After almost a decade in the Netherlands, my wife and I are moving back to Italy. We didn’t come here blindly; we knew the downsides, but we wanted growth, change, and a bigger world. And to be fair, the Netherlands gave us just that. We made friends from places we would have never crossed paths with at home - Portugal, Chile, South Africa, the US, Australia and many more. We discovered a passion we didn’t even have before: long-distance cycling. We built careers we never expected. Our world became wider, and we’ll always be grateful for it.

But over time, the same country that helped us grow stopped feeling like the place where the next chapter of our life should happen. We realized we recharge in wild nature: mountains, steep trails, forests, winding roads. The Netherlands has its own beauty, but it’s flat, curated, predictable, and crowded. We spent most of the year missing the kind of nature that feels alive. Even after holidays in the mountains, we’d feel our energy drop again within days of returning. The long winters didn’t help; the darkness grew heavier every year and slowly chipped away at our mood.

There’s also something harder to explain: we simply don’t feel well here. We used to do tons of sports and outdoor activities, but in the Netherlands we’ve slowly felt more and more fatigued. Low energy, often feeling “off” or unwell without ever being sick. It’s like a constant low battery feeling, even though we’re healthy, eat well, and try to stay active. The climate, light, and environment just seem to drain us physically as well as mentally. Not dramatically, just steadily.

Daily life turned into a long series of small compromises: expensive housing that never felt like home, food that rarely inspired us, services that cost a lot without much attention or care, and a culture that leans more toward efficiency and restraint than warmth or spontaneity. On top of that, the cost of living is incredibly high. A car, insurance, groceries, a simple dinner out, hiring a plumber or mechanic... everything is expensive and heavily taxed. Even with good salaries, it felt like our money went into surviving, not living. Paying high prices isn’t the issue itself; it’s paying so much for so little joy in return.

Healthcare ended up being the deal-breaker. Getting help felt slow and discouraging. My wife’s fractures were missed due to poor exams, the cast was done badly, and now she has lasting problems. Prevention isn’t common, screenings are rare, and referrals are often denied. We felt like the system’s instinct was to do as little as possible unless things were already severe. Over time, that made us feel unprotected, even though we were paying for care every month.

And despite making an effort to meet people, join groups, and socialize, it never turned into a life with real closeness. We did make friends, but those relationships rarely became part of day-to-day life. Meanwhile, our families in Italy have been living life together... meals, birthdays, hikes, simple shared moments we’ve only watched from afar. It started to feel like we were guests in our own family’s story, always watching it happen without being in it. And the pace of life here, while comfortable for many, often felt dull and too predictable for us.

So we’ve decided to go back. Not because we think Italy is perfect, far from it. Bureaucracy, politics, inefficiencies… they’re real. But Italy offers what we need now: family, warmth, proximity, and a landscape we connect with emotionally and physically. Remote work makes it possible, tax incentives help, and living one hour from the mountains instead of once a year matters more than we realized.

We’re not leaving because the Netherlands is failing. It’s a good country. It’s just no longer the right country for who we’ve become. We’re leaving because we’ve grown into people who need a different kind of life, and finally feel ready to choose it.

Has your host country ever stopped fitting who you are, even if nothing was "wrong" with it?