Moving to the Netherlands from the US: How (and why) we moved to Amsterdam
And weirdly, it's... kind of all because of Seth Meyers?
If you’re an American, I’m going to guess that you’ve fantasized about running off and starting a new life abroad in Europe.
Presumably, so did the 76,221 Americans who were granted residence permits by EU/Schengen countries last year. And speaking as two Americans who now hold residence permits in the Netherlands, we sure as hell did.
The only difference between us and you (and by “us” I mean my partner and I as well as the other 76,219 Americans who became European residents in 2022) is that we made the decision not to let the idea of life abroad remain a daydream.
In fact, it only took us about six months to make moving from the US to the Netherlands our reality—from our first-ever trip to Amsterdam to the morning we arrived at our new Dutch apartment.
And weirdly, it’s… kind of all because of Seth Meyers?
Let me explain.
It started with tulips
After we got married in 2018, my partner and I made the somewhat out-of-character decision that we’d aim to celebrate with the traditional anniversary gifts for each year of marriage. You know, where your first-anniversary gift is made of paper, the second-anniversary gift is made of cotton, etc.
So in 2022, we were talking about what to do for our fourth anniversary (the “flower anniversary”) when my partner suggested that we take a trip to Amsterdam for the Tulip Festival. The experience had long been on our shared bucket list, travel was starting to open up again now that COVID vaccinations were more widely available, and neither of us had ever been to the Netherlands, so it seemed like a win-win-win.
Our anniversary is in December, but the Tulip Festival is in April, so we decided we’d celebrate early. We booked our flights for April 1-11, signed our dog Stella up for a two-week sleep-away dog training camp while we’d be gone, and started researching what to do and where to go once we arrived in the Netherlands.
After reading through an Amsterdam guidebook, we watched every travel special we could find that centered around Amsterdam. One that stood out to us in particular was the season one finale of travel series The Getaway following comedian brothers Seth and Josh Meyers during a weekend in Amsterdam, where they apparently lived from 1997-1998.
I pulled up the Notes app on my phone to save Seth and Josh’s suggestions: Pancakehouse Upstairs for Pannenkoeken, FEBO for late-night fast food, and—of course—Boom Chicago, the same improv theater and comedy club where Seth himself once performed with the likes of Jordan Peele, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Amber Ruffin, Ike Barinholtz, and more.
Armed with these tried-and-true recommendations and every other bit of Amsterdam information we could scrounge up on the internet, we were ready to embark on the trip of a lifetime.
Little did we know we were actually embarking on a trip that would totally change our lifetime.
Exploring Amsterdam
We took off from Washington DC in the evening for a direct flight with KLM, slept as soundly as air travel would allow us to, and arrived in Amsterdam bright and early at 7:30 a.m. A taxi brought us to an adorable Airbnb in Oud West, where we schlepped our carry on bags up two flights of teeny-tiny, steep-as-hell Dutch stairs so we could drop them off and start exploring already.
We walked toward the city centre under blue skies and sunshine, ooh-ing and ahh-ing like the tourists we were as the canals came into view looking like photos torn right out of our guidebook. We found seats on a cafe terrace for coffee and breakfast al fresco, giddy to have arrived in our destination to find it just as picturesque as we’d hoped.
That first day, we wandered through the canal ring without destinations in mind, just taking in the views and the vibes that Amsterdam had to offer. By the time we were ready to walk back toward our Airbnb, we were kvelling. What a gorgeous place, not nearly as intense or overwhelming as most other cities, so comfortable and easy to get around, such good food, so many dogs… We were smitten.
The rest of that first week was a lot of the same. We had the recommendations from our guidebooks, internet searches, and that Seth Meyers special saved on Google Maps so that we could head in the general direction of each spot on our list, stopping here and there along the way as we felt like it, no firm itinerary in mind.
The exception, of course, was our tulip excursion—we bought tickets in advance for that one, and it was the only schedule we were tied to during this trip. We opted for the classic Keukenhof experience, where we wandered through manicured gardens of literally millions of spring-flowering bulbs (7 million, to be exact). While it was gorgeous and we were excited to check it off of our bucket list, we agreed that if we ever returned for another Tulip Festival season in the Netherlands, we’d rather find a way to actually experience it from within the tulip fields themselves than from in a garden.
After that, the last thing we knew we wanted to do before we left Amsterdam for sure was to check out an improv show at Boom Chicago. We booked our tickets to the Improv Spectacular show that Friday night, which did not disappoint. The cast absolutely killed with their quick wits and commitment to the bits, so when they took their final bows and ended with, “We have a tradition here at Boom Chicago: You buy the drinks and we drink them,” we headed out to the bar to buy them a round of beers.
Apparently, though, they end their shows with that line all the time, and audience members typically don’t buy them drinks—so we were surprised to find them surprised when we got them a round. We raised our glasses to their performance before sitting to chat with them, learning a bit more about their time in improv and in Amsterdam so far.
When they asked us how we’d heard about Boom Chicago, we told them about the Seth Meyers special. They started to laugh as we described Seth and Josh playing hacky-sack with Boom Chicago founder Andrew’s son Finn, who was probably around 12 years old when the episode came out but was now in his 20s and worked at the Boom Chicago bar pretty regularly.
We exchanged contact information with a few of the cast members, who invited us to come back again the next night for their Saturday night Shot of Improv show wherein each person in the audience who gave a suggestion for the performance would be “rewarded” with a shot of Jäger. We knew it might not be the most responsible way for us to spend the night before our flight back to the US on Sunday morning… but we liked these new friends and loved the idea of seeing them perform again, so we agreed.
Fast forward through a hilarious second show and an inadvisable number of Jäger shots, and we were in the lobby congratulating the cast when Boom Chicago founder Andrew walked in. Our new friends caught him up on how we’d learned about Boom Chicago from the Seth Meyers special and how both he and his son Finn had been featured on it.
Amused but apparently not remembering this TV special at all, Andrew said “I’ll have to bring this up to Seth when I see him in New York next week” before bringing us another round of drinks and sitting down to chat. He told us all about how his experience moving from the US to Amsterdam, indignant that the process was actually way easier than most people might think.
Andrew encouraged us to think about it, and as we said our goodbyes and headed down the block to FEBO for some late-night bitterballen, the idea continued to swim around with the beer and Jäger in our minds until we said good night to our final evening in Amsterdam.
Shooting our shot
About a month after we got back to the States, we drove up to my Pennsylvania hometown for a visit with my family and recapped them on how much we loved Amsterdam. My mom, knowing that we’d always talked about living abroad in Europe at some point in our lives, apprehensively asked if we were thinking about moving there. I told her we weren’t actively considering it, but shared with her what Andrew had told us about how much easier it is to move from the US to Amsterdam than most of us might think.
My mom’s apprehension faded a bit, replaced by curiosity—she asked if we had considered how much we might be able to sell our house for given the current real estate market, pointing out that we may actually be in a position to earn a decent profit that could carry us toward our (temporary, she emphasized) chapter abroad. She added that it might actually be good timing, since we could potentially make the move before any future nieces or nephews arrived.
Shocked that my mom’s usual “why don’t you move back home” agenda had apparently been thrown out the window in support of our wanderlust, I told her we’d Iook into it.
When we got back to our place in Virginia, we asked a few realtor friends what we might be able to expect if we put our house up for sale. They outlined what the sales process would look like and shared their best estimate for our earning potential, and we were surprised by how straightforward and lucrative it all seemed. Good to know.
We started casually looking at LinkedIn to see if there were any relevant job listings for us in Amsterdam, noticing that there was a surprising amount available in both of our industries. My partner started applying to a few of them here and there, just to see if he got any bites. Just to see.
We browsed a few rental websites, talking about what we’d want in an apartment if we actually decided to make the move and even finding a few that would theoretically work for our needs and budget. Theoretically.
Imagine a small snowball atop a mountain, teetering forward ever so slightly. As we embarked on these initial investigations, each positive response rolled that snowball forward bit by bit—it grew in size as it inched toward the edge of the peak, sure, but we didn’t think it was actually on the precipice of tumbling down the mountainside anytime soon.
As you might have guessed, in reality, an avalanche was just around the corner.
Okay, it’s happening
That September, my partner was invited to interview for one of the roles he’d applied for in his niche industry (geographic information science consulting). Bewilderingly quickly after that, he was offered the job. They sent over the details of his offer, and we scheduled a meeting with our financial adviser to talk through the details. Once he told us everything looked great to him from a numbers perspective, we realized we had a serious decision on our hands—was it time for us to actually, officially, for realsies, no backsies commit to moving abroad?
We talked to our realtor friends again, more seriously this time, about potentially selling our house. The numbers looked great there too, and they were ready to make moves whenever we were.
I talked to my company about the logistics of potentially doing my job remotely. They said I’d transition from a full-time employee to a full-time independent contractor for tax reasons, but that otherwise, there would be no issues.
We called our friends, our parents, our therapists, and anyone else we could think of to ask, Are we crazy for considering this? Most everyone was in agreement: They’d miss us, but this seemed like a great opportunity to live out one of our lifelong dreams.
Basically, all signs seemed to point toward, “Why not go for it?”
So we did.
My partner accepted the job offer, and we started searching for apartments in Amsterdam. We scheduled a few virtual viewings from the States, but each place seemed to be snapped up faster and faster.
But then, Seth Meyers came through for us again: A friend we’d kept in touch with from Boom Chicago told us that he’d be moving out of his apartment at the end of October, and he’d be happy to connect us with his rental company if we’d like to take over the lease when we arrived in November. He sent a walk-through video of the place and it was exactly what we were looking for. We said yes without hesitation, signed an agreement with his rental property, and decided on a move-in date: Black Friday, November 25, the day after Thanksgiving.
That timeline was coming up fast, which meant we needed to get our house up for sale ASAP and hope it sold quickly. The listing went live the first weekend of October, when we drove back up to Pennsylvania again so our realtors could keep the house empty (and spotless) for viewings with potential buyers.
The folks from the very first viewing put in an offer just a few days later, agreeing to our requested move-out date of November 22.
That meant we had about a month to pack up four checked bags, four carry-on bags, and two personal items with everything that we wanted to bring to Amsterdam with us. Then from everything else that was left in our 4-bedroom/3-bathroom house, we’d need to decide what would go into storage at my parents’ place in Pennsylvania and what we wanted to sell, donate, or trash.
No pressure.
We spent weeks sorting through everything we owned (when and how did we get so much stuff?) and determined what would come with us to Amsterdam and what would go into storage. We passed a few sentimental items along to friends so they could hold onto them for us while we were away. We hosted two massive yard sales over the next few weeks, selling as much as we could. Then we scheduled a donations pickup with a local nonprofit, who drove away with pretty much everything except our bed and our couch (which we’d coordinated with buyers to pick up the morning of our actual move-out date).
The big move
The plan was that on November 22, we’d pack up everything we were bringing to Amsterdam and everything we wanted to leave into storage in Pennsylvania, then we’d drive up to my family’s place. We were selling our cars to a few of my cousins who had just gotten their licenses, so we’d pass them off with the appropriate documentation when we got up to Pennsylvania. We’d celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. Then the next day, we’d rent a car to drive from Pennsylvania to New York, drop the car off at the rental lot at the JFK Airport, then fly to Amsterdam.
We chose JFK specifically because a) it wasn’t too far of a drive from my family in Pennsylvania, b) it offered direct flights to Amsterdam that are only about six hours long, and c) it was one of the few airports that had a dedicated pet relief and recreation area where our dog would be able to get some energy out ahead of our flight.
Oh, right. Between the time we’d initially visited Amsterdam and the time we were departing for our move to the Netherlands, our dog Stella had successfully graduated from her sleep-away training camp and earned her Service Animal certification (accompanied by a letter from my therapist around how she helps me with my panic attacks). So she would be joining us for our rental car trip and in the cabin on our flight to Amsterdam, Service Animal vest and all.
May I just note that the detailed timeline and the amount of paperwork I prepared ahead of this trip was absolutely absurd? I had folders with signed documents from Stella’s veterinarian and trainer, from my and my partners’ doctors for the medications we were traveling with, and from my partners’ new company with our visa details—along with our passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, medical histories, tax records, lease agreement, and so many more it’s not even worth listing. The pre-travel work was intense, but I was confident that we were prepared.
Anxious? Sure. But confident.
We set our alarms for 6 a.m. on Friday, November 25 and embarked on the following schedule that I’d painstakingly planned for us:
7:30 a.m. My parents drove us to pick up the rental car. We hugged, cried, packed up the rental, and hit the road.
12:30 p.m. We pulled up to the rental lot at JFK, returned the car, then hopped into the airport transfer shuttle I had reserved with Stella and all of our luggage.
1 p.m. We arrived at the airport with four checked bags, four carry-on bags, two personal items, and a dog in tow. We headed to the KLM desk to check in and check our bags.
1:30 p.m. We headed toward JFK’s Wooftop aka outdoor dog park on the rooftop in Terminal 5 across from Gate 28.
1:45 p.m. At the vet’s recommendation, we fed Stella her “dinner” four hours before our flight so she’d have time to digest and do her business before we departed. We hung out with her for a few hours, running and tossing tennis balls with her to tire her out a bit. We made sure not to feed her anymore after this in hopes of avoiding any accidents on the plane.
4 p.m. We took the AirTrain to Terminal 4, where we’d actually depart from, and found our gate. Once there, we gave Stella the medication her vet had prescribed her for the flight (to keep her calm and help her sleep) and introduced her to the flight staff.
5 p.m. We walked Stella to the pet relief area in the B concourse between gates B31 and B33 for one last chance to pee before we boarded.
5:20 p.m. We boarded the plane, put our carry-ons in the overhead compartment, and set Stella up at our feet in the bulkhead seats before gathering our in-flight necessities. She greeted passengers as they boarded and gratefully accepted pets and compliments as they were offered.
5:50 p.m. We took off as Stella fell asleep—and thankfully, she stayed asleep for the majority of the flight.
6:50 a.m. Fast forward through the six hours in-flight (and ahead six more hours to Central European Time) and we landed safely in Amsterdam, then headed toward baggage claim to collect our comical volume of luggage with a groggy pup by our side.
7 a.m. We made our way through Customs, who barely scanned the (many, many) documents we handed them before waving us through.
7:15 a.m. We found the driver for the taxi I’d reserved to take us from the airport to our new apartment, where our Boom Chicago friend would meet us with a set of keys.
7:45 a.m. We got the keys, schlepped our luggage and our dog up four flights of stairs, and crashed on the couch that our pal had left for us for a well-earned nap.
Later that day, the first of two IKEA orders I’d placed from back in the States arrived with the essentials we’d need in our first few days, and we unpacked that along with our bags as we familiarized ourselves with our new space.
We took Stella for a walk around the block, taking in the Dutch architecture and the many, many restaurants and shops within easy walking distance of our apartment. We stopped at the cafe closest to our place and took a seat under the heaters on the patio, ordering a beer and raising a glass to a successful moving day.
Settling in
In the weeks that followed, we had a lot on our to-do list. Thankfully, my partner’s company was able to help us with some key things—they set up our appointments for our residence permits, to open our Dutch bank accounts, and to sign up for our health insurance coverage. But we were on our own for everything else, which included:
Setting up our utilities like water, gas/electricity, and WiFi
Furnishing our new home—our Boom Chicago friend generously left us a few things (couch, desk, bookshelves, trash can, dressers) but we needed to fill out the rest to make our apartment functional and comfortable
Coordinating our Dutch phone plan and keeping a pared down version of our US phone plans (so we could keep our American phone numbers—maybe not necessary, but certainly made the transition a bit easier)
Establishing care with a general practitioner at our local doctors’ office and ensuring that there would be no lapse in our daily medications
Bringing Stella to the neighborhood vet to double check her vaccinations, sign up for a healthy pet plan, and get her EU pet passport (yes, she needs a passport, too)
Ordering our OV chipkaarts so we could travel on the buses, trams, and metros around Amsterdam
Learning our way around Amsterdam using those modes of transportation and our own two feet—and eventually, our bikes
Finding our neighborhood necessities like the nearest grocery store, pharmacy, pet shop, dry cleaner, bank, etc.
And of course, in between these tasks we had the unique challenges of adjusting to a new climate and time zone, learning a new language (thankfully, the Dutch are some of the best English speakers in Europe, but still), and meeting new people so we could start finding a sense of community in this new city.
One year later
It’s been almost exactly a year since we arrived in Amsterdam as wide-eyed, innocent, inexperienced expats—and man, has a lot happened in the past 12 months.
Our first month in the Netherlands was basically nothing but getting settled in our new country. We learned lessons along the way, like that we always need to scan our receipt in order to exit the grocery store or that there are certain doors on the tram that you’re definitely not supposed to enter through.
The second month after we arrived, my US-based company did a round of lay-offs that left all independent contractors (like me) out of a job. Two weeks later, COVID finally found me (though my partner somehow managed to avoid catching it).
So you could say that our first few months here were… a little rough.
But things turned around after that. My partner got the hang of his new role. I found a marketing job with a cool craft beer startup backed by a huge international brand. My partner and I started making friends and exploring the city with them. Friends and family from back home came to visit us every few months, giving us a reason to check off some of the tourist-y things still left on our Amsterdam bucket list. We traveled to Germany, Rome, and Spain, with plenty more partially-planned trips on the horizon.
Perhaps most excitingly for me (and the reason you’re reading this post right now) I submitted a book proposal to publishers and ended up accepting an offer from Lonely Planet. It’s been my lifelong dream to publish a book about travel through the lens of my experience as a queer journalist, and I could not be more excited to be working with them on this project.
All in all, I suppose we have Seth Meyers to thank for all of this.
Without his recommendations on that episode of The Getaway, we never would have gone to Boom Chicago in the first place. Founder Andrew would never have encouraged us to think about moving to Amsterdam. Our Boom Chicago friend would never have reached out to us about taking over his apartment. And I wouldn’t be typing this story from said apartment right now, just hours before we head to Boom Chicago yet again for what promises to be another stellar improv comedy show.
So thanks, Seth. FEBO on us the next time you’re in Amsterdam.
P.S. If you haven’t read Boom Chicago Presents the 30 Most Important Years in Dutch History yet, what are you even doing? Order it here if you’re in the US or here if you’re in the Netherlands.