Customer Reviews

Getting Out: Your Guide to Leaving America (Process Self-reliance Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The strength of this book is that it favors breadth rather than depth.

If you are thinking about leaving the US but don't really know where you'd like to go, or if you have a destination in mind but don't really know what you don't know about emigration, this book is for you. Getting Out covers the top 50 destinations for US expats, with information about the quality of health care, cost and standard of living, and social permissiveness. Also included are brief accounts of the experiences of expats living around the world. There is also good general information about the different pathways available to the potential expat.

Reading it will definately leave you with more questions than answers, since any comprehensive emigration/immigration guide to all the countries in the world would fill a small library. Getting Out will give you the basics and point you in the right direction to find more in-depth information. You won't find anything here that will help you decide to settle in one country over another, but it will help you either narrow your list or give you reason to consider some place you otherwise would not have.

This is a great book that is a good foundation in researching the how-to's in leaving the country. In a category where there are very few books to choose from, this book is timely and reasonable well written. If you are interested in leaving the United States and not completely sure of where to go, this is a good resource along with the CIA factbook & other well known websites.

Pros:
1) Great list of helpful websites in the back for each country.
2) Excellent group of countries considered around the globe.
3) Decent foundational info about each country considered (50 countries).
4) Very readable style.
5) Good cross section of short blurbs about various peoples rationales in leaving.
6) Fair price for the book.

Cons:
1) No specific info as to why certain countries were included and other excluded.
2) Many countries mentioned in passing (in a positive light) in various parts of text are not considered as possibilities (i.e.: not profiled).
3) No easy way to see how countries stack up against each other at a glance based on various factors.
4) Poor editing... Many typos.
5) Could have had much more specific info about each country for various factors to consider (e.g. Pet specifics for each, education system, etc...)
6) Would have been nice to have at least one person for each country cited. Although difficult to pull off, this would have been better than people telling their stories for a subset of the countries profiled.

In short, this book has very little dead weight material and is a must have if this topic is relevant to you.

This book is a fun read with lots of very useful information; it's just as good for Americans looking to get out as it would be for non-Americans looking for someplace to go, as it profiles many countries and also has a wealth of suggestions for moving and income that are not country-specific.

On the downside, as an American living in Japan, I can say that its section on Japan is woefully incomplete. Jobs here are said to pay "the mighty yen", but my friends and I always grimace when it's time to send money home. It doesn't even mention the astounding bureaucracy or the racism that often goes hand in hand with it. And it only mentions Tokyo, despite that there are foreigners living in beautiful, cheap, and friendly cities and villages all over the country.

This is a fun read but should not be your last source of information!

This is a very fine book for anyone thinking about trying to live in another country. From Canada to France to Egypt to China, most of the world is covered. The book is full of little essays by people who have moved away and lived to tell about it ( a little humor there). The book gives suggestions on steps to take to get started, things to think about before making the move, How to stay (legally and not so legally) and the pluses and minuses of many countries around the world. It's an easy, interesting and quick read. A very good guide book and very informative!

I'm surprised this book has been rated so highly. It's quite decent, but five out of five stars? Not in my opinion. Giving it three was a bit charitable, but 2.5 wasn't an option.

The author has some nice little diatribes, not even really thinly disguised, against the current administration. I firmly agree with them, but that's not really why I read this book. Those considering moving abroad for such reasons will definitely enjoy the subtle rants, though. There are some good little mini-bios from current expats, including a lengthy one from a young Los Angeles woman in Chengdu, right in the heart of the earthquake mess in Sichuan province, China, so I couldn't help but wonder, "Is she still there?" and "I wonder if she made it through okay?"

For me, it didn't include anything whatsoever on the country to which I am moving (Malaysia), apart from a blurb on how strict it is about drug trafficking. There actually wasn't very much substance on ANY country in SE Asia. Witness this fascinating insight into Thailand: "Infrastructure: Needs improvement." Seriously, that's all it says. I also took slight issue with it referring to Bali, Indonesia as a "Pacific paradise." Bali is in the Indian Ocean, not the Pacific. You can expect this sort of information "bullet point" treatment of all nations covered, which is only fifty to begin with.

The book definitely has some value, and is at least enjoyable to read for, if nothing else, the personal anecdotes compiled from expats around the world. There is some very useful information scattered throughout the book, but again, most of it is in abbreviated "bullet point" style. The book is probably most useful for its compilation of various websites, but I had hoped for a meatier compendium with more substance and less fluff. Even though it's a bit over 300 pages, discounting the website references, you can quite literally exhaust every scrap of this book's usefulness in a couple of hours' time. It's long on cute formatting and tables and lists (and in fairness, is presented appealingly), but short on depth and clarity.

I think this is a decent book, but a not great book, and it may well be more useful for others than it was for me. Malaysia is admittedly not the most popular destination for expats. (Yet the book includes countries such as Estonia, Cambodia, and Morocco, so go figure.) This is definitely one to look for at the library before plunking down any real money on it.

This book is pretty interesting. As an American who has lived abroad for over eight years (Germany), I find it interesting. The book has all kinds of information. The only point I would make is, I find the idea of "fleeing" the U.S. a bit much. The U.S. is not exactly collapsing, economically (if it were, the net immigration would be reversed and more people would leave than enter our country).

Regarding Germany, to me, the chapter on that country reflects typical thoughts one has in the first 5 years of living there. It personally took me about 5 years to lose the "Germany is more social than the U.S." thing. After 5 years, at least for me personally, some of the negatives began to come through: I got sick of the overcast, drizzly days. I got tired of people smoking absolutely everywhere (when I returned to Dallas, I marvelled at how clean the air inside the Dallas airport was, compared to Frankfurt). Unless you like cigarette smoke, don't move to Germany. I thought it was interesting that the woman mentioned that German restaurants are not as sugary-friendly as in the U.S. On the other hand, in the bars I used to frequent in Germany, you can go in there for 10 years in a row, and the bartender will pretend he hardly knows you. In the U.S., on the third visit, you have a new friend. It is much easier to meet people in the U.S. than in Germany. I also got sick of paying 47 % tax (I pay 27 % in the U.S.), and paying things like: radio tax, East German solidarity tax, church tax, etc. German store hours are horrible (they used to close at 4 PM on Saturday and stay shut all weekend). I remember being sick and attempting to find the one lone open pharmacy in Heidelberg. It took me about an hour to find the one that was open. Get the picture ? Yes, Germany does have its nice side: landscape, nice biking paths, great infrastructure, great architecture. You can walk or take the tram almost anywhere. Older people bike (unlike in the U.S.).

I kind of question some of the crime stats in the book. They list the U.S. as the nation with the 5th highest violent crime (assault) rate. I highly doubt that. We are above Columbia, Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela ? I highly doubt it. Not sure where those stats come from. I personally saw more interpersonal violence in Europe in 8 years, than I have in 25 years in the U.S. The book has a table with terrorism rates, and they list Nepal higher than Pakistan or the West Bank. I personally have not read a lot about those Nepalese terrorists who supposedly are running around.

I still think the book is very interesting and useful, and despite these minor criticisms, will be a very good resource to anyone wanting to travel and live abroad.

This was an incredibly fun book to read. I agree with other reviewers - this book covers a lot without going too deep in any one thing. But it does contain several references to outside sources which have more information.

It is as much a motivational book as a how-to.

Also, I found some of the most useful information in here to be the many letters from people who had already made the jump and were living abroad.

I spent a couple of weeks just skipping through different parts of this book, and I don't regret it. It's like cruising through a buffet of food that you really like. Then I sat down and read it cover to cover. I learned a lot, I appreciated the many web resources that it presented, and I am much more prepared for my future move. A good tool for those of us that love our country, deplore our government, and need the best chance at survival for us and our families.

My boyfriend and I have been talking about moving out of the states, if just for a few years. I found this book to be very user friendly - it doesn't drag on with just the boring facts & it has a lot of real life examples from people who have moved out. It gives a ton of useful websites, and some information about each of the 50 countries that are most popular with expats. It was very enjoyable to read this book cover to cover.

This is an enjoyable read, filled with useful information, which will definitely get you thinking of the possibilities of moving outside the U.S.A. But be careful - a book such as this requires a nearly annual re-editing to remain current. Conditions change quickly, and some of the cost-of-living information for several countries may already be dated.

Take New Zealand, for example. From friends who recently emigrated there, I've learned that living costs have risen significantly since the first edition of this book came out. Also, it is not as easy to move there from America as the book seems to suggest, with a significant amount of pre-qualifying and red tape involved. If you aren't in an occupation currently in heavy demand, the NZ government may not want you moving there at all. My friends ARE enjoying their new life, however, and say that it was worth all the hassle.