I was born in New Zealand to American parents, but raised in CT. I did college in Vermont and grad school in Santa Barbara. For the last eight years I have lived in Reykjavik, Iceland. Since moving here, I have not looked back. If you like overland driving, there are probably not many places that are better. That said, since about 2010 and after the eruption we have had a totally out of control tourism boom. We are only 320,000 people in the country, and when I first moved we got 450,000 tourists, mostly in the summer. Now we are on track to get 1.5 million per year. It has completely changed the character of the country, and while if you have never been there before, it would still seem quite uncrowded, to those of us who have been there earlier, the once completely empty landscapes are now cluttered with people.
I would not recommend it for most people, as integration into a very small country with an ethnically homogenous population speaking a foreign language is not particularly easy, and the immigration process for non-Europeans is very difficult. Like all cultures, they have their quirks and things that will drive you up the wall, but others you will love. For me, there is a joy in living here that I did not have in the US. There is hardly any crime and little poverty, the nature is vast, incredible and easily accessible, most everything is modern and clean, there is no traffic, the people are well-educated and worldly, it is easy to access Europe. On the downside, you better not like being too hot...it rarely gets out of the 50s in the summer, and the highest temperature ever recorded in Reykjavik was 79. Cost of living is high, though shifted in different ways. Taxes are low on companies, real estate and income (to some extent), but sales tax is 24% and catastrophic on vehicles, especially ones we might use. Health care and education are more or less free and are very good. People tend to have smaller houses and fewer things than in the US, but the things they do have tend to be nicer (that is quite a generalization, of course).
In general, I would think that the South Island of New Zealand would probably be my pick as an ideal place to live for most people. Compared to Iceland, most would think the weather is much better, the food is unarguably better, and the country is bigger and more varied. You have giant mountains, fjords, wine country, incredible forests, a lot of space and a genuinely nice culture that speaks English. If I had to live in the States, I would gravitate towards Vermont or Western Mass. Perhaps Alaska, though I have not had the chance to see it yet! From a perspective of cities, Copenhagen and Berlin are both lovely and much more livable in my mind than New York was for me...
I would not recommend it for most people, as integration into a very small country with an ethnically homogenous population speaking a foreign language is not particularly easy, and the immigration process for non-Europeans is very difficult. Like all cultures, they have their quirks and things that will drive you up the wall, but others you will love. For me, there is a joy in living here that I did not have in the US. There is hardly any crime and little poverty, the nature is vast, incredible and easily accessible, most everything is modern and clean, there is no traffic, the people are well-educated and worldly, it is easy to access Europe. On the downside, you better not like being too hot...it rarely gets out of the 50s in the summer, and the highest temperature ever recorded in Reykjavik was 79. Cost of living is high, though shifted in different ways. Taxes are low on companies, real estate and income (to some extent), but sales tax is 24% and catastrophic on vehicles, especially ones we might use. Health care and education are more or less free and are very good. People tend to have smaller houses and fewer things than in the US, but the things they do have tend to be nicer (that is quite a generalization, of course).
In general, I would think that the South Island of New Zealand would probably be my pick as an ideal place to live for most people. Compared to Iceland, most would think the weather is much better, the food is unarguably better, and the country is bigger and more varied. You have giant mountains, fjords, wine country, incredible forests, a lot of space and a genuinely nice culture that speaks English. If I had to live in the States, I would gravitate towards Vermont or Western Mass. Perhaps Alaska, though I have not had the chance to see it yet! From a perspective of cities, Copenhagen and Berlin are both lovely and much more livable in my mind than New York was for me...
. Tons of good to both. And I'm not looking or seeing the bad to either .
