I Moved Abroad to Live “Like a King” on $2,500 a Month: 10 Things I Miss Most About the U.S.

There’s a fantasy a lot of Americans share. Sell most of your stuff, pack two suitcases, and move somewhere warm where your money goes roughly three times as far. Rent a nice apartment, eat fresh food every day, maybe sip coffee on a terrace and watch the world slow down. In many parts of the world, $2,000 a month is genuinely more than enough to cover housing, food, transportation, and even leisure. So yes, the fantasy is real. The math checks out.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spent $77,280 in 2023, a 5.9% increase over 2022, and that number went higher still in 2024. That’s over $6,400 a month just to keep up with an average American life. No wonder so many people started running the numbers on Portugal, Mexico, or Thailand. More than 5 million Americans now reside outside the United States, forming vibrant communities across dozens of countries and continents. I became one of them. Here’s the honest truth about what I gained, and the 10 things I genuinely, deeply miss about home. Let’s dive in.

1. The Food Diversity That Only America Does Right

Honestly, nothing prepared me for the food grief. I’m not talking about missing cheeseburgers. I’m talking about that Tuesday night when you want Vietnamese pho, followed by Ethiopian injera on Wednesday, and authentic Mexican tacos on Friday. America’s diversity is something special. Being able to hear a million different languages from a million different people as you walk through cities, and being able to get food from all over the world, is a genuinely rare thing.

In Asia, getting good Mexican is not impossible but pretty hard. In Europe, finding good Japanese or Korean food is very difficult as well. You really do not realize how spoiled you are until you’re sitting in an otherwise lovely European city begging a restaurant to make something that vaguely resembles a burrito. It’s not just about the food itself, but about the Mexican and Latin American communities that have become such an integral part of American culture.

2. 24/7 Convenience and Late-Night Shopping

Here’s the thing about the rest of the world: it closes. Like, actually closes. Completely. Americans love convenience. Knowing that if it’s 8pm on a Sunday you can still go shopping or do a quick errand, or that if you have a cold, somewhere is open to get medicine, is something most take for granted.

There’s nothing worse than having a headache at 11pm and realizing you’re out of ibuprofen, knowing that all the closest pharmacies aren’t open for another ten hours. The concept of a pharmaceutical candy shop like Walgreens and CVS essentially only exists in America. I know it sounds crazy, but the first time I walked into a Walgreens after six months abroad, I felt an actual wave of emotion. Convenience and variety are king in the U.S., so even in relatively small towns you’ll find a store with a decent selection for most items.

3. The American National Parks System

There are countries with great national parks, but the American National Park system is world renowned. When you meet someone who has traveled to the U.S. from Europe, they typically will have made a point of visiting at least one of America’s National Parks, and with incredible and varied parks throughout the country, there is so much to see and do. You don’t miss it until it’s gone.

The National Parks system has hikes and activities for all ages and ability levels, which greatly enhances everyone’s ability to experience and benefit from the great outdoors. Driving through the Southwest on a road trip, watching the light change over red canyon walls, or hiking a trail in the Cascades – there is nothing quite like it anywhere else. I miss it more than I expected.

4. The Sheer Scale of American Grocery Stores

American stores are twice the size of European stores and have more variety of products on the shelves. I genuinely did not think this would bother me. I thought “smaller, simpler, more mindful” sounded kind of charming. It is not charming when you cannot find almond butter, your specific brand of hot sauce, or approximately forty other items you didn’t realize were part of your emotional infrastructure.

Grocery stores like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s become deeply missed once you’re gone. Abroad, you adapt. You shop at local markets, which is often genuinely wonderful. But there are weeks where you’d trade a lot for one trip through a Target where you can get shaving razors, a throw pillow, coffee creamer, and a new phone charger all in the same building.

5. Customer Service Culture

Let’s be real: Americans complain about customer service all the time. And yet, the moment you leave, you start to realize it’s actually pretty exceptional compared to much of the world. The great thing about customer service in America is that we have it. Many countries simply do not prioritize or invest in any sort of customer service culture.

Visiting Europe, many Americans notice customer service and general friendliness feeling absent. In the U.S., high service standards are simply considered a normal part of daily life, which makes them easy to overlook. The smile, the “How can I help you today?”, the manager who actually resolves your problem without making you feel like a burden – it’s deeply, distinctly American. And yes, you miss it.

6. The Sense of Cultural Openness and Social Warmth

Americans have a reputation overseas for being loud and overly friendly. Abroad, you stop seeing that as a flaw. Many Americans find that relocating opens doors to slower, more intentional lifestyles where community, food, and daily experiences matter more than material possessions. That’s true. Yet there’s something about American warmth that is genuinely unique.

Striking up a conversation with a stranger in line, offering help without being asked, that easy, casual camaraderie with people you’ve just met. Say what you want about America, but the diversity in culture, food, and people is genuinely lacking in many parts of the world. The melting pot, for all its contradictions, produces a kind of social energy that is hard to find replicated elsewhere.

7. Affordable and Accessible Healthcare – When It Works

Now, this one is complicated. It’s hard to say for sure whether most expats leave because of the U.S. healthcare system or in spite of it. The cost is brutal. The average U.S. resident’s health expenditures reached $13,439 per capita in 2022, compared to just $146 per person in 1960 – a staggering increase over those sixty years.

Still, when you are abroad and something goes seriously wrong, you realize that what America does have is speed, specialization, and cutting-edge technology. Americans spend the most on healthcare of any country in the world, and in 2025 a family health insurance plan averaged $26,993, a 6% increase from 2024. That’s a real problem. Yet in a medical emergency, access to America’s top-tier specialists and hospitals is something many expats genuinely pine for.

8. Familiar Holidays and Their Cultural Energy

Thanksgiving abroad is heartbreaking. There, I said it. During Christmas, Halloween, or Thanksgiving, Americans love to celebrate by decorating their homes and communities, with Halloween involving elaborate costumes and neighborhood traditions. When you’re sitting in a small apartment in Southeast Asia or southern Europe on the fourth Thursday of November, eating a perfectly fine local meal, the absence of that specific cultural ritual hits differently than you’d think.

It’s not nostalgia for the food, exactly. It’s the shared collective experience – the parades, the football, the specific smell of a house full of people who’ve all shown up at the same table. While loving to travel the world, many Americans miss the little things that make the United States unique. It’s home, and there’s a certain nostalgia for the way you grew up doing things. Holiday culture turns out to be one of those things.

9. The U.S. Tax Obligation That Follows You Everywhere

This one isn’t so much something you miss as something that refuses to leave you alone. The U.S. taxes its citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live, and this applies to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and anyone who meets the substantial presence test, even if they already pay taxes in another country.

A 2024 survey revealed that nearly 1 in 3 U.S. expatriates are considering renouncing their citizenship, with roughly three quarters citing the burden of tax obligations as a primary reason. You move abroad to simplify your life, and then you discover you have two tax systems to navigate simultaneously. One of the biggest issues with the American diaspora is double taxation. Unlike almost all countries in the world, the United States taxes its citizens even if they do not live in the country. It is an unwelcome reminder that no matter how far you move, some ties are never fully cut.

10. Friends, Family, and the Irreplaceable Network of Home

In the end, every expat I know agrees on this. Nothing on any list of “things I miss” compares to this one. Not the grocery stores, not Thanksgiving, not even the national parks. Moving abroad is a major endeavor and lifestyle adjustment, and beyond the legal paperwork and logistics, there is the very real challenge of missing friends and family back home.

Fluctuating exchange rates, political instability, or changes in visa laws can impact long-term security. What feels affordable today may not be so in five years, raising real questions about whether this lifestyle is truly stable. But the deeper question isn’t financial. It’s the birthday parties you miss. The spontaneous Sunday dinners. The person who just calls to check in. Even people who love moving around the world and experiencing new things sometimes get homesick and long for a little sense of home, something to make the world seem a bit more comforting. No amount of savings rate or ocean view fully fills that gap.