My first year in Austria as an expat: is it all worth it?
What is a better way to start my new blog than a deep dive into my first year as an expat in Innsbruck. I moved here with my partner almost one year ago, 11 January to be exact - and now it is the perfect time to look back. How realistic were my expectations? Do I love living here, despite missing my friends and family? And is it all worth it?
Me in the summer in the mountains (Serles)
Who am I?
I am a Dutch woman in her early thirties. Although I enjoyed travelling, I never thought about moving to another country. Until I set foot in Austria in 2017 for the first time. I realised that even though the Netherlands is a great country to live in, it is lacking in one thing: the Alps. Big, wild, extreme, beautiful, exciting nature. Because the Netherlands will probably never grow any mountains, I had to be the one to grow and move on. Sorry it is me, not you.
It took me eight years to convince my boyfriend to move with me. Even though he was the one who introduced me to Austria, has been on ski trips since his first birthday and loves the mountains too, moving was… an adventure too great for him. I say this all with humor and love, because I never want to pressure him into doing something, especially when it’s such a big deal.
From 2019 we stayed in Innsbruck (Austria) from January to April every year. Then all summer long in the Netherlands I dreamt of Innsbruck. It was like the mountains were singing to me, calling me to come back. I felt like I was living the wrong life. I lost my feeling of home in the Netherlands and wanted to find a new on. Finally in 2024 I told my boyfriend I really really really really wanted to move, ‘just try it out for a year’. On 11th January 2025 we left our apartment in the Netherlands with a couple of bags, lots of snacks and a heart full of dreams.
How did it go?
With high and lows. Let’s start with the positives.
In Tyrol there is something beautiful to see everyday. The seasons are so colourful and vivid here. We made the most beautiful hikes, we spent days and days on trails, seeing wild animals, enjoying the pain in our legs the next day. Going on a beautiful hike has never been easier: I just put on my hiking shoes and walk out the door. I also think it is amazing to see how strong and healthy our bodies got. How our wardrobes changed from city to sporty. And how our knowledge expanded: learning to predict weather, recognising different types of snow and responding to warning signs of mother nature. This was the life I imagined I would live, daydreaming in my apartment in the Netherlands.
The bad moments? There were plenty. Here I will write down my top 3 most difficult situations.
Work: not so easy
For both of us it was very difficult to get a job. I work in marketing and my partner works in IT. Why was it difficult? A combination of high expectations, bad luck, language barriers, economically unstable times, new laws and high competition. Some things were our fault, some things we could not have known. To give you a few examples of what went wrong:
In the beginning of this year I did not have the language skills to do a job interview succesfully in German. It was also difficult when the other person had a heavy accent.
There are very few marketing companies here, so the competition is very high.
The salaries are lower than what I was used to in the Netherlands.
The few international companies in Innsbruck receive hundreds of applications for one job, which makes it very difficult to get through.
Applying for a job can be a very long process. It can take months, and you may have to present yourself three or four times during interviews and assessments. In the Netherlands it takes two or three weeks max.
There are not many companies here, unlike in the Netherlands, where companies are on every corner.
Overall I totally underestimated how difficult it would be to get a job. It was very stressful, receiving rejection day after day and seeing my savings get lower every month. After nine months of searching I found a job that I am very happy with. I expect that finding my next job will be easier, since my German has improved a lot and I now have more experience overall. The best thing about applying for a job in Innsbruck is that I was never ghosted by a recruiter and the companies are very polite and nice.
Administration: OMG
You never know your own culture until you move to a different country... Learning how to register in Innsbruck, how to get a digital identity (Austria-ID), how to get a photo on my E-card, how it works with social security… it took me weeks to find out how to do all these simple things. I relied on ChatGpt so much during this time, because finding this information as a human was unbelievably difficult. In the end it all worked out, but dealing with the amount of papers and forms, going from counter to counter (open from 9 to 12)… it made me rethink my decision to emigrate a couple of times.
In hindsight, I think moving to a new country always means dealing with administration. It is probably just as bad in The Netherlands, I just never experienced it that way.
Not knowing where home is
In our first year in Austria we drove forth and back 7 times. A few of these times we had to do this because of family emergencies. Even though I am thankful I could be there and could offer help, it was very stressful, expensive and extremely impractical. I call this first year in Austria our ‘cheat year’, because sometimes it feels like we were more in The Netherlands than in Austria. This has been confusing for my head and my heart. They sometimes fight over where home is. We rent a nice apartment in Innsbruck, but it doesn’t feel like our house. And our apartment in the Netherlands is filled with someone else's stuff. Where do I go at the end of the day? I know on which door my key fits, but is home a place or is home family?
And, was it all worth it?
I can cry over the lost savings, the depressive days I have experienced or the hours I have wasted at the wrong counters. Or I can relive the moments of extreme happiness I felt standing on top of mountains, looking at incredible views. These moments are much more present in my mind. I have had so many beautiful experiences here that I would never be able to experience in The Netherlands. My life is now so full. Adventure is always waiting, in the next hike I am planning, in the accents I don’t understand (yet), in the wild animals making contact with me. I am slowly discovering what it means to live here. That takes time. Just like the Alps were not built in one day.