided a few services from which we selected after reading forums and asking some questions. We ended up going with SendMyBags. It is important to engage them months before if only to get their special shipping tags (large zip-lock plastic clear envelops) for the outside of your boxes. You can also ship luggage, so these will come in very handy with zip-ties. They will be used for the manifest (list of contents) of each box or bag. Be detailed in your description and number of items. Also adhere to any restrictions, if they say you cannot ship something, DON’T! It will save you tons of grief with customs.
In the interest of brevity that is all I will say about shipping items. If you thoroughly read the website for the service you are using you should have no problems. The carrier that is ultimately used presents your bags on behalf of you to custom officials. The bags in most cases are scanned. If they see anything that does not fit the description on the manifest or if it looks suspicious, your bag or box WILL BE OPENED. You may also be asked to pick your item up at the customs office. You want to avoid this so AGAIN, do NOT ship anything that is on their list of restricted items.
For us, we used SendMyBags, and we never had any problem. The biggest fear we had were that the bags might make it to our destination quicker than we would. However, that was not to be the case, even though it was close. Our bags and boxes arrived in two shipments within days after our arrival. No bags were opened and only one of the manifest envelopes were opened and taken. We assumed that perhaps they did something else for the other shipment or just placed it back neatly so we couldn’t notice. In any case we had a very good experience with them and would recommend their service.
The First 30 Days
Temporary Housing
You will no doubt have to find housing for the first 30 days. There are many options, none better than any other. We procured a place online for four weeks with the option of extending that period weekly for an additional three weeks if we needed. Not all landlords are willing to do this and it is best to check with them directly if they are able to offer you this option. Fortunately we did not need to use it.
The cost for housing the first 30 to 60 days will be somewhat expensive, probably higher than you would normally pay for a normal rental. Additionally depending where you planned to stay may make your apartment search easier or more difficult. Again, it is best to do some research prior to leaving just to see what’s available.
Residency
I am not going to go into depth on this subject, since it would fill a book of its own. Rather, I am going to acknowledge that before you even leave the States, you have to realize you will have to apply for residency, wherever you have chosen to live. This will require documentation and you MUST bring all the important ones with you, Birth and Marriage certificates, etc. The chances are they will all have to have an Apostille on them and in some cases the Apostille issued within the last six to nine months. In the case where you are moving to a country that has a different language, you may also have to have a translated copy of the document in question and get an Apostille for that as well.
Phones
Before you move to the continent you have to make some hard choices about your phone service. Make no mistake, if you delay this decision until you arrive and continue your state-side service it could cost you dearly. I would also suggest purchasing a new phone, or at least a reasonable upgrade. This will give you three of four years of piece of mind. If you are purchasing a new one, DO NOT do it through your current carrier. Buy one on the internet. It is very easy to find an ‘unlocked’ phone and you want it UNLOCKED. I will not go into here but its important if you are to install a foreign carrier SIM card into it that it be unlocked.
Domestic Phone Plan
If you are truly ‘cutting the cord’ so to speak, you will no longer need a domestic number. You should plan on terminating your plan so that your last month of service is STILL IN AFFECT while you are traveling. This will ensure, hopefully, that you have continued service while in airports state-side. Once you are airborne this will no longer be an issue of course. You may want to adjust your travel plans such that you don’t get ripped off too much on the last month’s bill. I would also suggest actually going into a local store to make sure there are no hidden last-minute charges, etc. This is the option we selected.
For those less willing to totally divorce themselves from domestic service, you have a few alternatives. You can continue your service and pay exorbitant rates by the likes of AT&T and Verizon, or choose a more friendly domestic carrier like T-Mobile (German based and provide much better rates than domestic only carriers). You can also choose to suspend your service. I imagine there are still other options, but since we chose the former option we will not go into them here.
International Phone Plan
Needless to say you have many options once you get here, just like in the States. However, the first thing you want to do is get a pay-as-you-go SIM card as soon as you arrive. Though they can be somewhat restrictive you should be able to find at least a 20-30GB data plan for about 30€. This is a very attractive option for the first month or two until you are able to shop around and compare all of your local plans. This is exactly what we did until we settled on our carrier, ILIAD, which provides a very good data and voice plan for just 9.99€/m introductory and 14.99€/m after one year. This rate has probably changed since we purchased it so the above rates should just be used to compare against any existing plan you have. This carrier is able to reduce rates by offering SIM cards via a kiosk, although they do have other kiosk like stores with representatives in them that can help you.
The Next 60 Days
Housing
Finding a house or an apartment to live in will depend on the country. I can only speak for Italy, and specifically Turin. To sum it up succinctly, it’s a mess. Not only finding a specific area you would like to live in, but an apartment that is reasonably laid out, has the features you are looking for and in the price range that is acceptable to you.
We made a repeated attempts to perform this difficult task ourselves, contacting several RE/MAX agencies and other local ones. All I can say is for an American based company, RE/MAX is a waste, especially in Italy. The two establishments we visited just yes’ed us to death and never did anything. They are only interested in selling homes, not their rentals. This is probably due to several factors, none of which I will get into here. We finally contacted a private company who worked for us, that is, we paid them as well as the owner. This is a bit expensive and probably not a solution for most people. But in a large city market where location is key, for services, etc., it is key to have someone represent you. We were actually lucky to find them since it was through several people we got to know that we discovered them.
Residency
At least in Italy, you have to make sure your documents are less than six (6) months old. This means, if you have something apostilled, or from an Italian government agency, it cannot be older than six months. We are actually still waiting for residency because of some documentation that must be sent from another commune. Needless to say, Italian bureaucracy is SLOW. You are thinking snails, tortoises? These are quick compared to them! We are of the opinion that before we get our residency we will be re-applying for a permission to stay again at the police department.
Utilities
In Italy at least there are some utility advocates that work for the consumer. That is not to say that they will help you after they make a utility! Eventually after they have fulfilled their duty to get you signed up at a new utility, they slowly stop responding to your requests for help with anything. For example, bill payment or meter readings.
We are attempting to ply the Italian business waters without a Postal or Bank account. The reason is there are better EU based solutions on the internet that provide better and cheaper service. This can cause issues, so if you plan on using something exclusively like TransferWise, or something similar, you may struggle until you have figured out how to pay your utility company. Especially if you do not speak the language yet.
Again, I will be updating this, so please check back later...!
