I'm an American who moved to the Netherlands. If I had to move abroad again, I’d do these 5 things differently.

My great-grandparents emigrated from the Netherlands to the US, and my Dutch heritage was always in the background of my childhood.

I played dress up with wooden shoes and my crayon drawings were full of tulips.

So after my husband and I visited in 2024, we decided to move to the Netherlands on the Dutch-American Friendship Treaty (DAFT) visa.

Six months after moving, here are the things I’d do differently if I could turn back the clock.

Although my husband and I had visited the Netherlands several times, we didn’t know exactly where we wanted to live.

So, we hired a real estate agent who works with internationals to be our boots-on-the-ground contact while we looked remotely from the States.

When she would send us a potential listing, we’d run to Google Maps to try to get a sense of the neighborhood.

However, there’s only so much you can gauge from outdated Street View photos.

If we liked the listing, we had to wake up at 3 a.m. for the video walkthrough and give an immediate (albeit groggy) “Yes” or “No.” After a month of looking, we were charmed by a traditional Dutch row house in one of the cities we’d never been to, Utrecht.

We crossed our fingers that we’d like the place and put in our application.

After living as digital nomads for two years, this leap of faith didn’t seem that wild for my husband and me.

However, I wish we had planned a scouting trip to check out each potential town, taking time to visit specific neighborhoods to get a sense of everything from the level of bike traffic to how close the nearest grocery store is.

Our Dutch apartment came partially furnished, including a bed.

So, we figured we could arrive from the airport, wash the sheets, then sleep in our new home on our first night.

Instead, we walked into our new apartment and discovered it was freezing cold.

The heat wasn’t working, and when it couldn’t be fixed that day, we had to scramble to find a hotel.

In hindsight, I’d prebook a hotel for our first night.

After months of planning, packing, and gathering visa documentation, I was exhausted.

It would’ve been so nice to drop everything off, do a little cleaning, and then retire to a hotel where I could sleep undisturbed for 12 hours.

One of the items on our pre-move to-do list was getting an international driving permit (IDP).

Essentially, this permit is a small booklet with your driving credentials translated into 10 different languages.

My husband typically drives when we’re abroad, so we decided he should get one.

What we expected to take days only took about 15 minutes.

He went to our local AAA store in Colorado, filled out a form, provided a passport photo and his driver’s license, and walked out with the permit in his hand for $20.

Lo and behold, when we rented a car in Italy shortly after moving, they required an IDP.

In hindsight, with the process being so quick, I should have gotten an IDP as well, as now I’ll have to pay for international shipping fees.

Before moving, I was an active lurker in every forum and Facebook group about moving to the Netherlands.

Many people recommended bringing three months’ worth of medications to allow time to find a local doctor who could take over my prescriptions.

I tend to live by the “better safe than sorry” mantra, so I brought six months’ worth.

It turned out that even this was barely enough.

In the Netherlands, we couldn’t apply for health insurance until our residence permit was approved, which can take a couple of months on its own.

When I finally secured health insurance and found a general practitioner, they needed to refer me to a specialist for my prescription.

The wait time for the specialist was two months, so I ended up having just enough medication to get by.

No matter how much research you do ahead of time, there are some things you just can’t learn until you’re living in a new country.

For example, in the Netherlands, we have to pay a yearly fee that covers our trash service and wastewater treatment.

We didn’t know how much this would be, and on a random Tuesday, we received a €509 bill that we had to pay.

Then there are costs related to the home we had never seen in person.

Our 100-year-old apartment retains moisture, giving certain rooms what I can only describe as a “moist smell.” To combat this, we purchased a pricey dehumidifier.

If I had one piece of advice for moving to the Netherlands — or moving abroad in general — it’d be to build in some time, money, and grace for when things don’t go your way.

It’s all part of the wonderful yet stressful process of moving to a new country, and I feel very fortunate to get to experience it all.